I think all in all, it will never ever be exactly like The Great Depression. But on the other hand, wasn’t it Greenspan who said he forecasts our economy going into the worst economic downfall since WWII? Not exactly an “aw shucks” punch to the shoulder. More like a “We’re %#$@ed”. Or should i say, the middle to lower class is…

I was just reading online today about how the banks are now tumbling in stocks. Washington Mutual dropped significantly, and is forecast to suffer losses because of the loans its issued for mortgages, etc. of upwards of 26 billion. Other major banks were also significantly affected today…Citigroup, Wachovia, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc…it goes on and on.

It was silly of people to assume that the housing crisis would remain isolated and that the US economy would bounce back. You don’t just bounce back from 15 Trillion dollars in losses. Thats a domino effect that we haven’t yet seen the tail end of.

Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to actually begin to change for the better. In my opinion we really need a RESET on on everything. On how we live, spend, treat our people by moving jobs over seas etc. etc.. Those in power wanted the big almighty dollar. Well, that almighty dollar is sinking because of our selfishness in how we did things. Nothing wrong in being reasonably ’selfish’ that’s just who we are as humans but we fail to realise our single actions affect a whole. We forgot that. Will this country end? I’m going to be optimistic and say, no. Germany screwed up big time and so have other recent nations and they are still here. Strife makes you stronger, smarter and gets us off our butts. We’ve been a sleep too long. Maybe next time we wont take what we have for granted.

If we are going to writhe in a corner sucking our thumbs with our blankys because of some headaches coming our way then we shouldn’t be Americans.

When the competition for oil reaches a frantic level, China will start dumping their dolllar reserves, depressing the US currency. Suddenly, the price of oil from China’s perspective is lower, while from the US perspective, it goes even higher. Now, gasoline in the US is at $25 a gallon, and inflation is way out of control. like Germany in the 1930’s.

How to get prepared now to survive? 1) get out of debt. 2) get some gold, oil, natural gas, and coal stocks. 2) get yourself an electric car (ok, you can’t actually do this, since it was killed by gov’t & industry).

Heading for a “Great” depression?

How did they ever come to THAT conclusion?

The promises of Government to their people have not been saved for . The graying of all populations of the G8 means the ponzi scheme of bankrolling transfer payments with ever expanding populations , ie ; consumers , is fast becoming impossible .

When one looks at Europe , over the long term , they are in more trouble than the US . True they have higher savings rates , however , they have the same population bubble of baby boomers and little productive immigration to take up the slack …

All three major currencies are teetering on collapse , and with the vast majority of the world’s economic activity conducted in these economies , the entire world wiil suffer …

There will be advantages to the Euro , but no reprieve …

mckinl.

“Japan has near zero inflation because they have decided to utterly destroy the purchasing power of the people in Japan who are living worse and worse off if they are below the top 20%. Many are now homeless.”

First of all, I’m fluent in Japanese and I’ve spent a lot of time there on and off over the past 20 years. I think most Americans would be stunned to see how advanced and prosperous a nation Japan is. Coming back to America from a visit to Tokyo is like entering a Third World nation.
What’s more Japan’s prosperity is much more evenly spread among the populace than any other First World nation. (Japan is one of the most egalitarian nations on earth—even more so than the famously egalitarian Scandinavian nations).
Homelessness? It exists in Japan. But it is absolutely trivial compared to any U.S. city that I have ever seen. In fact, the sort of bottom-of-the-barrel extreme poverty that is increasingly widespread in America simply doesn’t exist in Japan.
Japan may be no utopia (no nation is). But on the whole, I think it is the best-run nation that I’ve ever seen in a long lifetime of traveling the world. Americans who believe otherwise simply haven’t seen Japan first-hand. There’s no substitute for actually going there—the Western media has long been hopelessly misinformed about Japan over the decades.

In fact most nations, for transactions between their country and other countries, will accept only the dollar in exchange for their goods and services. Thus other nations have to keep the dollar in storage (reserve) in order to have resources to pay for what they need.

The dollar got its original value because foreign investors, foreign institutions and foreign central banks could use our dollar to invest in assets, buy things, or save it. During the cold war few other countries would allow foreign dollar holders to use their currency in this manner.

With the demise of the cold war, the opposite is true; most nations encourage investments in their economy. The end of the cold war plus missteps by our government: deficit financing, using debt to finance an unjust war, spending tax dollars unwisely, etc; has caused people to no longer want to use the dollar as legal tender for international transactions.

Because of these shortcomings our dollar’s purchasing power is declining in relation to other currencies. For Americans, this means the cost of stuff will go up in price. For foreign investors and foreign institutions, who use the dollar as their currency of choice for international transactions; will very likely experience a decline in profits or worst, a loss.

Foreign central bankers that continue to keep the dollar as a reserve currency and continue to accept the dollar as legal tender will experience a decline in the value of the dollar in relation to other currencies and their own currency. This means that tax payers will have to fund the difference in their loss of purchasing power.

There is a small group of people who say the dollar is valueless in that the only way we can obtain goods and services is to print more money. There are more dollars in the world than there are things to buy with the dollar. Once people understand this they will want to unload the dollar.

Their recommendation? Buy gold, silver, or some other commodity, and sell assets that require debt financing.

Once other nation’s central banks no longer accept the dollar as legal tender, Americans will be forced to live on their own resources.

How will our society function then? Pray!