This ain't no conspiracy!

[robinking]

Can't wait to get my Medicare!

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40854173/ns/health/

Isn't this a classic example of a PONZI?

money.cnn.com/2010/08/09/news/economy/social_security_value.fortune/index.htm

Here's yet another, who's goona bail CA out?

biggovernment.com/gmcgrew/2010/11/25/california-state-pension-system-makes-madoff-proud-video-reveals-gimmicks-used-to-hide-the-decline-in-their-assets/

Aren't the Medicare & Social Security trust funds loaded with these?

georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/09/are-us-treasury-bond-sales-ponzi-scheme.html

Where does all of this end? How do you look at the evidence and still believe the economy can survive?

I told ya so!

www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2009/01/former_housing_industry_economist_who_famously_said_there_was_no_housing_bubble_now_admits_he_was_wr.html

So, now we should trust him?

finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/399189/Come-On-Ben-Bernanke,-Come-Clean!

Or now?



AT WHAT POINT DO YOU WAKE UP?

[robinking]

How do you refute this article?



Economy is sill alive because of the FED, so I give Bernanke credit. But, the you can only kick the can so far. There is only one solution, dealing directly with the problem, with EVERYTHING on the table. We all know this won't ever happen with the current political culture. How many layers of shingles can we put on before the roof collapses?

Sure will be easy getting these people to pay taxes!

www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1410.html

If they won't pay and the mega wealthy can leave for tax haven countries, that leaves the middle class. This leaves my kids and future grand kids to pay for our arrogance and excess. You don't have a problem with this?

blogs.forbes.com/michaelpento/2010/12/30/rising-rates-reveal-debt-reality/?boxes=financechannelforbes

You think they won't confiscate wealth?

www.economicpopulist.org/content/house-discusses-401kira-confiscation

www.infowars.com/government-to-confiscate-401ks-and-iras-for-mandatory-savings-tax/

Maybe this plan is on the back burner now that the House is Republican again, but what if the Republicans get blamed for the next two years of fiscal idiocracy and the Democrats have a super majority starting in 2013???

[silverguy25]

Troubling links you provided there. Just relax and not worry so much. The problem is too big to fix, besides no one with any sort of power has the fortitude to try.

It'll last another couple of years, live it up while you can is my motto.

Not a doomer, just a realist.

[robinking]

I forgot to take my Xanax!

[silverguy25]

I don't want to discourage you about letting people know whats going on. Its a noble effort.

[traelin0]

Who knows, maybe in 20 years I'll take a stab at writing a book on how DC became the reincarnation of Rome. God help me if I try to make it as expansive as Gibbon's classic. Have no doubt though, when it does collapse it will be epic and held in utter disdain by historians the world over.

2012 will tell us everything we need to know. If a Republican or Democrat gets elected, there is no hope of sovereign stability.

[robinking]

I agree and I've accepted the reality of what's to come. I just get frustrated when I look at my little boys and see how it's their future we're destroying right now. The fix isn't easy, but it gets more difficult with each passing day we delay. I decided to start this thread to put all the information together that gives me this doomsday conclusion. Once I've linked all the facts, I'll let the reader decide.

So many people are oblivious to reality. Just as there were Jews who saw the future, cut their losses and left Germany alive... others denied their inner warning bells and stayed. Some even denied their imminent death while being herded into the gas chamber.

Math and logic don't support this recovery. I so want to believe I'm wrong, but I don't. I'm ready but I'm not. Who will I help and who will I turn away? These are the questions I wrestle will daily. I recently had a full Colonel tell me something very disturbing. Something he heard from a 3 star friend. I'm convinced.

[robinking]

I have this belief in humanity that with all the facts, we could fix this. But, it would require honor, integrity, transparency and sacrifice. These are concepts alien to DC.

[ncognito]

Robinking - Don't take this as being antagonistic, but I am curious on how all this has currently affected your life. For a reason, I'm always interested in other people's mindset and opinions.

[traelin0]

Dec 30, 2010 19:08:24 GMT -5 robinking said:

But, it would require honor, integrity, transparency and sacrifice. These are concepts alien to DC.

This is why it's irreparable. There is no fixing it without massive inflation or sovereign default. The sun is setting on the American Empire as we speak. For you see, America was not founded as an Empire, and it is suffering the same fate as so many other failed Republics turned Empires.

Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics, we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those causes.
-- James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution (1788-06-06)

[silverguy25]

Not only alien, downright frowned upon and shunned. There are a couple of white hatters in the group, not nearly enough to affect any sort of change.

