USA was 3 hrs away from Economic, Political Collapse... last Sept.

POSTED BY: pizmobeach
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 4, 2026 11:44
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RUE

Thursday, February 12, 2009 2:14 AM

Pizmo

If you are looking for non-obvious places in the home may I suggest the compressor compartment in your refrigerator ? Or the gap behind the kickplate under your kitchen counters ? My stuff's not at home, but if it was, these seem like good places.

Hey Frem - what do you think ?

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Silence is consent.

RUE

Thursday, February 12, 2009 2:20 AM

kpo

The 'weight' that you seem to think is 'soft socialism' is actually the fuel that keeps capitalism running.

Under capitalism, money collects in very few hands, leading to an inability to spend on the part of nearly all, and a collapse of the economy. Unless you redistribute wealth in order to preserve the ability to spend, depressions are part and parcel of a capitalist economy. (It's like entropy - you can't argue against the ultimate endpoint.)

I know for a fact you cannot have a sustainable purely capitalist economy. I think it MIGHT be possible on purely theoretical grounds to have a purely socialist one.

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Silence is consent.

SIGNYM

Thursday, February 12, 2009 2:44 AM

Quote:
Here is my economic understanding (tho I'm no expert): I imagine the countries you listed as running on capitalist engines, while being weighed down by quite hefty social welfare programmes.

As opposed to exploding in a death-spiral every several decades? That's due to the reason that Rue has outlined. But if that explanation didn't make sense to you I'll try tackling it from a different angle and see if it's any clearer. Suffice it to say that major depressions (booms and busts) are part and parcel of capitalism. AND, to make it even juicier, there is no theoretical mechanism for a major economic depression to "cure itself".

Redistributing wealth keeps capitalism from falling into that death-spiral. If a captialist bust were to go unchecked and unabated by government, we prolly would wind up with a revolution.

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It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, February 12, 2009 2:49 AM

I'm not reading this thread but

Quote:

Quote:
you've never been to Canada, Denmark, Sweden or indeed ANY 'socialist' country

I thought that socialism was essentially collective ownership of the means of production. In all the countries you've listed industry is predominantly in private control...

Can you explain your definition of socialism?

KPO is right, there's nothing particularly socialist about any of these countries. I mean, most of the world has state health, including britain which has never been accused of being "socialist." The US has state education, and yet none of y'all is calling it socialist. Actually, the US economy is around 30% govt. controlled at the moment. That's significantly higher than even some socialist/capitalist hybrid economies.

KWICKO

Thursday, February 12, 2009 3:43 AM

Quote:
The US has state education, and yet none of y'all is calling it socialist.

Actually, I've tried to bring that up several times in response to people calling out "the evils of socialism". I brought up education, roads, police, fire departments, military...

Just imagine if you called the fire department, and they showed up demanding credit references and a payment plan before they even started putting the fire out. How much fire department help can YOU afford? You call the police, and they say a domestic disturbance complaint will set you back, say $2500. Still want them to come by? But they'll probably quiet down your neighbors for a couple hundred, right?

We ARE in a socialistic country; we just don't like to admit it.

Mike

"It is complete now; the hands of time are neatly tied."

RUE

Thursday, February 12, 2009 3:47 AM

There are a few posters here who object to ANY government agency, program or service. They do think it's socialist, and they think that private enterprise can do all of it, and better.

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Silence is consent.

RUE

Thursday, February 12, 2009 4:06 AM

Well, I seem to have killed a few threads. My work here is done.

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Silence is consent.

RUE

Thursday, February 12, 2009 4:16 AM

Or maybe this might be of interest to some:

It Is Time to Nationalize Insolvent Banking Systems

Nouriel Roubini | Feb 10, 2009

A year ago I predicted that losses by US financial institutions would be at least $1 trillion and possibly as high as $2 trillion. At that time the consensus was such estimates were grossly exaggerated as the naïve optimists had in mind about $200 billion of expected subprime mortgage losses. But, as I pointed out then, losses would rapidly mount well beyond subprime mortgages as the US and global economy would spin into a most severe financial crisis and an ugly recession. I then argued that we would then see rising losses on subprime, near prime and prime mortgages; commercial real estate; credit cards, auto loans, student loans; industrial and commercial loans; corporate bonds; sovereign bonds and state and local government bonds; and massive losses on all of the assets (CDOs, CLOs, ABS, and the entire alphabet of credit derivatives) that had securitized such loans. By now writedowns by US banks have already passed the $1 trillion mark (my floor estimate of losses) and now institutions such as the IMF and Goldman Sachs predict losses of over $2 trillion (close to my original expected ceiling for such losses).

