Is Australia facing an economic downturn/recession?

[Ocean Architect]

& now he's been thrown in jail in New York... coincidence ?

No coincidence. If the number one guy in the IMF is such a scumbag that he tried raping a maid, I can only imagine the other white collar shennanigans he got up to. For him to say it publically in a speech means that the rest of the board and politicos behind it are saying the same thing.

Plus factor in all that stuff about bringing in the Amero as a common currency for North America and moves made by the Clinton and GWB administration in making that happen - clearly the removal of the US Dollar has been on the cards for some time

 

[Ocean Architect]

Max Keiser is regularly on the alex jones show. These dudes bang on about the end of the world and how the lizard overlords are going to enslave us, the US dollar collapse, the amerio currency, buy silver crash JP morgan blah blah blah.

Alex jones is entertaining but if you take the stuff he says to seriously u will go insane.

That isn't true. The lizard guy is David Icke.

Max keiser appears on alex jones, sure, but he's also on russia today, CNN etc and appears regularly chatting with notables like Schiff, Celente etc - and he's been pretty close to the mark for quite a while. He was right about silver, Goldman, Greece, Ireland etc and what can I say, I listen to the guys getting it right, not the ones wearing the nicest suit

 

[Ocean Architect]

And further more when people talk about Jim Rogers, Soros etc.

They take their comments as an excuse to scream 'run to the hills the end is comming'.

What they fail to understand is that these guys are speculators. And they are best of breed.

They are looking at all available asset classes and creating positions whereby they can acheive the highest returns.

They are not running to the hills, they take positions and then as far as possible they hedge that risk. They engage in multiple simultaneous strategies involving both long and short positions, the net effect of which tends to be a good total return.

Very true, but Jim Rogers did put his money where his mouth was and moved to Singapore with his family, plus moved a lot of money out of the US. Peter Schiff is another one, and stuck to his guns about moving his investors money out of the states in 09 where they all took a beating - but recovered and then some what with the US dollar tanking. Even GWB bought a massive swathe of land in south america - not really the actions of a man who had 100% faith in the US imo

 

[Ocean Architect]

i cant be bothered going down this road. Its like talking to Non-recourse during the GFC.
Enjoy your reading.

That's okay, we can chat about it in 6 months or a year

 

[Aaron Sice]

That's okay, we can chat about it in 6 months or a year

It will be long and more protracted than that.

All those 401k and super funds to rape from the biggest working generation in modern history will take some time.

 

[Ocean Architect]

It will be long and more protracted than that.

All those 401k and super funds to rape from the biggest working generation in modern history will take some time.

Probably, but the situation will deteriorate enough for us to have a better idea. Right now people are a little dubious that the almighty US dollar is going to go the way of every other fiat currency in history. Personally I think that a major war is going to start

 

[joanmc]

Probably, but the situation will deteriorate enough for us to have a better idea. Right now people are a little dubious that the almighty US dollar is going to go the way of every other fiat currency in history. Personally I think that a major war is going to start

Isn't that how the US usually gets themselves out of the $hit?

 

[VYBerlinaV8]

It's never really made sense to me that going to war makes money. Sure, it gives the government an excuse to spend like hell, which them stimulates the defence economy and eventually the civilian economy, but the government debt still exists. It's not like the government gets paid to wage war. It's just a means of circulating money.

When our govt handed out stimulus it did so by incurring debt, and thus more money entered the economy. This will, of course, need to be repaid as times get better. I don't see the US govt making serious inroads into their debt position. They can't even seem to have a balanced budget!

 

[dan c]

No coincidence. If the number one guy in the IMF is such a scumbag that he tried raping a maid, I can only imagine the other white collar shennanigans he got up to. For him to say it publically in a speech means that the rest of the board and politicos behind it are saying the same thing.

Let's just throw an 'allegedly' in there. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

 

[Ocean Architect]

It's never really made sense to me that going to war makes money. Sure, it gives the government an excuse to spend like hell, which them stimulates the defence economy and eventually the civilian economy, but the government debt still exists. It's not like the government gets paid to wage war. It's just a means of circulating money.

When our govt handed out stimulus it did so by incurring debt, and thus more money entered the economy. This will, of course, need to be repaid as times get better. I don't see the US govt making serious inroads into their debt position. They can't even seem to have a balanced budget!

Going to war doesn't make money for everyone, but it does make a massive amount of money for military contractors, associated services (food, healthcare etc) and particularly, the banks doing the lending. Have a quick read of "war is a racket" by major general smedley butler, probably the most famous marine general the US has ever produced - the opening is a couple of pages long and you can hear the truth ringing in the text: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."

Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.

Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.

Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.

Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?

What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?

Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.

 

[Ocean Architect]

Let's just throw an 'allegedly' in there. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

I did use the word "if"

 

[Aaron Sice]

Let's just throw an 'allegedly' in there. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

tell that to UK citizens who are allowed to be arrested for pre-crimes.....

 

[Ocean Architect]

tell that to UK citizens who are allowed to be arrested for pre-crimes.....

And the US citizens who can be killed for pre crimes under executive order

 

[dan c]

I did use the word "if"

Yes, you did, I missed it the first read. Oops.

 

[dan c]

tell that to UK citizens who are allowed to be arrested for pre-crimes.....

And the US citizens who can be killed for pre crimes under executive order

But if you are arrested and charged, you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Of course, that doesn't help you if you have been shot and killed....

 

[Aaron Sice]

But if you are arrested and charged, you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Of course, that doesn't help you if you have been shot and killed....

it's like Victorian Police.

bust into a room, guns blazing, then yell "freeze".

 

[Ocean Architect]

But if you are arrested and charged, you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Of course, that doesn't help you if you have been shot and killed....

Oh yes, you're innocent until proven guilty, and held in "indefinite detention". Which isn't jail, it's just jail that's detention. Indefinitely. Guatanamo Bay style.

 

[Intrinsic_Value]

i really cant understand some of these extreme postings.
How on one hand can one create long term positions, and on the other believe in all of this.

Some of you talk about creating long term positions through creating building projects, and in the next breath you go on about all this waffle.

 

[Ocean Architect]

i really cant understand some of these extreme postings.
How on one hand can one create long term positions, and on the other believe in all of this.

Some of you talk about creating long term positions through creating building projects, and in the next breath you go on about all this waffle.

When you own things outright or are otherwise lightly leveraged, it doesn't matter what currency it's denominated in - it's still yours.

Plus, it is our civic duty to counter stupid policy as much as humanly possible (something that I do rather a lot, but if I disclosed, all you snoops would know who I was )

 

[Intrinsic_Value]

When you own things outright or are otherwise lightly leveraged, it doesn't matter what currency it's denominated in - it's still yours.

Plus, it is our civic duty to counter stupid policy as much as humanly possible (something that I do rather a lot, but if I disclosed, all you snoops would know who I was )

Yeah non-recourse or one of his fellow brothers.
Come onto to this forum, rah rah rah, scare those who are less sure on themselves into inaction, or even worse, scare those into making desperate short term decisions.

And then best of all riding into the sunset with no accountability.