Thoughts on the financial crisis - IS THE WORLD ENDING?

[smoth]

Oh cool, insane theories with no basis. Why the fuck did you link me to a youtube video titled "First contact"? What the hell is yet to happen to myself "on a subconscious level"?

xenu

[manored]

We need to restrict it at parties and in bed too, one of the problems of the world is that poor people have too much children :)

At least they do, you should blame the rich and smart instead for not having children. there's nothign to stop them from breeding like rabbits too but I guess intelligence like that is an evoutionary dead-end because you're too busy making money with your smarts to ensure the survival of your genes.

If everbody breeds like rabbits wont take long until we need to send rockets filled with babies to space :)

Trying to guess then the world will end is pointless, first, because the fact that some ancient teories happen to coincide at a date doesnt means anything, there is a HUGE number of failed previous attempts... secondly because it wont change the way we live our lives, nor we have to make any preparations if the world will end.

"the minimum of 3 of your 24 hour periods"... so the aliens know what is an hour, but not what is a day? Thats sounds like an failed attempt to make a sentence sound more alien :)

[Jasper1984]

If everbody breeds like rabbits wont take long until we need to send rockets filled with babies to space :)

I agree, population growth simply will stop, either the easy way, or the hard way. Cleverness can only delay it a little.
Also, as for dumb people reproducing more, the genetic future of mankind might well eventually be something of concern. I think stuff like in-vitro are insane... If we keep that up, there will be people with inherited infertility.

[smoth]

don't quote mannered, then I have to read his idiotic wannabe philosophical crap.

[manored]

don't quote mannered, then I have to read his idiotic wannabe philosophical crap.

Please pm me with your hatred, keep it outside innocent threads

I think we dont have to worry about human evolution, our intelligence is growing at a rate that makes our evolution irrelevant since we will, for example, be able to edit our DNA far before we evolve into some other species :)

[Jasper1984]

be able to edit our DNA far before we evolve into some other species :)

Yes, that is basically what i meant. And we have to deal with the consequences for that. It interests me that this has implications that people who think we should stay natural and allow anyone to give birth imply that they will allow the human race to a bunch of handicaps. Similarly, people who are for many big families, imply that a either large part whole population should either suffer from famine, or some other catastrophy or that we should kill each other so we can keep breeding. Its like they do not understand the finiteness of the Earth. (Or the solar system, or the galaxy, or the speed of light.. whatever, one of those limits will be hit if our population would continuously grow.)

[manored]

I just remembered something that my history teacher once told the class: Wars usually happen then the involved countries are getting too crowded :)

[SpliFF]

Having just read this thread through I now understand the reason for the financial collapse much better. Who would have known it was the work of those greedy communist, philosophical, mind-controlling, poor, over-sexed aliens buying New York condos. It all makes sense now! Wow my brain just grew!

Seriously, this isn't anything new. America had what, a $40 trillion dollar foreign debt, and that was BEFORE Bush? Now it's like $60 trillion or something.

See this 2007 USA Today article Rules 'hiding' trillions in debt

"Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined."

Ignore the comments below the article, it's just the usual religo-political idiots arguing philosphy. It wouldn't matter which party was in power. History shows neither party solved the problem when they had the chance.

This is not simply about houses, it's about credit in general. Americans have been living on credit for years. The crash was always going to come and the ONLY uncertainty about that was WHEN. Personally I find the timing, a few months out from a close election, somewhat suspicious. Seriously, why does a crisis that was 20 years in the making need a resolution within a week? Probably because of what people have been saying all along, the baillout, like the Bush tax-cuts, is just for the rich and well-connected.

I really can't read this any other way, it's welfare for millionaires.

[Zpock]

Not really, read the next segment:

Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities. State and local government retirement plans account for much of the rest.

Basically, this is just saying that government funded retirement etc is just a big pyramid scheme, not that the US government managed to spend all that money on stuff. If you trust the government to pay your retirement, oh well lets just say you could be smart and save up yourself instead. Perhaps not in the governments toy money either.

