|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Military.com Forums Hot Topics & Current Events Guest Commentary Empire and Economic Crisis|
Go
|
New
|
Find
|
Notify
|
Tools
|
Reply
|
|
|
New Member |
RE: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,190736,00.html
The amount of money spent on today’s wars is much much less in GDP compared to past wars. Can inflation and unemployment be a cause from/for war, of course. It was one of the major drivers for starting WWII in my eyes. Germany had to pay off all of its war debt for the entire WWI war; it was broke and had extremely high unemployment. Which lead to turmoil and new radical populist movements, so they eventually started up their war machine to push the economy forward. Everyone knows the outcome on that. It was actually WWII that helped pull the US out of the Great Depression, not all of spending done on public infrastructure. That actually helped lengthen the down turn by about 7 years. But we are talking about today’s current war and economic crisis. But we can take a lesson from it. Inflation today... well currently it’s actually deflation going on. Money velocity is in the dirt, money flows into the banks but it does flow back out. (Google Japanese Zombie Economy, another great lesson, a peak into the future for what the US has in store) Inflation from the war?...nope. We have industries created just for our war machine, which helps isolate the rest of the US economy from a war economy. Commodities.. To a point, price driven up from the wars, I can accept an argument that some premium was from Middle East conflicts. But the majority was from a lack of supply that demand was out stripping. Not from the building of tanks, ships, planes, & ammo. It was the boom going on over in East Asia. But the huge commodity run was just a symptom, typical commodity rally at the end of a cycle of an overheated global economy. The main driver for the recession now was the loss of faith in the financial system. Sub-prime rules(which were federally mandated to lower the lending rules in the Clinton years, it’s not all Bush’s fault) and extremely complicated derivates market which has very little in accounting rules on how to value it, or how to regulate it. AKA how do you price a bond which has no market would it be a $1000 or $100 for a bond that no one wants to be in. Even if the sub-prime or prime mortgage loans used in it were completely fine. How do you price a billion dollar derivative that is a contract between two companies that is not due to expire for say another 15 years. There is so many other things going on, but this was at the heart of it. Government, Corporations, and the individual are all to blame for the position that we are in. What do we have to look forward to? This is interesting, obviously I do not have a crystal ball, but this is what I see. Take a history lesson from the Great Depression, 1970s commodities and inflation market, and 1990s-today Japanese Zombie Economy. Plus the baby boom generation is going from a spending to saving generations is going to have a huge impact on the US market. Mix in knee jerk reactionary congress, and a pro union/ tax to control human consumption populist government. What do we have in store??? Who knows? Obviously hyper inflation do to the drop in value from the dollar in the commodity market, this will help stall the economy. Banks and car manufactures that will suck the life blood out of the economy (aka Zombie Economy) so they will stay afloat. (I will never buy another GM product again, but I will pay for GM with my tax dollars awesome..) Also a tax increase in the middle of a recession can never be good, with out-of-this-world stupid spending going on with the government. What I see is basically an inverted square root sign as the pattern for the recovery of this market. Looking further out say twenty plus years of extremely slow growth. |
||
|
|
New Member |
History is a guide, read what happened to the British in the 50's.
|
|||
|
New Member |
Don't forget that according to Tim Geihtner, as he told George Stpehanopolis when asked about hyper inflation: "Oh, it's impossible. It will never happen in this country because we have a strong, independent Fed"
take it for what its worth....  |
|||
|
Experienced Member |
Except for the following depressions, brought about in large part by the lack of a central bank: 1837-42 1857-60 1873-79 1893-96 1907-09 For an economist, this guy has a shockingly poor grasp of history. Then again, he lists in a published work (with no footnotes or references) where he feels that Grover Cleveland was the second best President of the US and that Lincoln was PERSONALLY responsible for the Civil War. Um, no thanks. He can keep his bogus political theories to himself. Why is it that economists are entrusted to talk about history when they get it wrong so often? Sullivan013 |
|||
|
|
Member |
blah, blah, blah...it's the US fault for all the world's problems...blah, blah, blah...we should be better world citizens and let religious fanatics have their freedom to attack us...blah, blah, blah...congress should force banks to give every welfare recipient a loan for a $5 million home...blah, blah, blah...
