Request for comment: Collapse of the U. S. A.

[LadyDeliah]

In your opinion.

[Huguenot]

No, not in my opinion, in fact.

Go back and read it all again. We've had incorrectly attributed quotes to Jefferson, quotes used to substantiate opinions that don't, the banking and political community accused of being liars and frauds (generally), ridiculous language and a blatant failure in claiming that CDRs are a reserve currency.

It's bullshit.

[maxxi]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> You know that inflation is a good thing, yes?

>

[Huguenot]

Even that 'I have unwittingly ruined my country" quote attributed by ibilly99 to Wilson a few posts ago is bullshit - never cited, never sourced. Just bullshit.

[LadyDeliah]

Ok, Hugo, where are the authoritative sources for your 'facts'?

[Huguenot]

Eh? Do you think you can just claim whatever quote you like unless I can prove it was never said?

If you want to claim a quote in support it's you that has to prove it's true.

It's been myself and a few others all the way through that have been trying to explain some of these concepts. All the 'End of the World' crew has done is make increasingly inflated armageddon claims with no substantiation or justification.

[LadyDeliah]

Hugo, they, especially Nexus, have put lots of links to articles, news programmes etc as sources for their comments. If a couple of their quotes are incorrectly referenced that doesn't negate the things that have been correctly referenced.

You have made many comments that are full of opinion with no referencing to anything authoritative, and then proceed to infer that someone is a nutter if they hold a viewpoint that differs from yours. I think that is not fair and if you expect other people to correctly reference their opinions, I think you should apply the same standard to your own opinion pieces.

[LadyDeliah]

For example, the pound has not been devalued by a third, it appears to have been devalued by 2/3 and should be ringing alarm bells all over the UK as we import way more than we export, especially food and fuel.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2011/06/pound-and-gold

[StraferJack]

Cuban missile crisis

London pea soupers

Advance of hi...I mean germany in WWII

And many others

You could either believe the "chicken licken sky is falling down" merchants

Or trust in humanities ability to find a way

We aren't at a pretty pass. Things could well go tits up. I'm not pretending otherwise. But I do wish some people would show some backbone and roll their sleeves up instead of just saying "here are some worst possible scenarios and i think they are certain to happen"

Because that way lies madness. Or at least depression

[LadyDeliah]

ibilly, thanks for the link.

I have read some of his stuff, but I think Stiglitz, formally of the World Bank is pretty amazing.

I read one of his early books and was very impressed.

Stiglitz is less sensationalist and just gets on with explaining how the global financial institutions affect the lives of small people and who is pulling their strings. I would definitely recommend reading some of his stuff.

[Huguenot]

Lady D, you miss the point - I was responding to NN's claim that the pound could devalue, and that we'd end up like Belarus if it did.

His quote: "Did anyone see the picture and news from Belarus, when it had to devalue? If so, take that and the UK riots, times that by about a 1000."

I was pointing out that it has devalued, and we're not like Belarus.

If you reckon it's down by 2/3 then you make my point even more strongly right? You're rubbishing NN's point all on your own.

Geddit?

[LadyDeliah]

StraferJack Wrote:

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> Cuban missile crisis

> London pea soupers

> Advance of hi...I mean germany in WWII

>

> And many others

>

> You could either believe the "chicken licken sky

> is falling down" merchants

>

> Or trust in humanities ability to find a way

>

>

> We aren't at a pretty pass. Things could well go

> tits up. I'm not pretending otherwise. But I do

> wish some people would show some backbone and roll

> their sleeves up instead of just saying "here are

> some worst possible scenarios and i think they are

> certain to happen"

>

> Because that way lies madness. Or at least

> depression

http://media.bigoo.ws/content/gif/birds/birds_201.gif

Go on, take a peek SJ!

[New Nexus]

Some people are basing their logic and protestations on the assumption that we have a functioning system of control and good governance. I really, really wish that was true.

We have a banking system and we have a ?shadow banking system?

The US already does not enforce banking regulations that they have on their books, to control the banking sector. Please reference William K Black for more info.

Can anyone tell me what regulation are in place for the shadow banking systems.

When Alan Greenspan admits he got it wrong, what does this tell us about good governance of the banking sector?

When no one has been held accountable for mortgage backed securities. Fraud becomes the system, not market forces.

In a collapse one of the first things to go is regulation and good governance, this allows power brokers to hauled away the goods.

A poor example of this is Hosni Mubarak, trying to get tons of gold out of Egypt before the people asked him to leave.

Another indicator is over stretch, military and financially.

Military, I do not think I have to go into that, most people get it.

