Posts by hollowmoose21

Nicole Gomez38 said:The whole goal here is to protect people with deposits at the expense of the bank owners. A devaluation is inevitable at this point; trying to prop up the Dollar as artificially strong by pumping external debt while the Federal Reserve acts like nothing more than a glorified currency exchange is simply unsustainable in the long run.

It’s also worth noting that total debt (loans issued) exceeds deposits by about $600 billion, whereas actual cash on hand (in vaults, registers, or even under mattresses) is only around $100 billion.

As of late 2010, total loans sit at roughly $1.8 trillion, while the total money supply—deposits plus physical cash—is only about $1.3 trillion. Because of how this monetary model works, the gap between debt and the money supply is widening fast; basically, debt is ballooning four times faster than the money supply. (That's exactly why we're seeing so many freezes, foreclosures, and liquidity crises).

Since half of all bank deposits are held in foreign currency, if the Dollar were to devalue by 20%, those deposits would effectively lose 10% of their value since only half are held in domestic currency. (And that’s assuming the government actually chooses to protect citizens over the bank owners, which is my ultimate goal).

If I were thinking ahead, I’d suggest citizens hit the banks hard and start swapping their Dollars for foreign currency before any major devaluation hits.

At the end of the day, the only question that really matters is whether the government stands with its people or with the banks—everything else is just technicalities.

How exactly do you see that working? You're basically calling for nationalization, but then who's supposed to pay back the savers—the bank owner? Which owner would that even be?

ironstag8 said:But what if you don't have heirs, for instance? Does that mean the entire concept of a loan loses its purpose? I mean, where is the logic in diving into a mortgage with interest rates this high, exchange rates this volatile, and wages this stagnant? You might argue that you used the word "sustainable," but let's be real—who among us actually has access to such "sustainable" terms?

Well, here's the deal. 😁 Pernar is gearing up for a revolution where they just print money like crazy to tank the value of those loans. Only thing is, he hasn't told me who's footing the bill—because the damage is already done and there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Here's your answer: You're paying for it with your life savings. 😉

What you’re missing is that there’s no such thing as a painless exit. The damage is already done, and someone’s eventually going to have to foot the bill. Your "exit strategy" just spreads the misery around to more people.

No matter what kind of system you dream up, it’s gonna have its own set of flaws. The smartest move we can make is to just wrap our heads around how the current system actually works and figure out how to play it to our advantage.

Roger Nelson5 said:It honestly always amazes me how resilient hope can be; it just refuses to quit on people.

The fundamental issue facing America right now is that we’re being led by the very people who caused this mess in the first place. A huge chunk of the current political crowd in Congress seems to have only one goal: securing their own congressional pensions. You see types like that former union boss (I can't even remember his name, what a joke...) who jumps straight into politics with the Republican Party and starts preaching a totally different gospel—that's your textbook example right there. Does anyone here seriously believe that people from this kind of political circle are suddenly going to have an epiphany and say, "Hey, let's actually get serious and fix our country's problems"? To tackle these issues, you need expertise, social responsibility, guts, and actual backbone—things these folks simply don't possess.

What really gets me about this political establishment is just how incredibly timid they are. You've got Đurđa Adlešić meeting with representatives of rowdy hooligans just to "hear their perspective" (seriously??), or Ivo Sanders making major political moves based on protests on Facebook. And then there's those moments where a single farmer rolls a tractor up to a government building and suddenly, miraculously, the money appears... There are so many examples it's impossible to ignore. You could argue about the reasons behind it all, but it's pretty obvious that people acting this way aren't going to pull this country out of its slump.

Even if they suddenly decided to address the real issues, the "challenges" aren't exactly simple. How do you downsize the federal bureaucracy? Do you just hand out pink slips to every tenth or fifth person? What happens if the axe falls on the one guy in the office who isn't some well-connected crony and is actually doing all the work? Do we really expect the heads of these agencies, departments, and bureaus to forget about all the favors they owe their political mentors and fire the people who were hired solely because of political connections? Plus, even if they had the best intentions and the brains to fix the massive government overspending, it's going to take a long time.

