machinehead Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Martin Hutchinson, UPI Business and Economics editor, has published a savagely bearish essay that talks plainly about the stakes here: escaping from depression. The timing was brilliant -- published the evening before the horrible Chicago PMI and Conference Board con-con data. Escaping From Depression A brief excerpt: The examples above, from four different countries in three different eras and situations, show what must be done. The U.S. dollar must be allowed to decline ... after which a tight money policy must be instituted ... Public spending must be put on the tightest of leashes ... Taxes must on no account be increased ... Most important, in order to avoid a 1930s style collapse of world trade, protectionist actions, such as 2002's steel anti-dumping duties and increase in farm subsidies, must be avoided completely ... This is a brilliant and erudite presentation of the bearish case -- highly recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregFokker Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Top drawer, MH- good find! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bearman Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 MH the last words were the death card "Unfortunately, neither the President nor any of his Democrat challengers are offering anything like such a program. The period from 2005-15 is thus likely to be a long, cold decade." free everything hello socialism Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkst27 Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 "The period from 2005-15 is thus likely to be a long, cold decade." oh yeah? I bet I can top that... "The Olduvai 'slide' from 2001 to 2011 (Figure 4) may resemble the "Great Depression" of 1929 to 1939: unemployment, breadlines, and homelessness. As for the Olduvai 'cliff' from 2012 to 2030 ? I know of no precedent in human history." dieoff.com, written in 2000 looks like the bears are going on a loooooooong touchdown drive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roidrage Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 Great writing: "the undertow towards decline is ferocious' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sigmoidoscope Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 I just love this quote from that article by Hutchinson. It shows the true nature of this late stage Ponzi scheme. An article in TheStreet.com last week detailed Cisco's share repurchase plans, that have devoted the company's entire cash flow since 2000 simply to keeping the number of shares outstanding constant in the face of massive stock option issuance. This demonstrates that for even the strongest companies involved in the 1990s tech boom, funny accounting continues to play an all too prominent role in reported earnings, so that price-earnings ratios, already high in nominal terms, are in real terms astronomical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machinehead Posted September 30, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 oh yeah? I bet I can top that... "The Olduvai 'slide' from 2001 to 2011 (Figure 4) may resemble the "Great Depression" of 1929 to 1939: unemployment, breadlines, and homelessness. As for the Olduvai 'cliff' from 2012 to 2030 ? I know of no precedent in human history." dieoff.com, written in 2000 looks like the bears are going on a loooooooong touchdown drive WHOA ... mjk! Byline at the top of your link: "Richard C. Duncan, Ph.D" Is that OUR Richard Duncan -- distinguished author of The Dollar Crisis? Or his evil-twin doppelganger, who as 'bad cop' admits that the system can't be saved? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkst27 Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 oh yeah? I bet I can top that... "The Olduvai 'slide' from 2001 to 2011 (Figure 4) may resemble the "Great Depression" of 1929 to 1939: unemployment, breadlines, and homelessness. As for the Olduvai 'cliff' from 2012 to 2030 ? I know of no precedent in human history." dieoff.com, written in 2000 looks like the bears are going on a loooooooong touchdown drive ? ? WHOA ... mjk! Byline at the top of your link: "Richard C. Duncan, Ph.D" Is that OUR Richard Duncan -- distinguished author of The Dollar Crisis? Or his evil-twin doppelganger, who as 'bad cop' admits that the system can't be saved? I noticed that as well when I tried to do google searches for OUR Richard Duncan. I got mostly hits for Richard C. Duncan the industrial civilization bear. I wonder if The Richard Duncan clan from the old country was this bearish ahead of the Dark Ages Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machinehead Posted September 30, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 From mjkst27's link by Richard C. Duncan: The "cliff" is the final interval in the Olduvai schema. It begins with the 7th event in 2012 (Note 7) when an epidemic of permanent blackouts spreads worldwide, i.e. first there are waves of brownouts and temporary blackouts, then finally the electric power networks themselves expire. Jean Hegland has written a compelling fictional visualization of the "Cliff": Into The Forest This novel has the trancelike surreality of Cold Mountain. The author leads you deeper and deeper into a familiar-yet-strange future, where rumors emerge that "the power came back on, back East" and "the flights may be starting again soon," but are never confirmed. In the shocking conclusion, she and her sister go native in a stunning way. This is one of the most influential books I ever read. Highly, highly recommended as "bearish Stoolie fiction." (I wrote the Customer Review dated Jan. 16, 2003.