Financially, yes I know lowest debt for years,

Lets just see what may happen if Greece goes down, I use the ?if? very generously here. Then another and another UE state. Flight to safety US dollar, leper with the most fingers. The US is not facing up to its debt problems and I am talking about its real debt, not the silly little 14.5 trillion. What happens when the Chinese debt collector come calling.

[Huguenot]

"Stiglitz is less sensationalist and just gets on with explaining how the global financial institutions affect the lives of small people"

Has anyone denied that? No. Nobody has said that global financial insitutions don't affect the small people. Trying to move the goalposts?

[StraferJack]

I'm so glad I actually bother to write words

In English

"> We aren't at a pretty pass. Things could well go

> tits up. I'm not pretending otherwise."

Only for people to ignore them and take cheap shots

[LadyDeliah]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Lady D, you miss the point - I was responding to

> NN's claim that the pound could devalue, and that

> we'd end up like Belarus if it did.

>

> His quote: "Did anyone see the picture and news

> from Belarus, when it had to devalue? If so, take

> that and the UK riots, times that by about a

> 1000."

>

> I was pointing out that it has devalued, and we're

> not like Belarus.

>

> If you reckon it's down by 2/3 then you make my

> point even more strongly right? You're rubbishing

> NN's point all on your own.

>

> Geddit?

You have made many comments without referencing any of them, but that's ok, because your views are mainstream so you obviously don't feel the need to back up your opinion with evidence.

I don't think that I have disproved anything with my post, other than anyone who has said it's all going to be ok.

It's not.

Devaluing the pound by 2/3 means all of our imports are going to rise in price significantly. Manufacturing and food production in the UK have been decimated over the past 30 years, so we are going to have to pay massively higher prices for all the things we need to survive.

People on the breadline already, will be very hungry. Life will get very difficult and this may happen quickly.

On the other hand, it could all just go away like a bad dream.

[Huguenot]

Why are you so obsessed with the US NN?

[LadyDeliah]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "Stiglitz is less sensationalist and just gets on

> with explaining how the global financial

> institutions affect the lives of small people"

>

> Has anyone denied that? No. Nobody has said that

> global financial insitutions don't affect the

> small people. Trying to move the goalposts?

Hugo, this was in response to ibilly's post about John Perkins and his book the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I was just posting up a link to someone who says many of the same things but, who in my opinion is a better person to read.

[Huguenot]

Stiglitz said that they were employing CIA spies as hit men to undermine the economy of the world?

I don't think so.

[LadyDeliah]

Economic hitmen, yes, not actual hitmen.

[Huguenot]

"What happens when the Chinese debt collector come calling."

They don't because it's not in their interests to disrupt the market in the short term. Currently the Chinese need the export market to sustain internal employment.

They need a measured transition to internal demand.

The whole 'disaster' scenario is built on this tissue of hypotheticals that have no bearing in reality.

[LadyDeliah]

A nice quote from Stiglitz from January 2010:

Our financial system failed to perform the key roles that it is supposed to perform for our society: managing risk and allocating capital. A good financial system performs these functions at low transaction costs. Our financial system created risk and mismanaged capital, all the while generating huge transaction costs, as the sector garnered some 40% of all of corporate profits in the years before the crisis.

The sector is also responsible for running the payments mechanism, without which our economy cannot function. But so badly did it manage risk and misallocate capital that our payments mechanism was in danger of collapse. So deceptive were the systems of creative accounting that the banks had employed that, as the crisis evolved, they didn?t even know their own balance sheets, and so they knew that they couldn?t know that of any other bank. No wonder then that no bank could trust another, and no one could trust our banks. No wonder then that our system of credit?the lifeblood on which the economy depends?froze.

[New Nexus]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> Why are you so obsessed with the US NN?

The US is decoupling, and the dollar is going the way of the Dodo at far as a reserve unit. I know your views on SDR, however mine are different. So we will have to disagree on that.

When empires come to the end of their natural life ugly things happen.

I am a Carthaginian looking at Rome.

[Huguenot]

Yeah, and none of that talks about economic hitmen.

Most importantly Stiglitz makes no claim that the 'deceptive systems' were deliberately so - in fact he is clear that the systems were deceptive not the people.

As in "The VW Golf is deceptively quick..."

So I trust you're not using that quotation to suggest that he was calling anyone liars or frauds?

The desire to find some human to blame for this situation is so massive it's easy to see how anyone could choose to misunderstand that.

[Huguenot]

"When empires come to the end of their natural life ugly things happen."

SDR is 40 years old. You can't use it as an illustration of the current challenges unless you were willing to claim the same in '69.

As for 'opinion' - that's ridiculous. You claimed it was a reserve currency to supplant the dollar that Russia and China would refuse. That's like claiming the UK is a country between Australia and Fiji. It's incorrect on so many levels it can't be classed as a valid opinion.