COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Observanda: Goodbye Dollar! The Amero Is On It's Way!


Over at Observanda, Tiger has picked up on

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
Analysts: Dollar collapse would result in 'amero'
Think deep recession likely regardless of Fed's actions

This reminded me of my younger, more gullible days. I was certain that the US economy was in danger of imminent collapse under a mountain of debt. We were warned that the "coming economic collapse" would result in the end of society as we knew it. Gold, silver and barter would be the currency. We were encouraged to stock survival rations, and even prepare defensible positions with other like-minded individuals. Remember those days?

The financial gurus are issuing doom and gloom warnings of the gathering economic storm. They're worried about being near the end of a four year bull market, record personal debt levels, a bursting housing bubble, 8,000 unregulated hedge funds and a slowdown in durable goods orders in America. As if all that weren't bad enough, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph UK worries that anything more than a short, slight US recession coupled with the weak dollar will be the final nail in the coffin of aging, frail European economies. The writer at World Net Daily worries about the collapse of the dollar setting the stage for a new currency, the "Amero."

I used to be overly concerned with such things until I learned that the U.S. economy can weather a hell of a storm. I also learned that no matter what life throws at you, you just "keep on truckin."

38 comments:

  1. And if your wife eats tofu your bouncing baby boy will grow up to be a "Girly Boy," right?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ruf:
    LOL.

    I heard a lot of crap but I never heard that one.

    I also heard a lot of crap about the benefits of algae. Like magnets, I was told that there "ain't nothing wrong with a man that a little algae won't take care of."

    Now some poster here's at the EB are even touting the alt energy benefits of the pond scum....

    ReplyDelete
  3. We're going to have, as a result of too-high FF Rate, a minor recession in 07'. However, the basic U.S. economy is stronger'n battery acid.

    08' will be a hell of a year.

    As for Europe, Fuck'em.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Australian and New Zealand markets also rallied to new records Thursday.

    In other overseas markets, Japan's Nikkei stock average closed up 0.82 percent. Britain's FTSE 100 closed up 0.57 percent, Germany's DAX index closed up 0.49 percent, and France's CAC-40 closed up 0.62 percent.


    Everybody's Up

    ReplyDelete
  5. We have the entire U.S. economic team in China, at this moment, begging, begging the Chinese to let the Yuan strengthen against the dollar.

    The chances of a dollar collapse are just about .0000000000000000000001%

    ReplyDelete
  6. You have Massive Currency collapses in situations like you've got now in Venezuela, where a currency that's not allowed to "float" is held up too High for too long.

    Our currency that is allowed to float with the market will decline over a period of time, possibly, but will not "break."

    The Chinese just came out yesterday, and admitted doing what I said they were doing two weeks, ago; that is, they're buying more Euros, which is pushing the Euro up against their currency and the Dollar. This works out good for us and them.

    ReplyDelete
  7. via: EURSOC.com

    Euro Looks Shaky

    The Euro might be running high against the US Dollar, but support for the single currency in France is headed for an all-time low. Today's Telegraph reports on a crisis of confidence in the Euro among the elite of one of the single currency region's most influential nations.

    The high Euro is hurting French exports, claim senior figures in France's government. Trade minister Christine Lagarde blames the European Central Bank's tight grip on interest rates for France's huge 2.7 bn Euro trade deficit for November. PM Dominique de Villepin warned that power must be wrested back from the ECB: "We must clarify matters in exchange rate policy, which means taking back our sovereignty."

    ReplyDelete
  8. 07:34:40 PM EST Tofu,
    More than a few health problems have been caused for both mother and child, however, by extreme diets of one kind or another.
    Docs were recently surprised to find skinny ladies having higher than average rates of breast cancer than others.
    I wasn't, having seen too many extreme health nuts suffer more than their share of maladies.
    There were a lot of babies with no/or rotten teeth back in the Hippy Heydaze, when their earth mothers let them suck on super healthy fruit juices all day.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Mat, the Frogs are going to run into more, and more problems as time goes on; but the Euro won't be what's causing them.

    The French just have, basicly, one problem; They're Fucking "French!"

    ReplyDelete
  10. Related economic issue from previous thread.

    allen said...
    As for the United States, look at our history. We will prevail.

    Why do millions of people from around the globe choose to be here? It might have something to do with America the myth.

    Why are a dozen guys, within 200 yards of my home, busily erecting a house in record time, speaking nothing but Spanish/Mexican? What do they know that many Americans have foregotten?

    Does anyone really believe these guys want to return to Mexico? This is the power of America!
    ---
    bobalharb said...
    12:59:29---The contractor should be in jail for violating the labor laws, and the IRS laws, and the workforce should be in Mexico erecting housing in record time. They need it there. Americans here should be doing the job.

    Thu Dec 14, 06:05:14 PM EST

    ---
    Doug Sez,

    bobal,
    I agree:
    Both 'Rat and I once made good incomes in the trades, as did 100s of thousands of others.

    Less and less can now, and in Los Angeles, third wave illegals displace 1st and 2nd, driving wages down to sub-subsistence levels for the millionaire mansioneers to take advantage of.