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phatbubble Posted September 30, 2003 Report Share Posted September 30, 2003 oh yeah? I bet I can top that... "The Olduvai 'slide' from 2001 to 2011 (Figure 4) may resemble the "Great Depression" of 1929 to 1939: unemployment, breadlines, and homelessness. As for the Olduvai 'cliff' from 2012 to 2030 ? I know of no precedent in human history." dieoff.com, written in 2000 looks like the bears are going on a loooooooong touchdown drive intensely sobering. casts the alt-energy patent-denial hijinx on behalf of Big Energy in a shortsighted, petulant, and grossly misanthropic light. damn. imagine the lights go off and......well, and that's it. now it's dark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sphinxter Posted October 1, 2003 Report Share Posted October 1, 2003 oh yeah? I bet I can top that... "The Olduvai 'slide' from 2001 to 2011 (Figure 4) may resemble the "Great Depression" of 1929 to 1939: unemployment, breadlines, and homelessness. As for the Olduvai 'cliff' from 2012 to 2030 ? I know of no precedent in human history." dieoff.com, written in 2000 looks like the bears are going on a loooooooong touchdown drive MH - great link. The parts about this whole escapade that I am really enjoying are that it's really fun to: a) be alive to be part of it watch the edifice crumble, article by article, as though it were the great wall of China shedding 2 blocks every second c) stand 3 steps back like an anthropologist to witness a truly great social experiment It's starling to me how slowly comprehension penetrates at the mass level. I still ahve no explanation for the process. Mysterious and intriguing. The part that makes me grieve is thinking through the fact that humanity was blessed with ~150 years of free energy, but wasted it on frivolous things. Soccer across town for each kid. Plastic baubles from China. Flying to Cancun for $89. Military recklessness. What a waste. Better that we would have been able to operate a simple calculator and realize that this blessed gift was extremely limited in duration and that we had but very limited time to utilize it to create a sustainable technology and societal base for ourselves. At this rate, the most likely proposition is that we simply run out and experience a mass dieoff coupled to a severe backwardation of progress. Future societies, such as they are, may well wonder at the mystery of an 8088 chip and wonder what the hell it is, what it does, and how you might make it should you be so inclined. How they will figure out how to transform silicon into efficient solar cells is beyond me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkst27 Posted October 1, 2003 Report Share Posted October 1, 2003 oh yeah? I bet I can top that... "The Olduvai 'slide' from 2001 to 2011 (Figure 4) may resemble the "Great Depression" of 1929 to 1939: unemployment, breadlines, and homelessness. As for the Olduvai 'cliff' from 2012 to 2030 ? I know of no precedent in human history." dieoff.com, written in 2000 looks like the bears are going on a loooooooong touchdown drive intensely sobering. casts the alt-energy patent-denial hijinx on behalf of Big Energy in a shortsighted, petulant, and grossly misanthropic light. damn. imagine the lights go off and......well, and that's it. now it's dark. sobering, certainly. Not a done deal by any means. While not out of the question, I'd put Duncan's possible history on the bearish end of the bell curve, a couple sigma from the mean. Gotta have hope I tried to email Duncan to ask him to explain one or two things a bit better, but the email address listed in the article was no goodski. I specifically want to know how he did the "42:39 becomes 99:1 math". If he's gonna be hyperbearish (hmmmm hyperbearish chamber?), at least put the math in 5th grade terms so there is no ambiguity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FauxCaster Posted October 1, 2003 Report Share Posted October 1, 2003 I have faith in Hari Seldon's plan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuantumOnion Posted October 1, 2003 Report Share Posted October 1, 2003 I have faith in Hari Seldon's plan. lazAsimov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThorAss Posted October 1, 2003 Report Share Posted October 1, 2003 I have faith in Hari Seldon's plan. The real question is why this has never been made into a series of movies that would make Star Wars look like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. They could start with Foundation working their way through that throughout the early depression before going back to The Caves of Steel or something like that and renumber all the episodes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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