Hey Ivan, the US only spends about 5% of its GDP on defense spending now versus 50% that it did in WWII. If you want to be an isolationist, you might want to take a look at where the rest of the "raw deal" money is at: social security, medicare, welfare, etc... |
|||
|
|
Member |
Some good stuff here... You are right about Germany - the beginning of WW2 started with the treaty of Versallies. The draconian terms of surrender all but destroyed the German economy. The loss of faith in the financial system is pretty serious, and the deregulation legislation signed by Clinton certainly contributed a good deal to the problems we have today. However, when he signed the legislation, he also commented that the markets will have to be carefully monitored because no one knows exactly how it would all work out. If/when irregularities are found then we will have to make adjustments. Those irregularities were becoming more obvious at the beginning of the Bush (II) years, and the warnings started coming in. And they came in month after month. Yet President Bush didn't take any action until 7 years later when the roof caved in. I'm not saying that it is all his fault (it isn't). Some of the folks in congress (and Clinton) were also to blame (plus a lot of dishonest folks in Wall Street). But he didn't take any action at all, and simply didn't have the curiousity to see what his advisors were telling him. I recall him stating on TV that he was confused about the mood of the people, beause they were saying that as far as they were concerned the economy was in the pits, when the market was going gangbusters. That was about 2 years before the crash... The fixes might have been painful - but not as painful as what we are going through now and will be going through for some time to come. |
|||
|
|
New Member |
WOW! How does this mental midget get an op-ed? The current down turn, unemployment at 8% is hardly a reason to compare to the Great Depression,is a direct result of the sub-prime mortgage industry that Democrats Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd profited from and still take no responsibility for. What Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd is worse than what Ken Lay did at Enron. These 2, along with the Clinton Administration, pushed for virtually anyone with a pulse to receive a mortgage under Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This caused the failure of confidence in the banking and lending industry that we see now.
Quick history lesson ffor Ivan - Our involvement in World War II allowed the US to recover from the Great Depression that was prolonged by FDR and his fascist economic policies. What we see now under this current administration is a repeat of government takeover of private industry. What is needed, much like Ronald Reagan in the 1980's, is for the economy to recover on it's own with tax credits, tax incentives and tax breaks. The current administration continues to lie and promulgate the myth that he and they can correct this economy by taking billions of dollars of taxpayer money and propping up business that should be allowed to fail instead of allowing them to file for bankruptcy and restructure. What we are seeing under this administration is a big brother power grab with a wink and a smile. |
|||
|
Member |
Given the topic, a book would have been justified. We need not go back any further than the mid-20th Century* to justify criticism of the undeniably imperialistic neoconservative oligarchy (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Cambone, Abrams, Norquist, the Kagans, and others). The grossly revisionistic and banal claims that FDR "prolonged" the Great Depression and that the U.S. would not have recovered if it were not for WW2 are part of the pathological thinking that got us into this mess. It's a sad, sad statement about America if it takes the combined threats of Nazi-ism, Imperial Japan and Facist Italy plus the loss of hundrends of thousands of American lives (not to mention the millions of others) for us to get our economic act together. Get a grip, folks!
