Are the USA going to react?

[faithless]

Hi all, I'd like to start this thread after having heard my teacher, who told us that if America doesn't react FAST, they're going to be in deep shit concerning their economy.

The teacher said that people in the US borrow money from the banks, with interests. Those banks themselves borrow money from the international bank, with interests aswell. This vicious circle is now putting them in a bad situation, and they have to react superfast or in 10 years, Europe will be the first economical power. (in 20 years, China will probably take the lead)


Anyone knows more about this? Is it true? False? Any reaction?


thank you, peace, and good evening everyone

 

[emix]

I think yesterday the economic leaders of the most powerful countries have debated on how to solve this economic crisis.

I don't think the economic problem is only in the US, but the impact is most worse there.

 

[Telico]

Hi,

Actually, it's accurate, according to my macroeconomics' teacher. He told me that "banques de second rang" (sorry I don't how to translate it from french, it's the word for all the banks that are not the Central Bank, maybe it's called commercial banks) are borrowing money to stave off bankruptcy. And a long time ago he told us : if commercial banks begin to borrow money to stave off bankruptcy, it will trigger a domino effect, and it will be worse than the economic of 1929, because even the Central Bank will have to borrow money form international banks, and this vicious circle will lead the USA to disaster. Finally, he told me that it could be the end of capitalism.

True or false ? We'll see. In any case, the USA are falling down, hegemony is ending.



A la prochaine, from Paris.

 

[JustinNed]

I believe us here in the US are officially in a recession.

 

[Telico]

Even american tourists are now reluctant to go to France or Germany or any country in Europe : the dollar gets increasingly weaker against the euro. It's a good point for exporting at low price, but it's a drawback when it's time to import goods from the euro zone ....

 

[acim2]

It is interesting because people in the US don't understand that the US may not be an economic super power for much longer. I think it's almost impossible for many to fathom. They may think there will be a down turn, low productivity, etc, but it seems hard psychologically for most in the US to understand that it will change things dramatically for them.

I think the writing was on the wall years ago as we began to rely on foreign investment more and more to keep the economy working here. If China decided to pull out a substantial portion of it's investment, the US economy would really tank seriously. We are really at their mercy. That is why we don't have much leverage when negotiating things like how China values the yuan. Foreign investment is good, but not as a way to spend so much more than we have, and not as something that our economy is so reliant on.

There is no doubt that if the US goes down hard, it will hurt the global economy. But as things come back and the world recovers, it will the the US that is hurting the most and the US that will lose the most as far as it's ranking in comparison with the global economy.

China and India will likely be the economic leaders in 20 years. And most nations in the EU will be doing better than the US.

I certainly don't really understand it all, and I don't know what it will be like in the US in 20 years if things go as expected. I do believe there will be a huge psychological impact on the US because I think a lot of people realize we are lacking in culture and education. I think now, people in the US can kind of rationalize that by thinking that we are superior economically and militarily. When that is gone, I think many US citizens will feel very shallow and empty because they will have nothing.

I think people in the US just assume we will always have the economic and military advantage. So they don't get very worried when we have years of incompetence managing the country. They don't think it will really have an important impact that could change the US historically - forever.

It's so strange.....things like the fact that US citizens actually think they pay high taxes. They don't realize how little we pay compared to most other countries. They think we have the best medicine, when we rank very low on things like infant mortality. They think we have such great opportunity and freedom, when we are just now considering a woman or an ethnic minority for president, and we are slowly eroding our rights to privacy (from before 9/11), and we are not free to drive on the streets without risking being pulled over and demanded that we provide our papers at checkpoints within our country. We have a higher percentage in jail than almost any country, and if you count people on probation and home confinement I think we are the highest. We are not allowed to know what toys we buy our children contain phthalate-softeners because it has not been proven beyond any doubt that they are harmful, although it's been proven that they shrink children's penises. The EU has banned phthalate-softeners in toys. Our government fights against any labeling for GMO foods and tries to force it on the EU. Our federal government sued California because it was trying to help the environment too much. We spend more money on testing children in school than teaching them critical thinking. I'm ranting now.....but it's the stupidity of it all....how can we expect to survive like this.

