Topic: hung-up on zeroes?

[jivedave]

Here's a piece by warren buffet about the USA but the description fits the UK, aswell. It's from 2003, further down the page :
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Squanderville.html

 I find it hard not to wonder why we seem to have carreered down a blind alley economically (like the US) without thinking 'conspiracy theories'***. I thought a good analogy to the present for the 'over-geared' people would be the scenario of being trapped under a heavy log (of debt) in a rising flood - would one drown in interest payments or would inflation and rising pay lift the log free. I didn't like the 70s much but couldn't really put 'my finger' on why but now is starting to look pretty reminiscent.

*** perhaps self interest and greed and the baffling - for me - phenomenon of people who are quite happy to do 99p's worth of damage for 1p profit for themselves.

I rang a radio talk show (for someone to talk with as maybe I was quite sensibly perceived as too boring for normal conversation) at the time of the 2002 election, to say that the way we: individuals/gov./country were/was living on credit was like stretching elastic that would eventually ‘wang’ back and hurt us - only it’s taken far longer than I expected and the elastic has stretched much further. Some people agreed but others said, to distill the riposte : “it’s different now”.

It could be that inflation, caused by the gov. ‘printing’ money will ease debt or we may have some Thatcher type medicine (sooner or later).



here’s a track which seems to fit a gloomy picture (like an industrial city in slump, pre service/finance 4* daydream economy) by a band heard to be cited by punk rock aficionados as their reason for disdain of 70s (prog) rock music:



bit heavy and pretentious but also virtuoso and entertaining – can’t see the vicar having keith doing the Sunday service.

And here’s an article about credit card debt and risk to one’s home - which I found quite alarming.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5014781.ece

and some indication where the money’s going - even with the utilities and certainly with shopping i have some choice where my money is going and how much of it:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3136793/Council-pay-case-study-Joe-Duckworth.html

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/columnists/fraser_nelson/article48895.ece

10/10/09 - wielded the axe

[jivedave]

Bit embarrassed by my previous verbose offerings but resurrecting this zombie topic:

In case you’re peeking out from under the blankets, wondering if the bogeyman has gone away , here is one of the DR’s recent offerings with the startlingly contrary news (possibly of actuarial interest) that health appears inversely proportional to economic well being  :

According to a pair of researchers from the University of Michigan, a depression does more for longevity than diet or exercise. Life expectancy during the worst years of the Great Depression increased from 57.1 years in 1929 to 63.3 years in 1933, says the report by Jose A Tapia Granados and Ana Diez Roux.
It didn’t matter whether you were a man or a woman, black or white. And it didn’t matter if you were in the US during the Great Depression or in Spain, Japan or Sweden during their economic downturns. The results were the same.
http://www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/economic-forecasts/gold-unpredictable-bill-bonner-54352.html

See – every cloud has a silver lining . Personally, particularly over the last few years having a lot  less readies, my worst vice – a liking for beer – has taken a severe correction which has brought some issues into sharper focus (which may not be so good )

No secret, I prefer to read the DR rather than listening to the pols. – they even wrote an ‘amusing’ piece parodying the new film release ‘Zombieland’ with the description of support for zombie banks and businesses -  to the detriment of new enterprises which might take their place.

Still, taking an extreme example, maybe these sort of designer dudes and their life styles will be less fashionable – I think harry and co are hilarious, the accent and the blonde lady’s overacting (with some ‘colourful’ language)



I know one or two guys with the bling, the mercs and the nice hols. - but they're ok people.

Looks like the next few years are going to be ‘fun’  treading a tricky path with a deflationary slump to one side and the risk of a currency crisis and expensive borrowing on the other.

The DR talks about a depression, so here are some relevant articles:

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2073

and Andrew Mellon’s view – the opposite of most of today’s experts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_W._Mellon

I wondered if trashing the economy (and much else) was just a way of weakening our position so that resistance to the Greater European Reich and the realization of one man’s destiny (I thought the ‘third way’ sounded pretty perverse) would be futile.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/william_rees_mogg/article6860965.ece

- hope i'm not too -ve but forewarned is...

mod 27/10/2009 - taking note of KM and JG's subsequent comments i'm reluctannt to add any more updates to the story so far which is a bit sad as i've managed to concoct a sort of parody of the situation as i see it but in SciFi context

Here’s an ‘interesting’ graph – up to 1/Jul/2009 which really displays what the marketing people might call ‘take off’ – except the flight is not going to Rio.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/mar/01/government-borrowing-economy1


Here is a video about the dire state of the US economy which gets the views of some influential people and resolves some of the problems the public have understanding national finance by involving citizens and using simple terminology.

I don’t think we are in a very different place to the US (probably worse) except that we are smaller and globally more dispensable and so this seems relevant. Our Gov. appears determined to give foreigners dominion over us (eg: why dig us further into debt to subsidize car imports?) and in relation to this, the  video gives an interesting perspective on the Suez crisis (about 20:30) and the UK debt held by the US and its resulting influence over us.   




Here is a more graphic representation of the rate of climb of government debt :




could be my browser? but editing is becoming really awkward

[Karen Mary]

 Dave, I think some people are interested - it's just not the sort of thing one tends to discuss on a dance forum.

Have you tried this site?

http://www.politicsforum.org

[John Gimber: Webmaster]

Well I don't mind people discussing politics on here, or religion, or economics.

Personally I tend to avoid these topics as it is very easy to get into arguments when discussing different ideologies etc.

But yes, I agree with Karen, this is a challenging topic for a dance forum.