I hear shoes are a good investment...

Mein Gott im Himmel...is U taking Meth now...you are speed writing your ideas...

Only if you can make money with them.

Certainly when liberally applied to the backsides of certain malingering bureaucrats....


Dennis

U missed the true sly meaning of his statement. U should have asked yourself, "what the fk is up wid that one, is there something I am missing here." As his statement was so non sequitur. As it stands you jumped without out understanding what you were jumping into.

In all probability it will all become apparent in further discussion with Charles...the ball has been bounced back into his court with my response.

I appreciate every bit of support that I get on this Board, as I figure it comes from the best and brightest. It makes my task so much easier if I do not have to fight every battle alone.

Perhaps one should look beyond JMK.
Ole Ludwig had a interesting theory called Praxeology and a wonderfully loooooooong book in many volumes called "Human Action" that may be of interest to you.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1436146817.jpg


Prax girl conveys a lot of info in a way that even I can grasp. ( "Human Action" is a bit heavy for summer reading)

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JMK is just a point of reference for the Board.

Prax is like a bone with out meat on it, I prefer the meat on the bone as the flavors are so much more interestingly complex. In other words I like the motivations that leads to action. I want to know the reasons for anxiety, distress and unease. I like tinkering with them. Once you know the patterns, herd, flock or collective behavior does become predictable in that the extreme variations of individual behavior gets over ridden by the patterns of the larger group. Maybe if you will as a reversion to the mean of behavior. Even with individual behavior there is enough of competing behaviors that once you know the subject they become more or less predictable.

There is the individual, group and collective. "Animal Spirits" generally refers to the collective that pays attention or to the sub group that concerns it's self with the running of an economy.

"Varoufakis" just resigned... :eek:

Yanis Varoufakis Resigns as Greece

OMG...So much for the ability of the EU zone tolerance for truth...they sic the EU ministers will swallow the pill only if Varoufakis falls on his sword.

In the end these EU ministers are done for. Varoufakis gives you the truth which they can not handle instead choosing an Alice In Wonderland reality which in the end dooms them. They will choose policies based upon a concocted fantasy of the conventional wisdom. In the end you do know what happened to the French functionaries and Russian functionaries during the French and Russian revolutions?

U Boyz know all about the doom and gloom scenario that I have been painting well this revolting development is all going according to script. It is the playbook from he11 that is being played out right before your very eyes...

It's sobering to know that this could happen to the U.S. on a much larger scale.

I'm watching to see what happens to Greece.

_

TABS is nothing, he holds no power, he is an inconsequential nobody. A nothing, a zero, a loser. So what does his opinion matter?

Now I will tell you about Alexander. His father was Philip King of Macedonia (Northern Greece) his Tutor was Aristotle. So he learned about the levers of power up close and personal while being given the circumspect analytic ability bestowed upon him by none other than Aristotle.

But as a field commander of the Greek army. He would have his army divided into three sections. On the left would be cavalry with lite infantry. In the center he would have his heavy Greek Phalanx infantry and on the right more cavalry and lite infantry but here would be Alexander with his "companion" shock troop cavalry. His left would act as diversion while protecting his left flank, his heavy Greek infantry would engage and thus pin the enemy while on the right he would move farther to the right and as the enemy stretched out their left to counter his move Alexander would see the hole in the enemy line and point and say, "There it is" while turning to charge into the gap created...straight for Darius the Persian King who turned and fled for his life, thus losing the battle and in the end losing his life as he was assassinated

But this alone isn't genius, it was during his battle with the Indian elephants that Alexander used his cavalry on the right to engage the enemy elephants and thus commit and pin the enemy while his heavy Greek infantry moved to decimate them once they were engaged. So Alexander was not a one set of tactics battle commander but was able to change up his tactics in order to meet circumstance.

If this happens to the USA the whole world burns right along with the USA. The USD and US Military are the cornerstones of an intertwined Global economy. The Chinese and others clearly see it, and are moving to mitigate the damage. However they have as yet not been able to move far enough away from being crushed by a falling elephant in the room.

American leadership over the past 50 years deserves it's own ring in he11 as they have acted irresponsibly with the vast power that has been bestowed upon them. For 200 years the USD has been the rock of Gibraltar that the world could count on, but in the last 50 years that trust has been betrayed by an immature self indulgent leadership that has squandered their birthright.

The lesson here is that "global" currencies and globalization in general are bad ideas, unsustainable and dangerous. I'd look for smarter, more well-led countries to shy away from "world reserve" currencies like the USD or Euro. Heck, several nations have already been doing it. The UK has played this pretty well also, retaining the pound, which is likely to enjoy a resurgence in popularity / everyday use.