What’s actually coming is a general economic collapse, which will drag the whole country down with it. First, citizens' incomes shrink due to new taxes, which kills off purchasing power. Private companies will have to lay people off (which is already happening), and some will have to cut wages, which hits consumer spending and dries up tax revenue. As cash gets tighter, the government will likely try to find new ways to grab more money, like maybe a new property tax. The ripple effect of people getting squeezed will lead to massive trouble with mortgage and loan repayments. People who lose their jobs won't be able to pay their loans, and those seeing pay cuts will struggle too—especially if they were reckless with debt in the first place. Initially, you'll see people selling off cars, which will probably tank car prices. If someone has both a mortgage and a car loan and can't keep up, they'll likely sell the car first to scrape together some cash rather than moving out. Of course, if the economy bounced back in six months, that might work as a temporary fix until they find a new job. But that’s not how this works; next on the chopping block will be housing. People will start selling homes at rock-bottom prices, real estate values will crater, and banks will demand even more collateral for loans, adding even more pressure. Naturally, as home prices drop, the revenue from real estate transfer taxes drops too, and banks will become extremely stingy with lending. As for the banks, they haven't got a clue what's coming. If anyone wants proof, just look at the macroeconomic forecasts from JPMorgan Chase from November of last year signed by Jamie Dimon. The projections for the U.S. GDP movement in 2009 are particularly telling.

This is what you'd call a negative feedback loop: one set of parameters starts sliding downward, which triggers a fall in other areas, which then feeds back into the first set, creating a downward spiral that ultimately leads to a change in leadership.

Once the mass demonstrations and violence kick in and this political crew finally gets pushed out, I expect some "new leader" to emerge claiming to be the savior who can pull the nation out of the crisis. That person will hold onto power for three months, then a new one will step in, and so on. We'll keep selling off whatever we have left until we eventually go bankrupt.

Wages are going to drop, employment is tanking, pensions are taking a hit... but honestly? The thing that keeps me up at night is the social unrest. For instance, if they start auditing veteran benefits or digging into every single PTSD diagnosis on record, we could see that old, dangerous rhetoric resurface—all that talk about "traitors" and people "disrespecting our heroes." It’s classic, nasty demagoguery, but it's incredibly risky. Bottom line: things are going to get wild, and I have a feeling we're in for some heavy rock 'n' roll next year.

Until then, I just hope there's one more big spectacle in NYC to keep it feeling like the "center of the universe," and I truly hope Ivo Sanders stays in good health.

🙏 👍

@ Walter
Trying to call daily price swings? What would Warren Buffett say about that? Or Benjamin Graham?

Nicole Palmer6 said:Nasdaq Jan 2, 2008: 2609
Nasdaq April 10, 2008: 2359 (though the day isn't quite over yet)
-9.58%

Nasdaq Jan 2, 2008: 5245
Nasdaq April 10, 2008: 3560
-32.12%

And honestly, if the economic crisis over in the USA is this messy... I fear we might be facing a total nuclear meltdown back home... 😬

The Nasdaq movement from yesterday through the end of today... +1.5... 😁

You’re missing one thing. The Dow and Nasdaq recently bounced back to where they were a year and a half ago. The NYSE hasn't even come close to touching those levels yet (if I recall correctly). 🙂

Maria Barnes said:Last night on New York City, veteran financial forecaster Barton Biggs dropped some seriously encouraging insights that deserve their own thread. Yesterday's interview boiled down to these main points:

"We're in a financial panic,'' Biggs said during a telephone interview with Bloomberg Television from New York. "We're setting up for a really big rally. I don't mean three or four hundred points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, I mean 1,000 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I don't know if we're going to get it next week or the week after. But this thing has gotten crazy and is overdone."

``We're at a really crucial point,'' Biggs said. ``This is a time to be buying stocks globally and not to be selling them.''

``Yeah, it's scary. It's always scary at bottoms. But I don't believe the economy is collapsing,'' Biggs said. ``This is not the end of the world.''

He said something similar about ten days ago (this article), though back then he predicted this would happen over the coming months because he spotted the signal that the crisis was ending:

U.S. Stocks May Surge 15% in Next Few Months, Barton Biggs Says
``Almost every bear market ends with a double bottom, and i think WE ara in The process of Making a second bottom right now,'' Biggs, the former global investment strategist for Morgan Stanley, said during a phone interview today in Dubai. ``The bad news has been discounted, and so the news doesn't have to get better for the market to go up. It just has to be less bad than what has already been discounted.''

If you compare the charts for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500, the general correlations are obvious.

For the record, this guy was almost spot-on, hitting his targets nearly to the percentage, when he predicted growth in the middle of two major Dow Jones Industrial Average pullbacks last year (March and August).

Sweet. So I guess it's still too early to buy. 😉