People here are just beginning to accept that there is global warming, but many smart people who I know for some reason still say they don't believe it's caused by humans. I know it's not proven beyond all reasonable doubt, but there's something psychologically that is making these people believe they know that it isn't humans, maybe because they don't want to believe it was us...or because they don't want to have to change.

I think it's that same type of psychological block that prevents many people in the US to understand that our economic incompetence will impact us.

Me...I'm just another dumb American. Unable to fully understand this all. If I could argue it and understand it better, then I'd be able to help at least my friends understand that we are in deep shit....but I'm not able. I think that's probably a lot of the problem too...even some who see things coming to some extent, can't relate it well to others.

So.....will the US act in time? It's probably all ready too late, and if not it's unlikely that people in the US will cause the government to do much at all.

 

[spice]

Finally, he told me that it could be the end of capitalism.


Yes, I believe this, too.....this country is going to fragment into about 4 or 5 smaller ones, similar to europe, based on geography;

Deep South ( the calcutta India of N. America )
New England, aka the Northeast
West Coast
Midwest

This will happen when the infrastructure breaks down, and that's already beginning to unravel thread by thread.....when diesel trucks can't afford to go on the Interstate Highway, then how will this country stay cohesive?

It won't.

No one wants to see this happen more than me.

I'm totally unafraid, and in fact, hope it happens before I am old, drooling, and senile, ranting about Piper Auritum and nitromethane.

Some of us are equipped to do well in such a world. I know how to grow food, make fuel from various substances, purify water with or without chemicals, build things, create electricity and a lot of other things the average American has veen trained to never think about doing for himself.....as a matter of fact, a nation of people such as this would really have no need for such a bloated, contaminated sytem...

Knowledge is power.....and ignorance is a life of enslavement.

 

[spice]

I must have been posting at the same time as you, acim2.....

The reason why so many Americans don't believe/want to believe that the whole global warming thing is manmade is because then it requires them to actually THINK that MAYBE, just maybe.....E-V-E-R-Y thing they have been told since childhood was simple propaganda.
The people they trusted fucked them. Sur-prise.

That is what this country has really been built on, deceprion, exploitation, and lies.

 

[acim2]

I think you are right. I'm sure that's part of the reason people have so much trouble accepting it. It will just crumble their little world too much.

No one wants to see this happen more than me.

I can see were you are coming from. For a long time "merit" in the US has been based on structures which benefit a capitalistic subset of society.

I do think you are being kind of optimistic about what the result may be though if things get really bad.

I'm totally unafraid

Just be sure to arm yourself well. When things go really bad in an economy, it's not usually the ones who know the most who win...it's usually those that kill the best that win.

Things might end up more like Darfur, than, say, something like Mad Max. Either way, I don't think it will be fun at all, even for someone who is as knowledgeable as you about these things. And if you do make it to be drooling and old in such a new world, there may not be anyone to take care of you, or much to look forward to for your offspring if you have any.

It seems like you understand all that and are still not afraid...but it definitely make me very scared.

 

[Psychoid]

it could be the end of capitalism.

Would be the first step to human evolution!!!!

Maybe this will happen in 2012?

 

[Telico]

It seems like you understand all that and are still not afraid...but it definitely make me very scared.

It could be great ! Just imagine yourself, and your girlfriend, your friends and even your family in a sort of wood-made shelter, with a little vegetable garden, a little hand-made power generator which enables you to watch recorded movies of the 90's and listen "old music". Twice a week, you'll have to hunt in order to have fresh meat to eat. It's a little bit utopian, but it could be great actually !

Me...I'm just another dumb American. Unable to fully understand this all. If I could argue it and understand it better, then I'd be able to help at least my friends understand that we are in deep shit....

Don't worry dude, I can assure you that many teenages, and even grown-ups there, in France, are tremendously lacking in culture and useful knowledge. I remember some girl who told me "Where does Elvis Presley live now ?" ...
Or other kinds of statements like "I think that Islam is a meal".