I'd say the pound might start looking like the "safe harbor" a lot of people (Europeans in particular) seek these days.

If the discussion is turing towards the US situation, I wonder how the recent financial crisis (2008?) could have been possible in light of the lessons learned from the mid 80s saving and loan crisis?

..Perhaps I mis spoke. Potential lessons that went unlearned or were quickly forgotten?

Great Post....The 80's S&L crisis mainly affected the Southwest as a rule so many lessons of that fiasco went unnoticed or were forgotten (if you questioned most Americans about it today, they would probably say "what S&L crisis ?). It was definitely a precursor to 2008 but nobody was paying attention as you point out. If you happened to live in the SW and TX in particular during that time you were definitely aware of it.

I live in Canada and at the time I as a young adult was even aware of it. It makes me wonder how the US policy makers could not be?

On another note, perhaps China looked to these lessons when they changed the rules regarding buying stock on margin recently.

China changed their rules because they had a 25% sell off in the market!

I thought it was the other way around, that the policy change caused the selloff.
I stand corrected.

The biggest tragedy of the Obama administration (and oddly the one most people don't seem to notice or care about) is the totally squandered opportunity to meaningfully reform our currency and banking system in wake of the once-in-a-hundred-years event that was the 2008 collapse / housing bubble implosion.

The people should have been marching on Washington DC with pitchforks demanding that our elected politicians get offa their asses and actually enact something substantial in wake of it, yet the window of opportunity passed with barely a peep. All we got was another do-nothing bureaucracy with little real power that will cozy up to the big banks, kiss their asses and at the end of the day, so whatever they want. Sickening. Even worse, we're still stuck with worthless fiat currency - clamors to return to a sound money standard were dismissed as "crazy" or "old fashioned". Nothing has changed other than now we have MORE debt, more devalued currency, more consolidation in the banking industry, more reliance upon the Fed and other central banks (power to the greediest!) and more instability. Complicating this we have the Baby Boomers retiring en masse with corresponding declines in tax receipts, increases in health care costs / profiteering and increasing demands on government reserves that aren't really there. This all adds up to a bleak picture going forward. While I doubt it'll go "boom" and implode it's possible - 2008 showed that it really is possible or even likely that our so-called "leaders" will live in total denial of reality and diddle about playing "kick the can" to the point things actually do go "boom" rather than actually paying attention, being responsible (or at least aware), thinking past the next election cycle or making sustainable fiscal policy a serious issue. I don't know which would be worse - a rapid "boom" type event a la 2008 or a more drawn-out period of steady decline. I wonder also which is more likely.

At some point people will get sick and tired of living the lie, the malaise and the blatant disregard of their well-being by those who have been charged with it, and real change will be demanded - likely at the barrel of guns. A new system will emerge (whether before or after a collapse is the big question), stability and prosperity will return for a while and eventually the cycle will repeat - those in charge will get power-drunk, playing games with peoples' futures and buying their short-term support with promises they can only keep by robbing from the future. Rinse, lather, repeat. I just wonder how long it will take to get to that point and what will happen in the interim. It might range anywhere from "inconvenient / unpleasant" (like the 1970s) to "bad" (2008-9 to today) to Great Depression / Greece / Zimbabwe / Weimar Republic type collapse. Nobody knows.

My biggest fear is that the economic stupidity and recklessness embraced and promoted by certain political agendas (usually leftist ones) will create one of these sorts of situations and leave us divided, enfeebled and vulnerable to exploitation by truly evil and manipulative interests like Islam / ISIS, despotic dictators / regional warlords, a communist totalitarian type system or some combination. Hold onto your guns. You may well need them in the days ahead.

You forget that they passed Dodd-Frank...

On the news this morning they were interviewing idiots ... i mean Greek citizens who were delebrating the no vote on austerity moves.
One young lady explained that she was happy with the no vote because further austerity moves were BELOW THEIR DIGNITY.

There ya have in friends, the perfect example of socialist entitlement mentality.

They have already spent all the money they had and then got bailed out, and spent all that money and want more but they are not willing to cut spending because that would be beneath their dignity.

I say screw the entire country. Let em starve or get off the pot and serve as an example for the rest of the lazy-assed liberal world.

You mean evil man. Won't you think of the children? The poor innocent children... SmileWavy

I absolutely guarantee you no one will starve in Greece.

And you shouldn't really judge a nation by the stupid comments of a few. ;)

They spent their children's, grand children's, and great grand children's tax dollars on themselves, before most of them were even born.