I agree with Traelin, when it goes bust its gonna be epic.

[traelin0]

Dec 30, 2010 19:16:42 GMT -5 silverguy25 said:

Not only alien, downright frowned upon and shunned. There are a couple of white hatters in the group, not nearly enough to affect any sort of change.

I agree with Traelin, when it goes bust its gonna be epic.

This may sound like gibberish to those who view history as the language of old librarians smoking pipes, but there was one man who understood how to remedy epic debt crises. We have one last chance to remedy this situation in 2012, but the solution would still necessarily emit a lot of pain.

www.martinarmstrong.org/files/Anatomy-of-a-Debt-CrisisThat-Appears-Only-Julius-Caesar-Ever-Understood-6309.pdf

[ncognito]

Traelin0 - after experiencing our money leaving the silver/gold standard, the oil embargo, numerous recessions, the S&L debacle, Y2K, Dot.com bubble, and this last melt-down (which I thought would push us over the top), I have doubts as to when our next crisis will occur or the severity.

As a history buff of the Great Depression, I remember a person in the financial field during that time saying that the first crash took all the dumb money, the second crash took all the smart money, and the third crash took even the smarter money. This all occurred over a ten year span and then we went into WWII.

[traelin0]

Dec 30, 2010 19:45:08 GMT -5 @ncognito said:

Traelin0 - after experiencing our money leaving the silver/gold standard, the oil embargo, numerous recessions, the S&L debacle, Y2K, Dot.com bubble, and this last melt-down (which I thought would push us over the top), I have doubts as to when our next crisis will occur or the severity.

As a history buff of the Great Depression, I remember a person in the financial field during that time saying that the first crash took all the dumb money, the second crash took all the smart money, and the third crash took even the smarter money. This all occurred over a ten year span and then we went into WWII.

For some ungodly reason we decided to blow asset bubble after asset bubble, which in turn led to bust after bust. Finally, we arrived at a liquidity crisis which the AIG nationalization, Fannie/Freddie nationalizations, TARP and the countless alphabet soup facilities transmogrified into a sovereign solvency crisis. My bet? It created the biggest bubble we have ever seen: US Treasuries.

This will not end well. History shows us that such horrific episodes in history are oftentimes proceeded by total (or, in the case of pre-modern ages, devastating and regional) war. I don't know if that will be the case this time, because history rhymes rather than repeats; but it will not end well, regardless of the mechanism that brings us there. I don't try to time events but I do try to make sense of them. JMHO, and glad to see you posting again.

[ncognito]

Traelin0 - In my situation, I need to second-guess the timeline in order to beat a hasty retreat from NYC back to eastern Washington state. I'm better prepared to sit-out any social uprising in an area with 150,000 population vs. 9 million in NYC

[traelin0]

Dec 30, 2010 20:37:44 GMT -5 @ncognito said:

Traelin0 - In my situation, I need to second-guess the timeline in order to beat a hasty retreat from NYC back to eastern Washington state. I'm better prepared to sit-out any social uprising in an area with 150,000 population vs. 9 million in NYC

As a fellow engineer, although hardly as literate as you in that regard, I will tell you that we relocated from DC to the Southeastern countryside 1.5 years ago. Timing is impossible to pinpoint and I wasn't even going to try. I figured I had nothing to lose anyways. I wanted my children raised in a more rural setting and I took a lateral move in pay to a much LCOL area.

Just go with your gut check, again IMHO. I made the decision in much the same manner as my investment decisions: Objectivity and deliberate analysis.

[ncognito]

I have no children living at home and the contract I have in Manhattan is paying money that is difficult to walk away from (even though the last two years of paying apartment rent could have paid cash for the average house in the mid-west). Although the client wants me to stay until I retire, I will probably leave before the end of next year and take a combined-cycle (GE LMS100 gas turbine) project in Alaska.

[Deleted]

I've got a kind of weird, strange, odd way off looking at the economic problems of the U.S. I developed it after seeing about 40 threads saying that the end was near, everything was crashing, the sky is falling, etc. I also lived thru the last big recession (the one that was also going to end everything) & that's pretty much when I developed my way of looking at it. Here it is:

I'll stock up on guns, gold, ammo, food, etc WHEN something really happens but not until then. That's because if I bought that stuff every time I heard that it was going to happen all of it but the gold would have been replaced 5 or 6 times by now. No, I'll wait.