Fortunately it's not a widespread phenomenon, because there's an elite, and in the average, people have some culture... but in general (it doesn't concer elites), it is a "focused" culture : they know things Châteaubriand or Victor Hugo, but they don't know anything about Frank Sinatra, Gandhi or Idi Amin Dada... It wasn't the case in the sixties, the French have become progressively dumb, and as they get older, they get dumber and dumber, and they become to look like those racist-fascist-conservative texans or just like Gertrude Himmelfarb... Because they are convinced that violence that they see on television is due to the mores liberation in the sixties, due to immigration, and to lack of religion. There in Paris, people are reluctant to go to suburbs, because they think it's full of hoolingans and immigrants. I'm in Paris since september 2007, and I think I visited the suburbs more often in a few months than any average Parisian in all his life. Because they're affraid, affraid by the suburbs. Of course there are immigrants in the suburbs, but they've done nothing to me, they are very kind, not all of them of course, but in general they are very pleasant. And the atmosphere is different from Paris, there's some kind of conviviality in the air...

I remember last week I was talking to a class-mate, I told him that when I've finished my studies, I'll go to the USA or to Australia, build a farm and live there in peace with my wife. And then I asked him where does he want to live next, he told me that he was currently living in the 16th district of Paris, and when he finish his studies, he'll move to the 7th distric of Paris ... such an ambitious plan ... People are so narrow-minded now, without dreams, without ambition, without willingness to make things move on ...

 

[Forkbender]

I wonder if we make it until 2012...

The thing is that banks actually create money by putting out a loan. The interest doesn't exist yet, it is pure profit for the bank. However, since the amount of money grows by several percent, so do the prices, which make people need to borrow more money, pay more interest and so on. This money-inflation duo is parallelled by an addiction to consumption, which amplifies the whole process.

There was a great Dutch documentary on this a couple of years back (De dag dat de dollar valt = The day the dollar falls), I'll see if I can find some links...

[e] FOUND!:

with English subs...

 

[tryptonaut]

Finally, he told me that it could be the end of capitalism.

Hooray and Amen! I know this would be quite scary (I mean I'm fully integrated into capitalism right now, I can't say it wouldn't be an extreme change for me as well...). But I really want to see the bankers run for their lives LOL

 

[spice]

acim2- You are right, it may indeed turn into a darfur-like scenario, and I have considered that, too......but I am not afraid of those things, either.....in another life, I was, basically, a street-fighter, down near Mexico, and though who I am now is a different entity, I COULD revert, if necessary. Also, I grew up in the deep south, where a knowledge of firearms is taught before good English, and I know guns as well, even though I don't own one now, and despise them in the context of todays world......I also know how to make gunpowder, TNT
( out of toluene, no less) TNX, and even the main ingredient in what is called RDX, aka 'cyclonite' which is what plastiiqe explosives are composed of.....(hint: think hexamine)......So, off the TOP, when it does hit the fan, I'll just go hit a well-equipped hardware store, and a walmart or three, and I'll be good to go.

I don't think that it will be everywhere, though, this is, geographically, a large country....I have driven cross-country here many times, I know this terrain very well, and you'd probably find me in the west-northwest, holed up in the mountains somewhere.....if it did get really bad, I'd go to the interior of British Columbia where I also am familiar with, and survive there. It is great frontier country. I've been there a few times as well....

If it happens when I get old, well, that isn't something to dwell on, but we'll see, I guess. I don't think it will be delayed that long, to tell you the truth.

 

[Guest]

...and you think that capitalism will be over without wars, hunger and thirst ?