My grandparents told me a few stories of living through the great depression. There were of course no government checks or programs at all. My grandfather on my dad's side said he was lucky because he was working at a local meat processing plant, Armor & Cos. One day they had a company wide announcement. There was just not enough work to keep everyone on the work force full time. They just went to alternating shifts. My grandfather just had to share his job with another guy. They would work every other day. Of course that means your paycheck is just 1/2 of before and he was making pennies per hour for hard physical work in HOT stinky conditions.

My mom's dad was real lucky. He had a job at the post office so he was on the government payroll and did not have to worry about reduced hours or layoffs.

They just went without a lot of things.

I can't imagine how they survived. I have been flat out dead broke without enough money to buy any food except rice and potatoes. No alcohol, no dates, only what was necessary to live. I never went without insurance or a place to live. I have only been unemployed for four working days since I was a junior in high school.

Unfortunately, history has shown all to often that when the "insert name here" administsration has "reformed" any part of our financial system, the law of unintended consequences has eventually appeared with a vengeance. i.e. allowing S&L's to venture into commercial lending caused the great S&L meltdown and housing bust in the Southwest during the 80's. That bust led eventually to changes in financial regs in the 90's allowing investment banks and other to-big-to-fail businesses (AIG) to eventually nearly bring down the entire financial system.

The 2008 collapse may or may not have been a 100 year event (that remains to be seen) but the groundwork for it was laid in the 1980's when the S&L's went away...

And it was the fault of MULTIPLE administrations and Multiple laws. If we blame Bubba, then we must also blame the congress that was with him at the time. If we blame W, then we must blame the leaders in congress in 2007-2008.

So have you! As well as every American, in that Americans are like Wimpy eating a Hamburger everyday since 1968 with the promise to pay back the SS and Medicare Trust Funds next Tuesday.

So what kind of payment plan would you like to have MR Legion to payback your governmental debt of roughly 125,000,000,000,000.00 USD? When can we expect your check?

There are a number of people on this Board who are mostly of a Conservative bent who have lived prudently and have saved their money. However some of those people are sanctimonious in that they have lived more prosperously (as a society) than they would have otherwise if the US government did not go so deeply into debt. In other words they wouldn't quiet have what they have now. U might say that they managed their own affairs quiet well but failed in their social responsibility to watch the public Treasury largely because the gravy was so rich. Now unfortunately the handwriting is writ large on the wall that the Wimpy Burger bill is coming due and they, their children and grandchildren will be saddled with that burden.

The answer for Mr Legion is like that of Greece's we can't repay the debt. Unfortunately it does not make the consequences of their previous action any less onerous.

How many quotes should I review before judging? They are all over the web, including some from the gubmint saying the exact same thing.
IIRC the vote result was 61.31 % against ....... so it could very well be possible that 38% of the people there are NOT greedy spoiled idiots.

IOW loan us a bunch more money, but write off the debt at The same time.
So basically, don't loan us anything, just GIVE IT TO US!
And next year when we run out of your money, GIVE US MORE!

For most of your interpretations your time lines are too short. LBJ started the spending binge with his "Guns and Butter" policies in the mid 1960's from which we are still not free of. By the late 1970's under the Carter administration the problems with the American economy were coming home to roost in a big way. The American people did not like to be told that they should put on a sweater so Mr Chaarter was clobbered in the 1980 election by the perennial optimist Mr R Reagan. Under Mr R Reagan America entered into a feel good about yourself "New Morning" in America. During which time American companies cleaned out the deadwood bureaucracy of decades to become lean and mean competitive. However Mr R Reagan was unable to deal with the structural malaise or dark side of the American economy due to his own tumultuous childhood of having an Alcoholic father. He could not bear to deal with the negative anymore. It was during this period that the seeds were sown for what we have become today. Which could basically be said to be kick the can down the road with ever bigger bubble economies to maintain the illusion of prosperity. This illusion came to an abrupt end the moment GW Bush came on the TV and said, "Folks we have to pass the TARP cause the economy is about to melt down." The response was, SAY WHAT???? What do you mean the economy is about to melt down, I thought.....!!!! That moment ended the Great American WW2 Prosperity Bubble. Now as much as they try and apply the same old remedies that seemed to work so well for decades* they can not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.



*Those remedies only seemed to work as the USA was in a the midst of a great prosperity bubble. It is like thinking you are a financial wizard because you make a lot of money during a RE boom period. When in fact you are but a one trick pony and when the music stops you are pressed to come up with a new trick. But instead of a new trick you keep trying to rely on the old and now dysfunctional methodology because it seemed to work before. Which eventually leads you further into the hole until........

