Some on the Right have been hankerin’ for Armageddon. Well, Ian Welsh says it’s coming, but not the one the premillennialists expected.
The Mahablog
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Some on the Right have been hankerin’ for Armageddon. Well, Ian Welsh says it’s coming, but not the one the premillennialists expected.
Actually, the post you linked to is from one of our other writers: Numerian, not Ian.
Actually it’s Numerian who says it; Ian agrees in the comments. Enjoy your blog, especially the Buddhist slant. Thanks.
The ARM idea was a bad one from Jump Street.
When I heard Greenspan talk about them and pump them up a few year’s ago, and watched the financial institution’s gobble them up, I thought it was a horrible idea – to give someone like me an ARM?!? My credit suck’s. And I thought back to the ’70’s – and how they were a bad idea THEN! And those were give to people with GOOD credit!!! I knew better than some of my friend’s and didn’t buy anything. I’m still poor – but they’re screwed!
And this fiasco is much worse.
Greenspan’s snake-oil salesmanship spread the foo in this shit-pile (Atrios) far and wide.
The tentacles of this catastrophe have spread to every financial institution in the world.
That’s why I think we’re about to face either a major recession, or a depression. Worldwide. China’s and India’s growth could prevent a world-wide economic slow-down.
Could. Not, will! No one know’s… No one!
And as I watch what passes for economic expertise over the last few year’s (from the Ken and Kewpie Doll’s on TV, who’s only apparent qualifications are that they look good and might have taken an Economics 101 course), I have to laugh at the optimism I keep hearing. This economy has been bad for everyone, except the rich, for year’s.
This is the Bush economy at it’s finest: a catastrophe for all but the richest among us.
Hunker down, folk’s. Hunker down. A bad moon’s a-risen…
Well, the big players are FINALLY admitting things “aren’t rosy.” They still insist it was better last year (like this thing came out of nowhere), but they are mostly on board that by the end of Bush II, the sequel, the market will not have kept up with (even the grossly understated official) inflation during his 8 years…
I cannot find any positive investment category to flee to, though there are some out there that do bet AGAINST the economy, and I am just about ready to jump. I’ve been 40% cash for almost 6 months, up from
Assuming the people forecasting “economic armageddon” are wrong (and I so assume mostly because various economist types that seem to know what they were talking about have been forecasting something like “economic armageddon” every single year I’ve been on the internet (ie, before the web was invented and we all had to TELNET or FTP when we wanted to do anything) and it hasn’t happened yet) …
Ahem. Assuming those folks are wrong, we’re basically looking at a recession that will probably be a bit deeper than usual, coupled with a really horrible real estate market for a few years, I think.
That’s my prediction. No market crash, no depression, no global credit meltdown, just a rough couple of years ahead. If we manage to actually elect a democrat for prez, we’ll probably come out of it with a stronger, more solid economy than we have now. Which will last until the next republican adminsitration.
If that sounds naive and overly optimistic … well, given that I can do precisely diddly squat to help the situation, it leaves me happier, calmer, and ultimately healthier to believe that. When the future comes, I’ll deal with it as the situation warrents. For now, leave me to my optimism.
-me
Strange how your posts coincide with what’s on my mind.
This morning I wrote a letter to the editor regarding this exact subject. The editor requested opinions about if we are headed towards a recession.. My opinion, based on the current value of our dollar, wars in at least 3 countries,the price for energy and all commodities, stagnant wages, the collapse of the housing market, the sub prime and credit card mess is, add to this the loss of many jobs in the housing and banking fields and the loss of medical insurance to those unemployed : we are headed for the worst recession since the great depression, the “Grand Funk” .
Bush did not go to Saudi Arabia to do the hokey pokey with King Saud for nothing. The 20 Billion arms deal is a bid to infuse capital into a patient that has a major hemmorage. We’re screwed. Get out the tar and feathers………..
Frankly, people think the money in their accounts are safe. It is not. FDIC is a sham, although it can help if only 1-2 banks fail. If the system crashes, so your money disappears as well unless your bank is too big to fail. The number of dollars printed and in circulation is only equal to 3% of the money supply. Make sure your money is in the big money banks who are too big to fail, but get ready for hyperinflation in any event, which will wipe out those with cash in banks that do not fail.
A crash can be prevented, but those who make out well in a depression are those who created it, since they have the money to come in and buy up assets at 10 cents on the dollar, and their bad loans, which were money created out of thin air, are written off and erased from memory. Technically, our system is already insolvent, so the reset button is going to be pressed wiping out a lot of people.
There is a solution to the reset button, but it would be to nationalize the banking industry and take control from the crooks. But the crooks are running the country, so it won’t happen.
The good news is we have an historically proven remedy for depression, global war. We may just skip over the new deal and banking reform for World War III.
It is interesting that Brzezinski is advising Obama and if he gets control of foreign policy then it may be WW III with Russia the target, and China too if they do not withdraw from the SCO. The neo cons are also going back to some China bashing, and their choice is Mccain or Bloomberg, either one. Edwards is the only safe bet, Hillary just floats with the tide and will do what the most powerful of our leaders want.
Putin is making noise about using nukes, he may know whats going down, or perhaps it is just good theater and our next world war will be Orwellian, fiction presented as reality and the occasional self induced attack blamed on the current enemy.
In any event, assuming Orwell was not prophetic, it looks like we will be declaring victory in the War on Terror soon, and the financial Armageddon will be followed by the real deal. That was probably the plan all along. History repeats, and repeats, and repeats.