Blast from the past: Great Depression, then and now.

[Deja Q]

http://www.alkalizeforhealth.net/Ldebtclock.htm



Debt came down during the depression in the 1930's due to defaults. It was not repaid. The lenders lost the money. Banks and businesses closed. Unemployment soared. Real estate values plummeted as people lost their homes.

Alkalize For Health notes that interest on debt is not a cost of doing business. Rather, it is a cost of financing. A business without debt may succeed where an identical business with debt may fail, due to the burden of interest charges. Debt destabilizes the economy. Debt accelerates growth during good times and accelerates bankruptcy during recessions. Therefore, for a more stable economy, Alkalize For Health recommends that interest expense on all forms of debt no longer be tax deductible when calculating income taxes.

Site has more info.

Aren't you glad the US government is being ran like a business? Just how Reagan must've wanted as he ran it the same way?

The World Loses Confidence in America

The U.S. dollar has fallen in value more than 40% during the past few years relative to the Eurodollar. The decline continues and international investors who hold $4.6 trillion in U.S. treasury bills, corporate bonds and stocks are starting to panic. The massive U.S. Federal deficit and the equally massive U.S. trade deficit both conspire toward even lower value for the U.S. dollar.

"And never forget: When foreign investors are selling, they're not just selling the currency. They're selling all the investments they bought with the currency — stocks, bonds, private businesses, real estate, and more." - Dr. Martin Weiss, November 8, 2004.

Average Americans "don't connect the dots between the dollar's decline overseas and a declining purchasing power of the dollar at home ... between the threat to the dollar and the threat to the entire economy ... between the dire threat to the economy and an equally dire threat to the fabric of society." - Dr. Martin Weiss, February 9, 2004.

Whew boy. How great is offshoring now, y'all? Offshoring has been whittling away at our strength, like it or not. May as well like it, for we have no other choice.

Foreigners hold massive quantities of U.S. dollars and the value of the U.S. dollar is declining. When foreigners start to dump their dollars by exchanging them for other currencies or gold, then the value of the U.S. dollar may collapse precipitously. A rapidly falling U.S. dollar may force the Fed to increase interest rates even if it is reluctant to do so.

Gates already converted his "wealth" from the dollar to the Euro... pity most folks still calculate his wealth in dollars. They aren't dollars as much as they are a conversion to the dollar.

The world petrochemical supply and demand balance is becoming precarious. Within the next few years (probably starting in 2010), and possibly coinciding with a very deep recession in the United States, world petrochemical supply may begin to decline substantially. Meanwhile, world consumption of petrochemicals is increasing steadily. As soon as demand exceeds supply (estimated to happen in 2005), petrochemical prices will rise dramatically and continue to rise as global oil supplies dwindle. The 1970's oil price shock caused stagflation in the U.S. economy. The coming oil crisis will be much worse than the world experienced in the 1970's and will be permanent, unless the world learns how to live without petrochemicals.

Getting there?

2. How can you live if you are unemployed? Look for ways to diversify your income or live on less income. Don't expect help from the government.

:rofl: How does one live on "less than zero"? :dunce:

3. Everyone needs to eat. Plant a garden so at least you have food. If you do not have a yard, why not create some window boxes, or plant something indoors, or grow sprouts in your kitchen? Each square food of garden is precious. Divide your small garden into square feet and plant something different in each. Lettuce is a good plant to grow. It is highly nutritious and matures faster than most other vegetables. Practice vertical gardening so you can use your wall space. Trees on your boulevard should produce nuts (walnuts, etc.) or other edibles. All vegetation around your home should serve multiple purposes (food, wind break, shade, fuel, mulch, compost, etc.). Learn to maximize the nutritional value of food that you purchase. Money spent on nutritionless edible substances is money wasted. Plus, store enough dried food in your home to keep you going for several years. (Remember the story in the bible about seven good years followed by seven bad years? Well the United States has had more than 60 good years and the bad times may be just beginning.) It is amazing the feeling of security that comes from having a cupboard filled with dried foods.

And how long will a garden last come harvest time? Two days for the average swatch of land? We all don't own multiple acres of land.

And protecting all that dried food... and getting water for it. The writer is as simplistic as Daffy Duck.

5. Actively support and implement measures that will move the economy and your personal situation away from dependence on petrochemicals. Make your home and community self-sufficient for as many of its needs as possible.