The American people generally know the economy ain't so good, that the politicians are trying to put lipstick on the pig or are promising that they can purty up the critter if only they is elected. Truth is that this is it, the brave new normal. One just wonders what would happen when they stop juicing the system with fake money and artificially low interest rates?

You see the FED maintained street credibility when they "Tapered off" QE3. If they did not do that there is no telling where we would be today? I would bet it wouldn't be very purty though.

What Reaganites don't like to be reminded of is that when American corporations became lean and mean competitive during his administration. It was Lower and Middle management jobs that were eliminated. That means Middle Class jobs went the way of the dinosaurs. Then during the 1990's with the wide spread advent of the PC most of the Clerical jobs went by the by and with NAFTA in the early 90's it just became cheaper to go to Mexico for manufacturing. The jobs that were created under Clinton were largely service orientatated jobs> "Would you like to Super Size those fries sir?" Under GW the economic recovery was led by RE construction which was 16% of the US economy. The problem came when the WS Boyz decided to keep the music playing for too long cause the gravy they was makin was so sweet that they lost sight of the ground.

Do ya see how all of this stuff weaves together?

To quote the bard, "there is a tide in the affairs of men...."

The Greeks are the canary in the coal mine in my opinion, their historical governments just sucked the big one, lied to get into the EU, happily took and squandered the funds that the eurocrats shovelled at them, all to buy nicer "stuff" and easier lifestyle...and, oh yes, spare the children from ever having a bad day.

Sound familiar in most countries?

The only difference in my mind between us and them is that their largesse with other people's money was shoved at them via the EU - who bears blame for that? Those who offered money to a country that did not have the economy to bear the debt or those who took it?

Good heavens, what kind of banker offers a gazillion dollars on what the government says? Oh. Wait. All of them...

Greece admits deficit figures were fudged to secure euro entry - Europe - World - The Independent

Pretty well every country, with few exceptions, have ran up debt over the last 30+ years, borrowing from our kids to make life easy now and guess what? TANSTAAFL!

I must admit I am spending an undue amount of time figuring out what I can do to avoid falling into a large black hole, wondering what is possible because we too often forget the other side of the debt. If the Greeks default...that means somebody, somewhere is not going to get back the money they put into the bank (or government) and which in turn was lent via bond to the Greeks.

Somebodies pockets will be emptier....and since in this case the bulk of the debt is held by the EU, mainly Germany ...read the BeeB on that, scroll down to the bottom to see where the debt is held.

Greece debt crisis: Creditors press for new proposals - BBC News

But a number of banks are also got their nuts in the vise......

I am starting to think that the spinoff effects of having to swallow what appears to be an offer of a further 30% haircut (not enough...the Greeks need at least 50% to be viable) will whack Merkel right in her virtual balls.

Ain't going to do much good to any other government leader who participated in this fiasco either.

And the really, really cute part? Whatever haircut the Greeks get will get replicated in all the other EU members who should have never joined.

And that'll hurt more than a little bit.

Dennis

James, agree 100%.. the blame for everything is usually laid at the foot of the "president" whose watch something happened on yet whatever crisis happens is always a joint effort spread across multiple administrations and congresses .

I dare say that most if not all of these problems would have been avoided by having strict, lifetime term limits in place in order to prevent perpetual campaigning for reelection by our elected officials and the short-term thinking ("only as far as the next election") that goes with it. Let's leave that kind of short-term thinking for corporations (most of them only think ahead as far as the next quarterly report). We should expect more from government. Getting rid of a culture where people can't take political risk in the interest of standing up for some principles (because they might not get reelected!) is what the doctor orders.

Start there. We need (badly) two Constitutional Amendments - one requiring a balanced budget and another establishing a hard-and-fast limit on how many years someone can work for government - whether as an elected official or an employee / bureaucrat. No more lifetime government workers seeking only an (unsustainable) pension. That would help a LOT with this kind of stuff.

"The biggest tragedy of the Obama administration (and oddly the one most people don't seem to notice or care about) is the totally squandered opportunity to meaningfully reform our currency and banking system in wake of the once-in-a-hundred-years event that was the 2008 collapse / housing bubble implosion."

A lot of people noticed. Republicans and conservatives were dead set against the administration meddling with the "free market" and opposed every effort. What we got was a watered-down Dodd-Frank bill that still isn't fully enacted. It would have been great for our country if republicans had recognized the problem and gotten behind banking and financial reform.

WD

When Dodd-Frank was passed, didn't Obama and the Democrats control both the House and the Senate? And looking at Wikipedia, it looks like the final version got Ds and Rs voting for it. So what are you rambling about?

simple fact is Clinton left a surplus that would have paid off the debt that the neo-cons used to bomb Iraq. Squandered our hard earned money on their dirty little war.