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The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

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Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#31

Post by Prrometheus »

jfornear wrote: post #12
markessien wrote: post #5

I keep saying it - things are fine. Real value has not been wiped out - the amount of real value lost is not big when compared to the general economic numbers. The U.S has a bigger problem than the rest of the world, but the U.S is still very dynamic, and many world currencies still measure against the USD. China is developing fast, but a lot of the development does not go very deep. So China is not yet ready to func…

The fundementals of our role within the global economy are anything but sound . Our economy is fueled by consumerism and the service industry. When shit goes down, which do you think has a chance of surviving when countries like China decide to stop subsidizing our spending (by holding down their currencies) in order to enjoy the fruits of their own labor themselves? Forthcoming political unrest in some of these coun…

>"Our economy is fueled by consumerism and the service industry."

You do know our country has the single largest manufacturing output in the world, right? Misleading soundbites are often repeated until they become popular wisdom.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#32

Post by anewaccountname »

>As the credit system eases, historically low interest rates also augur debt refinancing and constructive access to credit for those with good histories and for small business creation in the year ahead.

As though we can just "augur" that. Small business loans might not pick up even in a low interest environment if banks reveal more off-balance sheet holdings and run into more troubles with capital requirements.

>The rush to declare the future bleak has obscured the fact that no one knows the outcome of an unprecedented event. No one.

I think he (minorly) slipped up and didn't follow his own advice a little earlier in the article =P.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#33

Post by jfornear »

Prrometheus wrote: post #30
jfornear wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gloom and doom shouldn't depress you unless you derive all your happiness from wealth. Believe it or not, there were happy people living through the Great Deppression, both rich and poor prior.

Material comfort and stability is an important contributor to happiness. Go to a middle class gathering place, like a Chipotle restaurant in a business district at lunch, and then go to an unemployment office. See which population is happier.

I'll give you that, but nonetheless depression is fairly rampant in America despite those things. I've met orphans in poverty stricken areas of Mexico that were happier than middle to upper class kids in day care centers here in America. Really my point was that we shouldn't let ourselves get depressed over whatever the doomsayers may be spouting.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#34

Post by fallentimes »

patrickg-zill wrote: post #28
jerf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If massive inflation occurs, you're pretty much screwed no matter what. It is not currently possible to live fully, truly off the grid in the manner in which anybody posting to Hacker News is accustomed. Planning for events that you can do nothing about is a waste of time; the fact that that is unfortunate changes nothing. (Which is not to say some reasonable preparation for emergencies is a bad idea. I'm just saying…

I am amazed at the hatred for gold among some HN'ers. This is the second thread I have seen where gold was mentioned, and the second time I have seen a vitriolic response about gold. Gold will always be valuable and it will always be part of a sane person's plan for dealing with a "things are going to crap" scenario. Along with some form of food storage to deal with logistic interrruptions and some form of personal d…

Gold will always be valuable...

How do you know? While I'm all for world & class asset diversification, the whole reason is because I/we don't know.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#35

Post by fallentimes »

timr wrote: post #9
tokenadult wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"my recollection is that less than two years ago, nobody in the mainstream was acknowledging that a housing bubble even existed." My recollection is different, because I was reading Business Week more than three years ago. The housing bubble has looked like a bubble for a long time to people who considered how much faster house prices increased than wages. Michael Lewis's collection of articles, Panic, http://www.ama…

Yes, there were a few people who were calling the bubble early. However, their view wasn't in the mainstream two years ago. It certainly wasn't "conventional wisdom". I have edited my post to replace the word "nobody" with "few". Mea culpa.

They focused on the exception; you focused on the rule.

