Mother of all Bubbles...

[Javaman]

What if It Was All Just a Big Bubble?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/195390-what-if-it-was-all-just-a-big-bubble

One of the things that many people go through their entire lives without ever realizing is that conditions haven't always been the way they remember them to be. Due to the length of a typical lifetime and the number of those years that individuals are productive, it's reasonable to think that someone in their mid-60s could retire today and look back at the last 40 years only to conclude that what they just experienced was normal.

But, what if the last 40 years were anything but normal?

What if, in the world of finance and economics, it was all just a big bubble?

Much more at link...

[leeroysphitz]

1. An oil bubble. n/t

[Ozymanithrax]

An oil civilization, with everything we have based upon oil as a energy source.

Oil go by by. Civilization go boom.

[leeroysphitz]

7. Right. Nothing about the last 100 years of human civilization has been "normal".

EVERYTHING we have in the U.S. is dependent on cheap oil.

(apologies to the OP for the thread-jacking)

[arcadian]

2. "individuals are productive"

This line reduces human beings to machinery.

[The2ndWheel]

9. Standardized, interchangeable, easily replaced

From the richest, to the poorest. Every last one of us.

[Ozymanithrax]

3. Yes, government have created bubbles to give the illusion of prosperity.

[Speck Tater]

4. Just like people thinking that the climate of the last 2,000 years is "normal".

Our climate has been unbelievably stable over the last few thousand years. When it goes back to the REAL normal all of the civilized world is in for a very rude shock.

[raccoon]

5. I can remember whenmost people thought the prosperity of the 1950's and 1960's was

"normal."

Those days are gone with the wind.....

[dmallind]

6. I stopped reading at the laughable idiocy that "closing the gold window"

destroyed any "last vestiges of sound money".

The wild frothing over a bit of shiny metal as if it were anything of real value is the sure sign of a diseased mind. Gold has value for EXACTLY the same reasons a bit of green paper does - because we agree to it. Nothing more or less. Gold's intrinsic worth as a reasonable conductor is moot, as more abundant materials do an even better job.

[hunter]

8. Gold would make pretty good ammunition.

It's dense, soft, and less toxic than lead.

People would also tend to think twice before pulling the trigger.

I think we should ban toxic lead and tungsten ammunition and replace it all with gold.

Save the California Condor! Reduce gun crimes! Ban cheap toxic metal ammunition!

[Javaman]

10. That's pretty much what I have always said.

Gun control is useless. Let them buy as many as they want, but raise the price of the ammo to 100 bucks a bullet.

Then let's see how often they are willing to go on a shooting spree.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. K & R

This is an excellent article.

I only take exception with the idea that it has been a real bubble. I think it's because the productivity of the American worker has increased so much over that time. In other words, labor exploitation rather than inflation.

--d!

[zipplewrath]

12. Bubble is the wrong word

He seems to be talking more of a "house of cards". That it is an unsustainable structure that is about to collapse.

I think that is a tad unlikely. Bubbles burst because there is an inappropriate cost for an item. It's the "stretched too thin" problem. The "burst" is the cost contracts back to a more "justifiable" value. This article seems to be talking more about the concern that our economic structure would collapse, preventing markets from functioning at all.

I'm dubious. I think we may have some bad news some day in terms of "growth" and what folks can reasonable expect from a world economy. And there are some shifts coming from changes in energy prices, fresh water supplies, and global climate changes. But that isn't so much a collapse as a slamming on the breaks.