It could be great ! Just imagine yourself, and your girlfriend, your friends and even your family in a sort of wood-made shelter, with a little vegetable garden, a little hand-made power generator which enables you to watch recorded movies of the 90's and listen "old music". Twice a week, you'll have to hunt in order to have fresh meat to eat. It's a little bit utopian, but it could be great actually ! Very Happy

yes, it would be great when a gunslinger entered your precious house and slaughered you and your family.
...this is just naive. you are constantly refusing capitalism, but i don't see you guys giving up on your computers. i know it can be cool to say no to everything, constantly questioning everything, like a merry-go-round that doesn't move from it's place, but what exactly are you celebrating ? i don't get it. a reason to live in the wild ? i don't think anyone will stop you now.
if things will go wrong in the USA, that's back to the wild west. things are upside down there, as many american users have posted. perhaps they need a fix-up, but i don't think this kind of extremism would help anyone. thousands would be killed and no rules or regulations would work. that's scary scenario, in a country where there are so many guns...

 

[spice]

daytripper- Of course you are correct, however, did you consider when you say, 'I don't see you guys giving up your computers'

that perhaps it is the computer that is going to help drive this scenario into reality.....

Giving up our computers would be throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater. Computers and the net were created by HACKERS, not George Washington, or Bush. They aren't relevant to the context of this discussion, I don't believe, really....

Why would giving up our computers be relevant?

Consider; The finest gardens are fertilized with SHIT.

This is all necessary.

 

[Telico]

yes, it would be great when a gunslinger entered your precious house and slaughered you and your family.
...this is just naive. you are constantly refusing capitalism

I did not say I was refusing capitalism, and I said it would be great if the situation was the same as the one I described, I did not talk about violence or guns, but I still maintain that it could be great if we could live in peace in our farms, with our family and friends. I didn't even talk about guns or violence. And I precised that my statement was utopian, of course it's naive. However, I'm refusing capitalism because I'm constantly living in it, and I'm actually undergraduate in the University of Economy and Management of Paris; and I think that it's not the best but the less bad economic system. But it could be much more improved. Recently capitalism has revealed its weaknesses (Economic Crisis, scandals like Jêrome Kerviel's one...). 1929 is the proof that capitalism is flawed. I don't say that communism is better, not at all, for the moment, capitalism is the less flawed economic system that we ever knew, but it still has tremendous weaknesses. We cannot refuse capitalism now, because we are living in it, and all the economies are capitalism-based. We can just improve it, by developing systems like sustainable development and fair trade.

We were just talking about mad-max scenarios, just for fun, we don't need no moralistic speech there, we aren't fools, we aren't utopians.

Au revoir, from Paris.

 

[Telico]

Why would giving up our computers be relevant?

Consider; The finest gardens are fertilized with SHIT.

This is all necessary.

Exactly, the Internet is a multilateral way to communicate, not like Television where informations are brought to you by some people and you cannot react or share your ideas.

Internet enabled us to know people like Terence McKenna or Rick Strassman, to know how to grow mushrooms and talk with people interested in entheogens. With the Internet, we're able to create "underground networks", not controlled by the authorities. It's a powerful way to develop a critical mind and share ideas.

Giving up our computers would be stupid, it implies that we'll become dependent of informations provided by the government once again...

 

[spice]

Yes, I am constantly refusing capitalism because it embodies the great shadow side of humanity......it celebrates resource hoarding, encourages greed, and while it may have been an OK idea when the world was smaller and simpler, it is, really, like a T-shirt which is two sizes too small for humanity....ie binds, is uncomfortable, and restrictive.

daytripper- I hve read much of your writings, and I may venture the opinion that capitalism is mostly responsible for the stressful situations you find in your own life. The scarcity of food and money is a consequence not of lack on the part of the individual, but it's scarce BECAUSE some capitalistic bastard is hoaeding it, and trying to send it somewhere else, away from where it was produced, to make more money.


Tell me please, the redeeming qualities of it as practiced in the real world of today.

 

[Mycophile]

I just hope your teacher is right...

All empires have fallen sooner or later. I just pray on my knees every day that I will have the opportunity to tell my children that I have witnessed the end of the US empire...

The US is far out number 1 (or number 666 if you like that better) on this planet at this moment. I recently read an article about the Roman Empire and the way they went down. They went down because of becoming arrogant when they became number 1. The US is following the same strategy and the first cracks are shown already...