[ncognito]

I'll stock up on guns, gold, ammo, food, etc WHEN something really happens but not until then. That's because if I bought that stuff every time I heard that it was going to happen all of it but the gold would have been replaced 5 or 6 times by now. No, I'll wait.

Over the years my gun collection has appreciated in price (Desert Eagle .50 increased by 40 percent) and the Remington pump came in handy after hurricane Andrew. Seems like whenever Congress passes a gun control law, the prices increase.

[robinking]

N Cognito,

I've told everyone on the old site many times my current situation, but I'll put it in this thread since I started it. I'm doing very well right now; this was my best year yet. I'm making more than I ever thought I would. I have investments such as:

- two 529 college savings plans that will frickin' pay for Harvard if my predictions of collapse are wrong
- a healthy HSA account
- a healthy business checking account
- a SEP-IRA with stocks and mutual funds (I almost cashed it in recently)
- 5 separate investment checking accounts (1 for each of my son's with mutual funds, 1 for my personal spending, 1 for my gambling and 1 for emergencies).

I've invested in a very efficient home and I pay all my bills on time and only buy with cash... unless I get ZERO interest, and then I pay one month before the bill is due.

I'm pretty frustrated knowing my thrift will not be rewarded. I'm actually looked at as the evil rich guy because I make so much. I know the savers will be forced, at the barrel of a gun, to bail out the spenders. I choose to build my practice by working 12 hours a day and moonlighting. I worked 7 days a week. I have had a single one week vacation in 10 years- my honeymoon. I've had 4 sick days. I've chosen this lifestyle.

I'm disgusted by the welfare moms who come in and expect my services to be free, while I notice they have a better phone than I do, they have an expensive hairstyle and a REAL Coach purse... while their kids wear rags. I'm tired of the 45 year old Social Security/Medicare patient who's perfectly able to work, yet won't.

We can't support all the spending. We're borrowing from tomorrow to fund today. I'm directly benefiting from this free meal because I take Medicare and Medicaid, yet I know this can't last. I saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by going with my gut in 2005 and 2006 and not buying the million dollar home. This "doomsday" decision earned me a divorce, but that door's closing lead to my young, beautiful, sweet and kind girlfriend. The same people telling me housing can't go down back then are telling me the DOW rally is solid and the dollar in invincible. Well, history has something else to say about that.

I plan on using this thread to provide all the links to articles I've read in order to show how I've arrived at my doomsday conclusions.

As preparation for my conclusions, I've purchased physical gold & silver. I've stocked up on years worth of tradeable food, water and liquor. I've purchased years worth of household items. I have guns and ammo. I have both ends covered.

[ncognito]

Spokane? I have not lived there but know the Newman Lake area outside Spokane well.

Actually, the tri-cities area south of Spokane. My home state is Oregon but I left there in 1978 because I couldn't stand the rain anymore.

[ncognito]

Robinking - After 3 years of observing MT, I am aware of your situation but that was not my question. We can't dwell on conjecture, but currently you can report on how everything has affected your life. Are you affected financially (less medicare payments, stock market losses, etc.), socially (alienation of family or friends), medically (stress, lack of sleep)? And then my next question would be, what are you doing about it?

My point is, many years ago, as a young engineer, I had a mentor who I worked with on a nuclear power project at Argonne National Labs. His mentor was physicist Enrico Fermi, who forgot more about nuclear reactors than I would ever learn. I was so involved with politics at that time my blood pressure and heart rate would increase just at the mention of Congress (also I was an anti-government radical, but that's another story). My mentor saw that I was heading for an early grave from worry, so he asked me the following questions:

As one individual, how much control did I have over the political process?
What could I do about it?

Next, he told me to only to be concerned with what I have control over. It was not my wife, kids, or government; it was me. For the last 30 years, I have positioned myself to be self-reliant and off the grid. Also, I sleep better at night.

As for doubting if your thrift will ever be rewarded; it already has. Your prepared and they're not.

[DumDeeDoe]

www.visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-national-debt-by-country/ For the year 2007
And 2009 www.economicshelp.org/blog/economics/list-of-national-debt-by-country/ for 2009
This is a graph to show you that it may not be the end of the world as we know it.

Our debt to income ratio is about par for a modern country. The D&Gers will only show you the graphs that show the debt total skyrocketing over the last 40 years..... They do not show the economic GDP graph skyrocketing right along side of it...

Just remember the famous Quote from my GMAC loan guy. "as long as you make da payments ya keep da car."

We were in alot more debt% per GDP after WW2 than we are now.

