[cualcrees]

At first I thought TEOTFWAWKI mean "the end of the fucking world as we know it"!
But the other one works well, too...

[ReverseEngineer]

You know, for as long as this charade goes on, I am sure analysts of all types with all sorts of spins will tell you why the system broke. Regulatory failure, ratings agency failure, SEC watchdogs checking out porn on the internet, whatever.

In essence though, what you have ALWAYS been talking about here is a rigged game, ever since the Fed confiscated all the gold in the 30s and set up a fiat monetary system. They had to go off gold of course because it simply could not work as a definition of wealth in the Oil Age. Too many people, too much energy around fro Gold to function as currency.

As financial services became more and more the generator of wealth for individuals, it has also been increasingly obvious that real wealth wasn't being generated inside the US, as debt personal, corporate and governmental increased by leaps and bounds. Can you really make money as a society depending on high stakes gamblers to rake in endless profits? Its plain silly, but so sold were and are Americans that Capitalism is the Magic Pill and the Market will always produce an accurate result that generations of Americans have bought the idea, as we burned through the wealth of the North American Continent.

Its pointless to blame the SEC or the ratings agencies, the entire system was faulty from the ground up. Capitalism is just a means for a few people to sieve up wealth from many below them in a massive Ponzi scheme. It has to crash eventually, it always does, very periodically. The results are always the same as well, War and Death. The main difference with this crash is it appears to be the end of the resources left for exploitation, and the funny money used to facilitate that exploitation is now going up in the Greatest Bonfire of Paper Wealth in all of Recorded History.

The only question which remains now is whether we will be able to clean up after the mess the Pigmen made here. To do so, fundamental concepts which are just WRONG relating to the ownership of property will have to be abandoned, and certainly many people in the US can't even CONCEIVE of such a thing. So there will be battles internal to the US as well as the battles between nations all trying to be the last one left standing at the top of the heap.

Eventually it will work itself out, one way or the other. Either we will work our way through the Zero Point to something better, or we will not and we will go the way of the Dinosaur. The next few years will determine which way it ends up going, and they won't be pleasant ones. it is not however the fault of regulators asleep at the wheel. The fault lies in the fundamental quality of greed, and how it was used by a few people at the top of the food chain to enrich themselves at the expense of the planet and most of the people who live on it. These folks will Burn in Everlasting Damnation in the Fires of Hell.

Reverse Engineer

[TreebeardsUncle]

no big deal
This will blow over.

[Homesteader]

no big deal
This will blow over.

So did Katrina! (Sorry TB, tried to resist. . .)

[JJ]

no big deal This will blow over.

So did Katrina! (Sorry TB, tried to resist. . .)

yep, and the gubmint took care of them, just like their gonna take care of us...

[pup55]

what you have ALWAYS been talking about here is a rigged game,

I still think the problem right now is a lack of accountability. From one end of this situation to another the problem is that people lied. People lied about their ability to pay back a mortgage. Mortgage bundlers lied about the value of their CDO's. Companies lied (and are continuing to lie) about the value of these securities on their balance sheets.

The deterrent effect from people lying is the potential for them to end up in a federal prison at some point, and I do not mean one of the cushy ones. A couple of show trials, and then a 60-minutes interview with one of these guys talking about how he is being prison-raped by some former drug gang member might get the rest of these guys to think twice about this stuff.

[Hawkcreek]

You know, for as long as this charade goes on, I am sure analysts of all types with all sorts of spins will tell you why the system broke. Regulatory failure, ratings agency failure, SEC watchdogs checking out porn on the internet, whatever.

In essence though, what you have ALWAYS been talking about here is a rigged game, ever since the Fed confiscated all the gold in the 30s and set up a fiat monetary system. They had to go off gold of course because it simply could not work as a definition of wealth in the Oil Age. Too many people, too much energy around fro Gold to function as currency.

As financial services became more and more the generator of wealth for individuals, it has also been increasingly obvious that real wealth wasn't being generated inside the US, as debt personal, corporate and governmental increased by leaps and bounds. Can you really make money as a society depending on high stakes gamblers to rake in endless profits? Its plain silly, but so sold were and are Americans that Capitalism is the Magic Pill and the Market will always produce an accurate result that generations of Americans have bought the idea, as we burned through the wealth of the North American Continent.

