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Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

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Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#11

Post by djsumdog »

Predicting the future is inherently stupid. Trying to show what will happen in our complex world using models is the stuff of Science Fiction.

Going back to the article and economics, if you follow David Graber (Debt The First 5,000 Years and Bullshit Jobs), he talks in his books about how every great civilization needs to have debt resets. Going back to the Babylonians, the Sumerians, and tons of others, there were always leaders or kings or emperors who would rise to power on the promise of debt relief. Israel had the year of Jubilee, where ever 50 years debts would be forgiven and slaves set free.

Continue inflationary debt is never sustainable. At some point, the world bank will lose its influence, smaller autocratic States will pull out of the "debt" they "owe" to their "liberators" and larger States will no longer be able to extract resources without force, that they're going to have a harder time paying for.

Debt reset needs to happen. Ever American student loan, loans with ballooning interest, medical debt, debt that's normally written off, debt that's never written off ... at some point we need less tracking and a bigger reset for each human being to start fresh.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#12

Post by PopeDotNinja »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

I'm trying to decide where the line between sound economic advice and scaremongering sits. I think it may be around "You’re going to start having food riots soon enough." At least I hope that's scaremongering. Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated.

What I've been reminded of this year is that panicking is not useful. Shit can happen at anytime, and being prepared to weather a downturn of any type is always in fashion. Have a 3 to 6 month emergency fund is a good idea, improving your skills for unexpected job loss is a good idea, regular disciplined investing if a good idea, yada yada. So I'm just doing my best to ensure my butt is covered for if/when the defecation hits the ventilation.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#13

Post by stepbeek »

sremani wrote: post #8

Think of all predictions as set of possible outcomes. Yes, there is a possible decade long depression outcome. Based on my reading its W recovery staggered growth, with US pulling back all its supply chains to North America and Export-Oriented economies holding the bag. These economic and global dislocations resulting in events we have not seen Post-WW2. In spite of all these, US/North America is where you would rath…

> In spite of all these, US/North America is where you would rather be than say, Europe, Africa or even Asia.

Why?

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#14

Post by Jommi »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

I'm trying to decide where the line between sound economic advice and scaremongering sits. I think it may be around "You’re going to start having food riots soon enough." At least I hope that's scaremongering. Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated.

I don't know man, just looked at front page of /r/ unemployment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Unemployment/comments/gofuf5/illino...

The "anti-rich" topic has been going on for so long without a real conclusion, I definitely would not discredit the possibility of riots in certain US cities.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#15

Post by djsumdog »

acwan93 wrote: post #9
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

I'm trying to decide where the line between sound economic advice and scaremongering sits. I think it may be around "You’re going to start having food riots soon enough." At least I hope that's scaremongering. Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated.

Part of me thinks that this is exaggerations as there’s no way all food banks have lines that are miles long, as stated in the article. I did notice that there are security guards outside my Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s now though. > Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated. The bigger test may be once the PPP funds ar…

Most high income nations have been overproduce food via subsidies for decades. For most countries, food security is part of national security. The obesity crisis is a side effect of that:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-hon...

I think there's enough slack in the system we won't see food shortage. The lines at food banks are a different problem entirely. That's because people don't have jobs, and are afraid to spend what they do have in savings and unemployment.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#16

Post by aeternum »

Some interesting points but some of them are not internally consistent:

Author claims that the stock market is up because people are sitting at home day-trading driving up prices. Then a few paragraphs later claims that cash is king and people are unlikely to spend.

Author claims that 2009 Fed spending made sense because it was an aggregate demand issue. That was not very clear then as it was unclear that many of the mortgage-backed securities actually had a positive value. Coronavirus in comparison is much more clearly a demand issue (people are effectively being ordered not to go out and spend).

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#17

Post by tonyedgecombe »

djsumdog wrote: post #11

Predicting the future is inherently stupid. Trying to show what will happen in our complex world using models is the stuff of Science Fiction. Going back to the article and economics, if you follow David Graber (Debt The First 5,000 Years and Bullshit Jobs), he talks in his books about how every great civilization needs to have debt resets. Going back to the Babylonians, the Sumerians, and tons of others, there were…

Student loan debt is interesting because it could swing an election. All it needs is a candidate offering to write it off and a large enough portion of the population that stands to gain. I'll be surprised if it doesn't happen in the next decade or two.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#18

Post by nsl73 »

kube-system wrote: post #4

> Because tomorrow, every piece of consumer electronics, even your lowly coffee machine or microwave or toaster, is going to have a 5G chip. That’s what the internet of things is about. If the Chinese can listen to you through your smartphone, they can listen to you through your toaster. Once we declare that 5G is going to allow China to listen to our communication, we will also have to ban all household electronics…

I can imagine a hundred products that can benefit from 5G, and I’m just one person. WiFi is great for high power products that stay within trusted networks, but not everything does stay within a trusted network. 5G can also offer a convince of being pre-configured out of the box to work.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#19

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

pm90 wrote: post #7
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

I'm trying to decide where the line between sound economic advice and scaremongering sits. I think it may be around "You’re going to start having food riots soon enough." At least I hope that's scaremongering. Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated.

Wait what? Unemployment payments are the only things that are preventing a full scale depression and hardship for millions. These people have lost their jobs, have no savings or assets, nothing. How are they going to get food? Pay rent? The quick action by Congress in boosting unemployment payments has been the only thing keeping the economy from going belly up. If that stops, we’re in for a lot of hurt.

He argues that that's going to happen in July. I just can't see the States letting that happening. Here in Canada they are continually expanding out benefits, and I think the States will have to follow that as well. I can't see the tap being just turned off.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#20

Post by kube-system »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #10
kube-system wrote: post #4

> Because tomorrow, every piece of consumer electronics, even your lowly coffee machine or microwave or toaster, is going to have a 5G chip. That’s what the internet of things is about. If the Chinese can listen to you through your smartphone, they can listen to you through your toaster. Once we declare that 5G is going to allow China to listen to our communication, we will also have to ban all household electronics…

Yeah I ran across some scaremongers on Twitter 6 months ago who were going on about vaccines (??) And 5G. I had and still have no clue about that. As a real aside, networking everything does definitely have upsides and downsides. Upsides: seamless monitoring, remote control via api, integration across a house/car/phone, remote presence (never worry that door was open, or coffee pot is on, or garage door up). Downside…

Networking things makes sense when remote interaction is useful.

There is very little you can do with a toaster, microwave, or coffee machine while you are not physically present. You can't send toast, coffee, or leftovers over a network. The 'internet of things' isn't useful in and of itself. There has to first be a practical use-case that justifies it.

I haven't had to worry about the coffee pot being on for decades. My $20 coffee pot has a positive temperature coefficient heating element, thermal fuse, and automatic shutoff.

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