The trouble is we have alot of corperate and banking corruption that is not being dealt with yet. And until we re-regulate and weed out the corruption we are in for a long haul.(like Japan.)

[traelin0]

GDP isn't measured the same way now as it was then, because CPI isn't. It's not apples to apples. But let's put that aside for a moment. We were a net creditor nation after WW2. Hell, we rebuilt Europe. Today we are the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. Our real GDP is negative, annualized, if you back out the double-digit deficit we are running in order to artificially boost it.

www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=859

[ncognito]

And until we re-regulate.....

Bring back Glass-Steagall and watch the bank CEO's cry!

[ncognito]

Just remember the famous Quote from my GMAC loan guy. "as long as you make da payments ya keep da car."

My car dealership friend was always fond of saying, "I lose money on every sale, but I make it up in volume."

[comokate]

A great article to read:
"The current period shares two features with the immediate post-World War II period. It starts with a large debt overhang and low inflation. Both factors increase the temptation to erode the debt burden through inflation. Even so, there are two important differences between the periods. Today, a much greater share of the public debt is held by foreign creditors – 48% instead of zero. This large foreign share increases the temptation to inflate away some of the debt. Another important difference is that today’s debt maturity is less than half what it was in 1946 –3.9 years instead of 9. Shorter maturities reduce the temptation to inflate. These two competing factors appear to offset each other, and the net result in a simple optimising model is a projected inflation rate slightly higher than that experienced after World War II, but for a shorter duration.

In the simulations, we raise a concern about the stability of some model parameters across periods, particularly the parameters that capture the cost of inflation. It may be that the cost of inflation is higher today because globalisation and the greater ease of foreign direct investment provide new options for producers to move activities away from countries with greater uncertainty. Inflation above some threshold could generate this uncertainty, reducing further the attractiveness of using inflation to erode the debt.

Moreover, history suggests that modest inflation may increase the risk of an unintended inflation acceleration to double-digit levels, as happened in 1947 and in 1979-1981. Such an outcome often results in an abrupt and costly adjustment down the road. Accelerating inflation had limited global implications at a time when the public debt was held domestically and the US was the undisputed global economic leader. In contrast, unintended acceleration of inflation to double-digit levels in the future may have unintended adverse effects, including growing tensions with global creditors and less reliance on the dollar"
www.zimbio.com/Debt+Consolidation/articles/U5s1THLlPlq/Using+Inflation+Erode+Public+Debt

[Deleted]

Dec 30, 2010 22:57:51 GMT -5 @ncognito said:

Actually, the tri-cities area south of Spokane.

My brother & SIL just moved back there... Hanford just keeps pulling them back!

[ncognito]

Dec 31, 2010 11:09:17 GMT -5 @rosebaby said:

Dec 30, 2010 22:57:51 GMT -5 @ncognito said:

Actually, the tri-cities area south of Spokane.

My brother & SIL just moved back there... Hanford just keeps pulling them back!

I was there in 07 on a one year contract with the DOE on the nuclear waste treatment project (WTP). The area is booming with one of lowest unemployment rates in country. I would tell any graduate engineer to move to tri-cities or Brazil if they can't find work.

[robinking]

Cognito,

I appreciate your interest and concern. I'm very happy right now. I can handle a 50% pay cut and still be able to live comfortably. My son's are happy, healthy and well adjusted to the divorce. My girlfriend will someday be my wife. I consider my life one long vacation. I try to live in the moment.

I slipped on the ice this past Monday night and hit my head pretty good. I didn't seek medical attention because I only carry major medical. Plus, being a doctor, I can get friends to treat me for the small stuff. I told my girlfriend what neurological signs to watch out for. Last night I was sick with a bug and today I feel like Mung! But, life is good and I'm happy even as I type. Why? Because without days like today, how can I enjoy the sunny, beautiful days or the nights when I can't lose at the poker table?

My issues with this time period are due to a 100% belief in God and that He has woken me up for a reason. We all must open our eyes. This is not the same economy or mindset we had in 1945. Entitlements WILL kill us and they're not even factored into the national debt officially. I feel this forum is my way to vent. I discuss these and other pertinent issues with patients, but I make it a point NOT to dwell in negativity, but rather to focus on what we all can do to avoid the economic devastation that's looming. I'm also building a small community of friends & relatives to cope with the problems we will face. The problem is that until enough people wake up and vote these idiots out of office, the same corporate/globalist elites will continue to wreak our economy. They don't care, because it's all about power and control to them.

The longer we deny the problem, the worse the solution becomes!