    Legal Mexicans and Blacks have long since been displaced

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rufus,

    The US dollar lost a lot of ground even against the Israeli Shekel (which is a notoriously weak currency). This in itself is neither here nor there. The problem I see, is that US exports have not been able to break into new markets. I look at the Israeli market, and 90% of all new cars are Korean or Japanese made. Refrigerators and air-conditioner units are either Israeli or German made. New Stereos are either British or Japanese made. Clothing is from the far East. I rarely see anything sold that is made in the US. And Israelis have a VERY favorable disposition towards buying American made products.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Mətušélaḥ said, "And Israelis have a VERY favorable disposition towards buying American made products."

    Well they buy American but they are still notorious scrooges who didn't buy our bunker busters in time for the 2006 Lebanon War when they needed them...using part of the billions of dollars we ourselves give them every year in aid, I might add.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Is that microsoft software on that PC?

    ReplyDelete
  14. We do make the wrong kinds of vehicles for your market, though.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The Corn, and soybeans on your plate are, almost assuredly, American, as are, I'd imagine a lot of the movies you're watching on your television.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Mat, we don't export many household appliances; we export F-16's, and Dreamliners. PAC-3 anti-missile systems. Software. Entertainment. GPS. Medical Device Technology. etc.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Besides, you know you Jews don't buy anything if it's not wholesale.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. BTW, there was a confluence of events;

    Netanyahou (sp?) did a good job straightening out your economy, and our currency came down from an "insane" level attained during the Bubble Years.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Rufus,

    Intel, IBM, Micro$oft, GE, these are all Israeli companies. You know that. :D

    ReplyDelete
  20. Mat, the IMF did a study on this. They found that when a country lowered it's trade barriers, and it's trading partner didn't, the country that let the other country's good in tariff-free got Three Times the Advantage as the country that did the exporting.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Yeah, but their products were all invented in Russia.

    ReplyDelete
  22. CW,

    Heheh, there's talk of canceling the Merkava Tank project because it isn't making the exports list.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Rufus,


    The labour market in Israel is still too unionized. The Histadrut still controls the ports (air and sea), the banks, the teachers union, and various gov unions. They wreck havoc in the country practically every year with their labor strikes.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hell, that's Everywhere, Mat. That's just part of a modern (or, for that matter, not so modern) Economy.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Still, I'd like to see more GM vehicles on Israeli roads. GMC trucks used to have a lock on the Israeli market. I hope they regain it.

    ReplyDelete
  26. The poor old Conservatives just can't figure out that people really don't want a true laissez-faire, free market, free enterprise, Capitalistic Society.

    They like, and feel comfortabe with, a little Socialism/trade unionism. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

    It's, really, the Welfare that kills you. As long as a Country can keep that down to a reasonable level, and keep the government on some sort of leash everything will work out.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I'm afraid it'll be quite a while before you see that, Mat. The U.S. Auto Industry is just totally Fucked.

    They're paying $120,000/yr, or so, in wages and benefits for assembly-line workers. It just ain't gonna make it.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Wow. I guess they're paying through the nose to have those early retirees off the assembly line, so they can phase in the robots.

    ReplyDelete
  29. That, plus the unions still have to have a huge amount of corruption in their retirement/pension/healthcare systems.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Rufus said, "Is that microsoft software on that PC?"

    $ uname -a

    Linux mepis1 2.6.15-1-586tsc #2 PREEMPT Wed Feb 1 17:40:51 EST 2006 i686 GNU/Linux

    ReplyDelete
  31. WC,

    (1) You ain't Mat, and;

    (2) You're going to have to speak English if you're speaking to me (I don't know what language that was, but I no comprende.)

    ReplyDelete
  32. Mətušélaḥ said, "Wow. I guess they're paying through the nose to have those early retirees off the assembly line, so they can phase in the robots."

    Yeah, but my strategy since I was twelve was to be the girl who fixed the robots when they went T.U., and that's something you cannot automate.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Ah, my little non-singularity kapisching, toy-tinkerer, you just wait.

    Robots will be fixin the robot-fixers before YOUR Soc Security kicks in.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Sheesh, you want to read something neat? Remember, this is the Third World!

    ReplyDelete
  35. WC
    Let me get this straight (sic)
    You planned your life around getting the opportunity to have access to robots in the Tits Up Position?
    That is seriously warped!

    ReplyDelete
  36. Microsoft Releases Robot Development Kit

    Microsoft seems to have won over skeptical robot
    developers with the release of its new Robotics Studio
    product. The product's pretty neat, it lets you
    program real robots, or virtual instantiations of them
    that live inside your PC. Even better, it's free to
    download and play with - you'll just pay when you actually
    use it to control an autonomous mechatron of your own
    design. Our story is chock full of details on how
    Microsoft won over the robotics community, what's new
    inside the software, and where to download it yourself,
    for free.

    Build a Robot, On Microsoft

    ReplyDelete
  37. My knowledge of Robots is I used to work like one. Call me--Bob-bot

    ReplyDelete