On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 03:54:45PM +0530, Charles Haynes wrote: > It's easy to make dramatic predictions, but most of them are just > throwaways - noise. I believe you are mistaken in your prediction, and
I don't care about predictions (I did anticipate the .bomb though, down to half a year, but that was dumb luck). The point is that such intrinsic nonlinearities are built into all world economy participants (going from fiat to metal-backed doesn't solve them actually, you need built-in depreciation in case of hoarding, to encourage circulation), and there are many contributing factors which make a major depression (probably dwarfing the first one) likely. The US has just some specifics, which make it happening there first likely, after some suitable trigger elsewhere (bubble in China, fossil price hike, etc.). We seem to be on the outskirts of a progressive loss of trust in the dollar, this can very well turn into a landslide as we speak. Then, it may take several years, especially if the economy is good cosmetics on the face of a dying patient. > what's more I'm so confident that you are wrong that I'm willing to > bet actual value (I'm happy to bet Rupees if you'd prefer, or ounces > of gold) that you're wrong. In fact I've already bet more than that > that you're wrong, just not with you. I'm glad you can afford to bet 10 k$. The best I can do is to offer you 100 EUR that this (a Depression, not a mere recession, probably a Great Depression) will happen within the next five years. > I don't care about your opinion of me, I'm interested in finding out > just how confident you are about your prediction, or if you're just > blowing smoke. I'm confident enough that I'm scared shitless. The only good thing about it that my personal leeway in finances is almost zero, so it's not that I can do a lot. Heck, we even have a big garden we could plant with vegetables, in case things go completely sour (many people in Russia after the collapse survived on that). > Don't get me wrong, I'm not holding up the American economy as some > sort of paragon, or American government debt as risk free, but I think > your predictions about default are absurd, and I'm wondering if you Strictly spoken a state can't (won't) default on a payment, by letting the note presses run, or striking zeroes from existing currencies. This has happened several times in just the last century, but I'm away from my books (at work, actually) to look it up. > really believe what you're saying or if you're just being outrageous. I would be rather completely wrong than outrageous. My job sucks, but it would be worse to not have a job at all.