But if you think that $2 trillion is already huge, our latest estimates RGE Monitor (available in a paper for our clients) suggest that total losses on loans made by U.S. financial firms and the fall in the market value of the assets they are holding will be at their peak about $3.6 trillion. The U.S. banks and broker dealers are exposed to half of this figure, or $1.8 trillion; the rest is borne by other financial institutions in the US and abroad. The capital backing the banks assets was last fall only $1.4 trillion, leaving the U.S. banking system some $400 billion in the hole, or close to zero even after the government and private sector recapitalization of such banks. Thus, another $1.4 trillion will be needed to bring back the capital of banks to the level they had before the crisis; and such massive additional recapitalization is needed to resolve the credit crunch and restore lending to the private sector. So these figures suggests that the US banking system is effectively insolvent in the aggregate; most of the UK banking system looks insolvent too; and many other banks in continental Europe are also insolvent.

There are four basic approaches to a clean-up of a banking system that is facing a systemic crisis:

1. recapitalization together with the purchase by a government “bad bank” of the toxic assets;

2. recapitalization together with government guarantees – after a first loss by the banks – of the toxic assets;

3. private purchase of toxic assets with a government guarantee and/or – semi-equivalently - provision of public capital to set up a public-private bad bank where private investors participate in the purchase of such assets (something similar to the US government plan presented by Tim Geithner today for a Public-Private Investment Fund);

4. outright government takeover (call it nationalization or “receivership" if you don’t like the dirty N-word) of insolvent banks to be cleaned after takeover and then resold to the private sector.

Of the four options the first three have serious flaws: in the bad bank model the government may overpay for the bad assets – at a high cost for the taxpayer - as the true value of them is uncertain; and if it does not overpay for the assets many banks are bust as the mark-to-market haircut they need to recognize is too large for them to bear.

Even in the guarantee (after first loss) model there are massive valuation problems and there can be very expensive risk for the tax-payer (an excessive guarantee that is not properly priced by the first loss of the bank, the fees paid and the value of equity that that the government receives for the guarantee) as the true value of the assets is as uncertain as in the purchase of bas assets model. The shady guarantee deals recently done with Citi a

SERGEANTX

Thursday, February 12, 2009 4:54 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
...The US has state education, and yet none of y'all is calling it socialist. Actually, the US economy is around 30% govt.

None of us?

Quote:
Spitefully posted by rue:
... all of the naysayers bray that government healthcare is 'socialism', public transport is 'socialism', public day care and schooling is 'socialism', government housing assistance is 'socialism', minimum standard of living is 'socialism', parental leave is 'socialism', unions are 'socialism' ... and so on. HEE HAAWwww ...

All of that stuff IS socialistic and represents a move away from free market ideals. You may think they are worthwhile compromises (and we might even agree on a few), but it doesn't serve the purpose of honest debate to redefine words willy nilly. Have the courage of your convictions and defend your positions honestly.

But it is good to see you're still doing well with the jackass impersonation.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

SIGNYM

Thursday, February 12, 2009 6:33 AM

Quote:
But it is good to see you're still doing well with the jackass impersonation.

SargeX, YOU seem to be the jackass here. Rue made it very plain (and I tend to agree) that Repubs and other right-wingers tend to call ANY government social programs "socialist". She asked for a substitute word to replace the term THEY use (socialism) with one that might be less confusing and more accurate.

I didn't hear you come up with one, did I?

Eh, no?

Then what have you added to the discussion?

But thanks for the ad hominem. You can always be counted on to provide one, whether or not you have anything real to say.

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It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.

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