*consider the writings of Prof. Andrew Bacevich [Col(ret)] |
|||
|
|
New Member |
wonk-
Some good stuff here... You are right about Germany - the beginning of WW2 started with the treaty of Versallies. The draconian terms of surrender all but destroyed the German economy. The loss of faith in the financial system is pretty serious, and the deregulation legislation signed by Clinton certainly contributed a good deal to the problems we have today. However, when he signed the legislation, he also commented that the markets will have to be carefully monitored because no one knows exactly how it would all work out. If/when irregularities are found then we will have to make adjustments. Those irregularities were becoming more obvious at the beginning of the Bush (II) years, and the warnings started coming in. And they came in month after month. Yet President Bush didn't take any action until 7 years later when the roof caved in. I'm not saying that it is all his fault (it isn't). Some of the folks in congress (and Clinton) were also to blame (plus a lot of dishonest folks in Wall Street). But he didn't take any action at all, and simply didn't have the curiousity to see what his advisors were telling him. I recall him stating on TV that he was confused about the mood of the people, beause they were saying that as far as they were concerned the economy was in the pits, when the market was going gangbusters. That was about 2 years before the crash... The fixes might have been painful - but not as painful as what we are going through now and will be going through for some time to come.[/QUOTE] XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Im not a big fan of any administration, I just toon out when people blame all their problems on one side or the other. Frankly I believe that there should be term limits for all members of Congress. Civil duty instead of a career path, I think that would help stop a lot of problems in DC. Very limited federal government, returning most of the civilian side of government back to the states. Thus actually give your vote voice, and engaging the rest of the public. Econ- problems from a 30K foot view we are in a classic Secular Bear Market and will be for some time. Def(typically begin at historic high earnings multiples and usually occurs during long-term periods of stress, turmoil, and political changes)((bear 1929-1948,bull 1948-1966,bear 1966-1982, bull 1982-2000)) Most of the "smart" people did not think that we would be in the position today. (The ones that bet on this happening are now retired because they are so filthy wealthly) We had between 200 bil-500bil in sub-prime mortages that we did not understand from 2004-2006. Worst case was that 25% would go belly up. So 50-125bil in outstanding liabilities. No one thought this would trigger a global down turn. (oh how human behavior can kick your ass!)aka black swan. I called the top right, but have been wrong on the overall market bottom. 80% of the time Im right all the time  As of right now I'd say that we are at the bottom of the forth inning of this. 2010 is when we will turn the corner, 2012 for housing to bottom. Within the last 24 hours we have heard about social security and medicad updates (50 trillion total Liability by 2020), and a look at revalueing the US dollar which I hope will curve the current spending & social engineering of this government... (no time to spell check, please excuse my mistakes) |
|||
|
|
Member |
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Im not a big fan of any administration, I just toon out when people blame all their problems on one side or the other. Frankly I believe that there should be term limits for all members of Congress. Civil duty instead of a career path, I think that would help stop a lot of problems in DC. Very limited federal government, returning most of the civilian side of government back to the states. Thus actually give your vote voice, and engaging the rest of the public. Econ- problems from a 30K foot view we are in a classic Secular Bear Market and will be for some time. Def(typically begin at historic high earnings multiples and usually occurs during long-term periods of stress, turmoil, and political changes)((bear 1929-1948,bull 1948-1966,bear 1966-1982, bull 1982-2000)) Most of the "smart" people did not think that we would be in the position today. (The ones that bet on this happening are now retired because they are so filthy wealthly) We had between 200 bil-500bil in sub-prime mortages that we did not understand from 2004-2006. Worst case was that 25% would go belly up. So 50-125bil in outstanding liabilities. No one thought this would trigger a global down turn. (oh how human behavior can kick your ass!)aka black swan. I called the top right, but have been wrong on the overall market bottom. 80% of the time Im right all the time As of right now I'd say that we are at the bottom of the forth inning of this. 2010 is when we will turn the corner, 2012 for housing to bottom. Within the last 24 hours we have heard about social security and medicad updates (50 trillion total Liability by 2020), and a look at revalueing the US dollar which I hope will curve the current spending & social engineering of this government... (no time to spell check, please excuse my mistakes)[/QUOTE]I think you are partially correct with term limits for the congresses - but I think lobbying needs to be clamped down on really hard. There is far too much undue influence on our representatives (regardless of house or senate) w/r/t campaign contributions, and it was a deeply serious mistake for the supreme court to equate political donations with "free speech"/first amendment rights. Once you have the lobbyists writing legislation, we're all in deep trouble. And thats what we have now. |
|||
|
New Member |
________________________ Ah yes. As usual with Wonk, it is all Bush's fault........... |
|||
|
|
New Member |
bwf27 should read up on any mid level macro economic college course that covers the great D.
Wonk- couldnt agree with you more |
|||
|
|
Member |
In the absence of a comment to the contrary, it seems that you agree with the position. Thats good!! |
|||
|
|
New Member |
Actually Wonk, once you start off on your "Bush's fault" mantra, I stop reading. That's why so many do not take what you write seriously. You allow your dislike for a single person to cloud your thinking. You morph into the teacher in Charlie Brown, "wah, wah wah, wah wah wah wah wah, wah wah, wah wah wah....zzzzz."  |
|||
|
|
Member |
Greatest ponzi scheme ever: Social Security
Runner up: Medicare/Medicaid |
|||
|
| Powered by Eve Community |
 | Please Wait. Your request is being processed... |
|
Military.com Forums Hot Topics & Current Events Guest Commentary Empire and Economic Crisis