(speaking for America:) Sorry, that sale at malwart was much more interesting...

The time may soon come when personal and corporate bankruptcy may be a crime. If you borrow money and do not repay it, you may be given the opportunity to repay your debt by means of forced labour in a prison camp.

Anybody else not shocked?

Who is REALLY responsible for the U.S. National Debt?

1. The American oil companies for many decades have avoided paying income taxes on profits from importing oil. They do this by means of illegal transfer pricing, aided by corrupt officials in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This helps explain why about 50% of the world's wealth is now concentrated in tax havens and low tax jurisdictions.

A clean-up of the IRS followed by a proper accounting of oil profits, plus appropriate penalties for late payment of taxes and fines for tax evasion should yield enough money to balance the national budget and pay off most of the national debt.

2. An objective inquiry into vote fraud and corruption in American politics would reveal that most members of congress and the president represent a wealthy elite, not the American people. Therefore, it can be argued that the national debt is the responsibility of this wealthy elite.

Dang.

Fort Knox is Empty

Fort Knox is not open to public inspection, but in May 2001, the U.S. Mint reclassified 94% of the total U.S. gold stock as being in "Deep Storage". "Deep Storage" means the gold is in the form of mineral deposits deep in the earth.

Virtually all the physical gold formerly held by the U.S. Treasury Department is gone. It has been loaned to "bullion banks" who sold it on the open market. The gold loans will never be repaid. A portion of the gold was used to depress the market price, and the remainder of the gold was purchased at this depressed price by insiders. The gold is now in private vaults around the world. It is the heist of the century.

U.S. gold reserves have not been independently audited since 1971.

Double dang. But if this means loand will not be repaid, what about all that juicy talk of forced labor camps? :D Dig up Reagan's bones now, y'all. He and the wealthy elite got some work to do.

[Warpy]

1. What caused the Depression was the evaporation of paper profit

that left the working and middle classes with nothing but the debt they'd leveraged against all that paper. People said the money disappeared overnight, leaving people with what they had in the house. When they went to the bank to withdraw savings, they were turned away because the banks were also unsound and floating on a sea of debt that they'd lent to their customers on the value of their paper holdings in the stock market. People who had been quite comfortably off, driving their Model As and hiring household help found themselves nearly destitute. They took the consumer base with them, and as stores stopped selling, they stopped hiring and started firing. That went all through the economy and unemployment skyrocketed.

We're very close to that happening now. All we need is for the paper profit people are using to back up consumer debt to vanish from housing. It doesn't have to vanish much, just the last 5 years of it will do. People will still be able to take their money out of the bank for a while, but soon those credit card bills they're not paying off quickly enough will come due, and they may find those bank accounts garnished. Read the provisions of that new bankruptcy law. People who have decent jobs will keep nothing unless they can persuade the courts to allow them protection, a lengthy and expensive process few will be able to cope with.

Make no mistake, the stock market may have wiped out paper profits for a lot of people, but it was their debt that wiped out the consumer market and the loss of the consumer market that caused the Great Depression. We are in grave danger of repeating all that if housing prices fall.

This time we won't be able to borrow and spend our way out of it.

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. D'oh!

"An objective inquiry into vote fraud and corruption in American politics would reveal that most members of congress and the president represent the wealthy elite, not the American people. Therefore, it can be argued that the national debt is the responsibility of this wealthy elite." Ahyup.

[EVDebs]

3. Debt payable to already wealthiest 1 and 1/2% and foreign interests

As your dollar's value sinks slowly into the area of worthlessness, look on the bright side: all those manufacturing jobs will HAVE to come home since the dollar will be worth what deutschmarks were in Weimar Germany !

[Igel]

4. No comment on most of the post, but I doubt a definition.

'"Deep Storage" means the gold is in the form of mineral deposits deep in the earth.'

It's a pity he didn't cite a reference for his (her?) definition. I mean it sounds nice, and appears to be subversive information. But it should have some grounding.

http://www.fms.treas.gov/gold/current.html
'Deep Storage: Deep-Storage gold is the portion of the U.S. government-owned Gold Bullion Reserve that the U.S. Mint secures in sealed vaults, which are examined annually by the Department of Treasury's Office of the Inspector General. Deep-Storage gold comprises the vast majority of the Reserve and consists primarily of gold bars. This portion was formerly called "Bullion Reserve" or "Custodial Gold Bullion Reserve."'