[heyhoser]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DriveElectric', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('foodnotlawns', '
')I don't let my daughter buy cheap Chinese junk, unless it's second hand.

[Grimnir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RiverRat', 'I')f people stopped spending it would bring down the US economy.

There would be less and less demand for products and services. There would be more and more pressure for companies to reduce costs. This would force companies to reduce their labor force which is a substantial portion of their cost structure.

With more and more unemployed people chasing less and less jobs, this will inevitably drive down real wages (supply/demand).

[RiverRat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Grimnir', ' ') Why couldn't we do the third? Eliminate the useless jobs and have everybody work only 20-40 hours a week at the things that really need to be done. Wouldn't we all be better off?

[arretium]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('advancedatheist', 'D')uh. Economists are always telling us that people respond to incentives and try to anticipate the near future. Americans have just gotten a powerful signal from the new anti-bankruptcy law that they can't count on court-enforced leniency from their creditors if they have to declare bankruptcy. Given that we have a six-month grace period before we return to something like debtors' prisons, what did the credit card companies expect people would do?

[advancedatheist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Grimnir', 'E')liminate the useless jobs and have everybody work only 20-40 hours a week at the things that really need to be done. Wouldn't we all be better off?

[Wildwell]

In order to kick-start the green revolution, and at least attempt to solve PO it seems apparent that if people made the right lifestyle choices and thought about the companies they did business with a remarkable shift could take place right now.

For example it is possible in most places to shift to a green tariff for electricity, buy a more efficient car, and so on and so forth. Once companies get the message and everyone catches on, the situation is altogether more optimistic.

http://www.greenelectricity.org/

[FoxV]

sounds all fine and well and I'll certainly do what I can, but...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Wildwell', 'O')nce companies get the message and everyone catches on, the situation is altogether more optimistic.

[skyemoor]

Yep, we have a Honda Insight, and Toyota Prius, live in a passive solar house powered by PV panels. I vanpool to work, and we ride bikes frequently to errands, even farmer's markets. We raise sheep on 10 acres and have an expanding garden and several fruit trees. We are planning on more fruit trees and many nut trees as well.

These choices allow us to minimize our direct petroleum purchases (fill up the car and the propane tank much less often) and indirect purchases (less food imported from distant places).

[Macsporan]

Althouhgh the modest proposals put forth here are unobjectionable I think it is idle to imagine that in some way life can continue as normal when TSHTF.

As we are facing a collective disaster we won't get out of it without a collective remedy: and like it or not, that means the government will have to step in and take powers at present monoplised by the private sector.

There will have to be fuel and food rationing at least initially. Agriculture and transport will have to have priorty over going to work in your car alone.

There will have to be a crash program of installation of alternate electricity generation and electric railways, both intracity light and intercity double track.

To judge from revelations contained in "Breakdown Scenario" there will have to be a lot of emergency infrastructure repair also as the corporate sector, in their unquenchable thirst for profits and stock options, has to my mind been criminally negligent in this regard. So much stuff is nearly worn out or obsolete underneath the glittering surface of the 21st century economy.

These projects couild well be done by contracted private companies under the direction and authority of the State, but the State will have to organise and co-ordinate it, in part to make sure they do a proper job. Penalties for sub-standard work and cutting corners will have to be rigourous.

Where's the money going to come from? Easy, cut the military budget by two-thirds and you've got all the money and resources you want. You could even start paying off debts.

The military is a stinking albatross around the neck of the Republic, it gives poor value for money in that it isn't all that much use as a means of projecting American power (look at Iraq, ten thousand guerillas have the mighty US Wehrmacht completely tied up in knots) and is strangling the civilian sector.

For instance the 300,000 US servicemen stationed in bases overseas, some of them trained engineers, could be the core of the constrution corps to reconfigure society for the PPO.

Cut the military down to size and PO won't be so bad.

[skyemoor]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Macsporan', 'A')lthouhgh the modest proposals put forth here are unobjectionable I think it is idle to imagine that in some way life can continue as normal when TSHTF.

As we are facing a collective disaster we won't get out of it without a collective remedy: and like it or not, that means the government will have to step in and take powers at present monoplised by the private sector.

[duke3522]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. consumer prices rose last month by the most in 25 years as energy costs posted the biggest jump on record after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Excluding energy and food, prices rose less than forecast.

Prices paid by consumers increased 1.2 percent in September, after a 0.5 percent rise a month earlier, the Labor Department said in Washington. Excluding energy and food, core prices increased 0.1 percent, less than the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey for a 0.2 percent rise and matching the increase in August.

[MrBill]

Given that CPI is a lagging indicator and this winter's higher heating costs have not hit the headline number, we can expect CPI to climb from 4.7% year on year to much higher.

Given that Fed funds are currently just 3.75% I do not see any immediate end to raising rates. I think neutral will climb from 4.0-4.5% to maybe 5-6%, unless you are right a we see some real demand destruction taking place which lowers energy costs? But not before Springtime in any case.

However, anyway it goes down the consumer who already has a negative savings rate is going to be mercilessly squeezed between higher fuel costs for driving and heating as well as higher interest rates and debt servicing costs. A Merry Christmas indeed.

[CARVER]

And on this bombshell the stock markets go.....up again

[JoeW]

Here's what bothers me: Social Security recipients in the US get a cost-of-living increase because of inflation, but working people don't.
How about capping the COLA for social security at the level of increase in the average wage so that when inflation outpaces wage growth the workers aren't screwed into giving the retirees a fat raise for sitting on their rumps?

[FoxV]

lets not also forget that the US govt needs more money to pay for NO (and pretty much everything else), and it won't get it if its TBills don't cover inflation.

so even if a recession lowers energy prices (and govt revenue) and inflation goes down, interest rates will still go up so the govt can pay for its "Homes for Hurricanes", "Bridges for trees", and "war for peace" projects

[meekoil]

[wxman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CARVER', 'A')nd on this bombshell the stock markets go.....up again

[Sys1]

reuters

[jaws]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CARVER', 'A')nd on this bombshell the stock markets go.....up again

[MrBean]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaws', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('CARVER', 'A')nd on this bombshell the stock markets go.....up again