It's entertaining watching the tulip bulb story happen over and over again. Hopefully next time I'll have more capital to take advantage of the situation.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#36

Post by fallentimes »

unrealwh wrote: post #19
medearis wrote: post #3

A few months ago, Goldman Sachs "experts" were predicting oil at over $200/barrel. Obviously, things didn't work out that way, which is why the concluding paragraph is exactly right -- information now travels faster than ever in our economy, which will affect the way the economy rebounds. Still, nobody knows exactly what will happen. It seems to me that the best predictor of how the economy is doing is the way that i…

$200/barrel is indeed wrong, its a lowball number. i expect $500 or more. where do you think all those trillions the Fed is printing up now will end up? what happened the last time the Fed printed up trillions in 2002? commodity bubbles! excess liquidity ALWAYS creates inflation, and inflation always chases up the value of finite stores of value, namely commodities. nothing goes straight up or straight down...the thi…

You would be a nice foil to Jim Cramer.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#37

Post by fallentimes »

unrealwh wrote: post #18
jfornear wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundementals of our role within the global economy are anything but sound . Our economy is fueled by consumerism and the service industry. When shit goes down, which do you think has a chance of surviving when countries like China decide to stop subsidizing our spending (by holding down their currencies) in order to enjoy the fruits of their own labor themselves? Forthcoming political unrest in some of these coun…

china will be as doomed as the rest. what do they hold? US debt. its toilet paper. their economy is coupled to US consumption. they are developing a domestic market but to do so will take another twenty+ years....the tidal wave of debt is crashing now

With people saying things like this, it might be time for me to start buying.

US debt is a lot of things, but it's not toilet paper. If they start defaulting then we'll talk.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#38

Post by fallentimes »

unrealwh wrote: post #23
gjm11 wrote: post #20

I've seen maybe half a dozen articles that say "everyone agrees that this might be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression" (so presumably there are far, far more than that, because I don't spend a lot of time reading that sort of article). I haven't yet seen one that acknowledges the possibility that it might be worse than the Great Depression. That seems to me to be obviously wrong. If what we're in…

i believe not only will this be worse than the depression for the US, it will indeed do in the US entirely. a nation's most important piece of paper is not its constitution (you can burn and rewrite one of those anytime you want one), it is its currency . you can only burn your currency once. there is a very strong historical parallel - the french revolution. no matter what interpretation of this event you find in li…

Does this all mean you're going to be a billionaire in 2020 by capitalizing on the situation you describe?

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#39

Post by patrickg-zill »

fallentimes wrote: post #34
patrickg-zill wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am amazed at the hatred for gold among some HN'ers. This is the second thread I have seen where gold was mentioned, and the second time I have seen a vitriolic response about gold. Gold will always be valuable and it will always be part of a sane person's plan for dealing with a "things are going to crap" scenario. Along with some form of food storage to deal with logistic interrruptions and some form of personal d…

Gold will always be valuable... How do you know? While I'm all for world & class asset diversification, the whole reason is because I/we don't know.

1. It is needed for industrial/electronics purposes.

2. It is internationally recognized as being valuable, regardless of culture. That is, cultures as diverse as India, China, England, Russia, pan-Arabic (i.e. non-Jews in the Middle East) have all viewed gold as having value, and that over at least 1000 years of recorded history each.

3. It does not corrode or rot the way paper money does. In Israel they recently found some Byzantine-era gold coins, aside from the obvious numismatic/collector value they still retain value for the gold itself.

4. Gold does not require a government to enforce its value. It's value is innate or intrinsic to the thing itself. As such if a government falls or decides to modify the value of a paper dollar (as Mexico, Argentina etc. have done in the past) then the value changes. Gold that you have in your pocket cannot have its value modified by a government order.

Re: The Economic News Isn't All Bleak

#40

Post by jfornear »

Prrometheus wrote: post #31
jfornear wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundementals of our role within the global economy are anything but sound . Our economy is fueled by consumerism and the service industry. When shit goes down, which do you think has a chance of surviving when countries like China decide to stop subsidizing our spending (by holding down their currencies) in order to enjoy the fruits of their own labor themselves? Forthcoming political unrest in some of these coun…

>"Our economy is fueled by consumerism and the service industry." You do know our country has the single largest manufacturing output in the world, right? Misleading soundbites are often repeated until they become popular wisdom.

Sorry if I sound like a Peter Schiff robot. I've been listening to him too much lately. I've been meaning to add some more optimistic readings/podcasts to my list.

China surpassed us recently, and the US losing its hegemon status is very bad for the dollar. The only thing they have left to do (and are doing) is build up their military. They do have quite a few domestic political problems though, but analysts were already confused how capitalism thrives in China anyway so there's no telling what will happen. I think these problems and what they produce are the unknown factors that will determine the new world economy. That is just my pet theory.

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