Its pointless to blame the SEC or the ratings agencies, the entire system was faulty from the ground up. Capitalism is just a means for a few people to sieve up wealth from many below them in a massive Ponzi scheme. It has to crash eventually, it always does, very periodically. The results are always the same as well, War and Death. The main difference with this crash is it appears to be the end of the resources left for exploitation, and the funny money used to facilitate that exploitation is now going up in the Greatest Bonfire of Paper Wealth in all of Recorded History.

The only question which remains now is whether we will be able to clean up after the mess the Pigmen made here. To do so, fundamental concepts which are just WRONG relating to the ownership of property will have to be abandoned, and certainly many people in the US can't even CONCEIVE of such a thing. So there will be battles internal to the US as well as the battles between nations all trying to be the last one left standing at the top of the heap.

Eventually it will work itself out, one way or the other. Either we will work our way through the Zero Point to something better, or we will not and we will go the way of the Dinosaur. The next few years will determine which way it ends up going, and they won't be pleasant ones. it is not however the fault of regulators asleep at the wheel. The fault lies in the fundamental quality of greed, and how it was used by a few people at the top of the food chain to enrich themselves at the expense of the planet and most of the people who live on it. These folks will Burn in Everlasting Damnation in the Fires of Hell.

Excellent post - especially the part about the fundamental quality of greed.

[bratticus]

In essence though, what you have ALWAYS been talking about here is a rigged game, ever since the Fed confiscated all the gold in the 30s and set up a fiat monetary system. They had to go off gold of course because it simply could not work as a definition of wealth in the Oil Age. Too many people, too much energy around fro Gold to function as currency.

Fixed gold prices were eliminated in 1971 same year of US Peak Oil production rates.

[bratticus]

The main difference with this crash is it appears to be the end of the resources left for exploitation, and the funny money used to facilitate that exploitation is now going up in the Greatest Bonfire of Paper Wealth in all of Recorded History.

[nero]

One of the big lies of finance is that over the long term the stock market increases by 8%. This is essentially like Madoff's lie of consistent 10%+ returns, it's the big lie needed to keep people in the market. Of course capital gains can't increase for ever at 8%. The price of a stock is linked to its potential earnings. Over the very long term if the market is increasing by 8% then the earnings needs to be increasing by 8%. For the past 30 years while the economy has been increasing at 2-3% a year the increase in earnings potential was accomplished by holding down real wage gains. Sure this can continue for a time, but it is mathamatically impossible for it to continue indefinitely. In practical terms it leads to a concentration of wealth that leads to social instability and crisis. When the crisis occurs what people assumed was a solid investment will magically disappear much like the money held by Madoff or the mortgage backed securities. The entire market is a Madoff scheme.

[Narz]

Scary stuff! Oil's gonna peak in 1979!

[bratticus]

Scary stuff! Oil's gonna peak in 1979!

Those charts are in "energy per capita" not "petroleum production rates."

[Denny]

And, you can't even believe governments themselves when it comes to financial matters, so don't trust them to regulate things either.

Check out this article, Second CEO in four months leaves $155 billion Quebec Pension fund

"There was speculation early last month that Mr. Guay might not be returning to his post when the $155-billion pension fund, Canada's largest, announced that it had extended his leave of absence until Jan. 5 from Dec. 10.

The Caisse first disclosed Nov. 12 that its new CEO, a 13-year veteran of the fund, had gone on fatigue-related leave.

The provincial pension fund is battling fallout from the global financial meltdown and its massive, $12.6-billion exposure to the ABCP market.

The Caisse has until early March to disclose its financial results for 2008.

Opposition politicians tried unsuccessfully to force Quebec Premier Jean Charest to release interim financial results for the pension fund during the recent provincial election that returned the Liberal Party to power with a slender majority early last month.

The Parti Quebecois, for instance, bought full-page advertisements in a number of newspapers in the province accusing Mr. Charest's government of trying to conceal losses at the Caisse."

And, isn't it odd that the same kind of investment proifessionals who advise you to diversify your investments (and, in their own interest, to gain more trading fees) are themselves guilty of putting too many eggs into one basket when they administer investments for others?