Keith, I have a small import business and track shipping rates. Shipping rates recently have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in some places primarily due to China's release of a pent up demand for raw materials and for other imports. Ship yards are tied up building double hulled ships for oil transport so they won't be able to build merchant marine ships any time soon. Import/export business is going to be hit hard and the WTO is going to become irrelevant soon. This is going to accelerate the crash.
Bill On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 08:55:49 +0000 Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Credit card debts are now at about 130% of disposable income in > England, > and it's much the same in America and Australia (not sure about > Canada) . > This means that if consumers stopped all spending on non-essential > items > and saved hard it would take well over a year to pay off their > debts. At > the same time (in England, and I guess in America) house buyers are > > over-exposed way beyond anything previously. > > Greenspan and the Bank of England have been encouraging consumers to > vastly > over-extend themselves by setting absurdly low interest rates. It's > all > going to crash. When? Who knows? But it cannot be all that far > off. > > I know ..... I know .... long-time FWers will say that I've been > forecasting an economic crash ever since the latish 90s. It didn't > happen. > We were overtaken by the madness of the IT boom -- which turned out > not to > be a boom. That's all gone now (even though share prices are still > too > high.) Pensions funds -- state and private -- are deep in trouble > all over > the developed world. > > There's the mother and father of all crises to come -- all caused by > the > arbitrary setting of currency values and the capricious settings of > > interest rates. There's no possibility of any equilibrium in this > situation. It can only go on until there's a crash. > > Keith Hudson > > Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, > <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk> > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > > ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
