United States Heading towards a Depression?

It will also push the middle class down further. What do all the third world countries have in common? No middle class. No buffer zone between the rich and the poor.

 

I guess it depends how much 'system' money is left in the system. For instance here in Australia, we are wage-garnered our superannuation by-law and this goes into future-funds such as the CFDs, shares & other schemes aimed at maximising profits, but this also guarantees there's plenty of system money too. So, if 'mum & dad' investors make up only 5% and system funds like that make up for 95% of the floats then it can't fall too far can it? This is already trillions of system money working solely for the system and provides a certain level of funding and not so far to fall. That's money that is there for the long run and provides a certain level of surety though I have no idea how much the real %s are. In essence doing that skews the sharemarkets towards impossible-to-fail in the end, of course depending on the % amount of 'system' money is involved.

 

She is our governments and we are the dog.

 

Highest unemployment rates August 2011
El Centro, Calif. 32.4
Yuma, Ariz. 29.4
Merced, Calif. 17.5
Yuba City, Calif. 17.0
Stockton, Calif. 16.1
Modesto, Calif. 16.0
Fresno, Calif. 15.8
Visalia-Porterville, Calif. 15.7
Hanford-Corcoran, Calif. 15.3
Palm Coast, Fla. 14.9


Thats right, baby! 8 out of 10! Beat that!

Thank god our governor is on it! At this very moment, he may be signing a law that allows the consideration of race and gender as part of the admissions process to our UC campuses. Reintroducing racism to our state schools, in conflict to the state constitution should solve our economic woes!

 

Yep, unemployment is terrible. I stated earlier that "smart people" will prepare. But here is actually what is going to be happening in economies in developed countries. It is from Seth Godin :

Here is the link if you want to read it all : LINK

 

This video is called "Gold Stupidity".

[video=youtube;aWyrjwXoIqA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWyrjwXoIqA[/video]​

 

omg are you serious?

 

LoL, now that was funny! Anyone here taking that stance as legit?

 

Yupp I sold my Gold and bought peanuts!! Now I have 4 trucks full of peanuts, I'm gonna be richhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

 

Ironic, that top 10 cities in the US that have the highest POLLUTION, are also on the Left Coast of California.

 

Are those peanuts backed by beer?

 

That's exactly the point. Alessio Rastani, the guy in that video, is making the point that the U.S. economy is set up so that companies like Goldman Sachs can make ridiculous amounts of money in a downturn. And now they have President Obama who is a complete tool for Goldman Sachs, they can make as much money as they want.

Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is bravely introducing a bill to take care of our trade imbalance and impose import tariffs to prevent China's currency manipulation. So far, Geithner and Obama seem to be against it (because China and Goldman don't want it). They haven't concocted a plausible public reason why they are against it yet.

 

With your luck there'll be a rush on monkeys.

I watched an Enron collapse documentary earlier today and was flabberghasted at the brokers laughing about earthquakes and world turmoil. Absolutely floored me after seeing how they took over your power companies and stopped power plants from operating for a few days so they could profit big time whilst many states went without power. Left me wondering how the f*ck yous let it get to that or how nothing's been done to reclaim them? Surely it's time to buy back the utilities or have government stopping the billions handed over in earmarks and putting it towards new public owned stuff instead. Private companies (corporations) have shown they just make everything much worse, and there's NO accountability.

 

Well, Bush, that's the problem we face today. Watch Dylan Ratigan (4pm on MSNBC) and you can see the only serious discussion on large corporations and their influence on politics.

The crux is, you can't legislate morality. You can't build a government system that works only where politicians are expected to do "the right thing". I've heard it explained that the difference between the two parties is that the Republicans are the smart crooks and rarely get caught, while the Democrats are the stupid crooks that handle their bungling crimes with black P.R. In the wise words of Bill Clinton, "If a system can be 'gamed', it will"

Enron is an example of, when the business model has no checks and balances for morality, the inmates always end up running the asylum. Upper management had no idea the traders were turning off California's power, and by the time they did they needed those crimes to survive.

 

And that's the crux of it. We don't want to lose personal freedoms so we have checks and balances on our privacy. That gives an open invitation to say now any "private mob" has the right to those same freedoms, which makes them unaccountable for many things they do.

If they build a huge corporation, by doing things against the law, even if they're discovered, all that happens is the head honcho gets the flick, possibly might get jail and that's the end of it. The organisation is still free to keep plundering with it's ill-gotten gains. No accountability beyond a few of the execs going to jail.

We do have a lot more transparency in government actions (mostly) as there's a trail we can usually follow and there's rules in place that keep the bastards honest. At least if they're caught out it's the government who profits from the situation rather than just a few highly paid execs. That's why I often argue for even more transparency in government and often find it incredible people don't want that to happen, though it is possible it's mainly the corporates stopping that from happening too.

 

No beer, they are backed by Bananas..

If peanuts fail, bananas will do...

 

Buy crude oil, backed by a global economy that can't function without it. If oil ever becomes worthless, it'll be the least of your worries put it that way.

 

Actually, those business need to be put into the hands of the people. Having them in the hands of a small group of bankers is not helping the average Joe. They have been hiking the prices and enslaving the world for decades. If oil ever becomes worthless, it will benefit mankind. It use to be around 19 cents a gallon.

 

appreciated

 

No it won't benefit anybody if oil becomes worthless, it'll be because there's no economy left. It'll be consumed even faster the cheaper it gets, western countries will lose out because all the under developed economies of the world will now be able to start going through their own industrial revolution. America, Europe and other high developed Asian countries will be left high and dry. The competition for it will increase, because there will be more available buyers in the market.

Oil is priced high because we've reached peak production, demands already outweighs supply. Oil is simply measured and priced by it's demand and the supply in the market, Oil has been going up because of all the conflict in the middle east in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya and Egypt etc. Oil is always correctly priced, you pay more for a barrel of spring water than you do for crude oil. I think it's to cheap.

There's also not such thing as worthless, everything has a value, monetary or not. Oil itself is a currency, there's a lot of things that are brought and sold with oil in the open market.