[SpliFF]

No you're right, the other piece of the puzzle is retirement pensions and the aging population putting pressure on the health system. These burdens were predictable (WERE predicted I should say) but that didn't stop governments spending the money they knew would be needed to pay for it. The point is this crash was a surprise to absolutely nobody except optimists and idiots. It doesn't take a genius to realise that you can't keep spending other peoples money forever without paying for it somehow. Even stealing wealth from other nations is going to hurt in the end.

America is mostly in denial, a beggar living in a mansion. This crisis is only being averted by borrowing more money so it isn't being solved, merely delayed a few more years, by digger a deeper hole. Delayed just long enough for all the current investors, bankers and older politicians to get their payouts and retire; long enough for the public to forget again and for Obama to take the rap.

Lookit Paw, we dun put a black fella in charge an e did cause dis here depression dangnabbit!

[Zpock]

It isn't borrowed money from other countries that was spent on whatever, it's just political promises which is something completely different. Of course the future "promised" social care will be huge, but you can't really equate it to debt. That would be like counting all the Christmas presents I might give you in the future as something I actually owe you. Just cause I have made some awesome promise to get popular and telling everyone I will give them a few trillion dollars of Christmas presents in the future is not really the same as me walking in a bank and borrowing a ton of money and spend it on on beer, hookers, drugs etc.

Or think of it this way, If the projected tax payment each person will pay during his lifetime was summed up today and made into a regular debt, we would all have huge fantasy size dept like that article is trying to describe the government has. It's no reason for us to cut all our spending until we can pay our "lifetime tax", and neither should the government.

[Jasper1984]

Seriously, this isn't anything new. America had what, a $40 trillion dollar foreign debt, and that was BEFORE Bush? Now it's like $60 trillion or something.

Yay, the value of the debt must have stayed about the same then. Disadvantage is that they are still effectively stealing dollar value via inflation.

Having just read this thread through I now understand the reason for the financial collapse much better. Who would have known it was the work of those greedy communist, philosophical, mind-controlling, poor, over-sexed aliens buying New York condos. It all makes sense now! Wow my brain just grew!

Probably because the people replying just do not know enough how the economy works. I do not know it well enough either. This crisis, however, does reek of incompetence, then again, this might be all our fault for not electing people who promote competence. And people taking loans and not being able to pay it back, but the latter will always happen if idiots actually give those loans.

[ginekolog]

looks like current bank system is colapsing. Here is a good stuff to understand todays banking systems and then makeyour own concusions:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

Mine is: colapse in 10 years, back to normal in 15

Damn, i wish i would own my own house - then u have nothing to worry :)

[Michilus_nimbus]

Belgian banks are collapsing.
Our largest bank, Fortis, has dropped 78% in stock value since the start of the crisis. Really weird, Fortis was basically booming just a month ago.

[manored]

Damn, i wish i would own my own house - then u have nothing to worry :)

Nothing except the invisible and unstopable consequences of the crisis that will affect randow aspects of your life :)

[BaNa]

Hey interesting link there thanks. Guy seems a bit too happy to point out the Pareto principle, but hey.

Soooooo...

Any thoughts on the failout? I'm interested in what you guys think will happen. Not communist theories and not partisan name calling.

As silly as it may sound, I'm thinking of putting my moneys into actual gold. Like bars of it.

[SwiftSpear]

So, bush's bailout plan failed I hear... America is going to ceed their world superpower spot to china now?

[SpliFF]

I think Bush's reply sums up his whole presidency. To paraphrase:

"We told the public to give us all their money, to bail out our rich mates, who squandered their profits on risky outcomes. We don't want to cut their bonuses though, because that would be unfair. The public called us up and told us where to stick it."

"Obviously the problem isn't the plan, it's the public. So we'll just have to keep having the same vote until we get what we want. Maybe I'll just rustle up some emergency powers and take the money."

As to what will happen... probably very little. Foreign markets will buy up bargains on the stock exchange and life will just... go on.

[tombom]

has forboding angel posted here yet, his opinion would be valuable

[smoth]

has forboding angel posted here yet, his opinion would be valuable

ha ha ha ha ha