Dead Government Walking

[quick]

Come on, y'all, we know the US government can just print all the money it needs, and the rest of the world will go along no matter what Isn't that interesting how all the people who usually post to the effect that things aren't really so dire have been absent the last 2 days or so?

Bruce: we really have no idea what happens when a government whose currency is the basis of the global economy defaults, nothing remotely like this has ever happened. IMO, well before it comes to that, another FALSE FLAG EVENT will be "arranged", and the nature of the US government and its relations to the rest of the world will be drastically changed in ways we can hardly imagine.

Bruce, I don't think the US.gov will go the default route precisely because of the scenarios you listed as a result of cancelling all of the social safety net types of programs. I don't think any of the politicians have the so called political will to come out and just announce they can't pay for it so, sorry, we're shutting it down.

I think they will go the inflation/hyperinflation route (eventually) in order to technically fund their end of the deal but at the same time water down the currency until the people denounce it similar to the Weimar Republic. The government debt angle and its staggering numbers are the main reason that I fall on the inflationist side of the debate, no matter if the deflationist side looks like it may be the way we're headed in the short term...

No doubt we will hyper-inflate at some point, it is inevitable, IMO.  The deflationary effects make that more and more probable as tax receipts dry up.  The question is timing.

I don't know, but at this point, a good dose of deflation to pound down things like gold/silver to the $700/$9 per ounce range would be a good opportunity to hedge against what will at some point be hyperinflation of the USD. I know a lot of people that would freak out if this were to happen, but for the long run, it would be the last call to get out of your USD denominated assets. I say bring it on...

This would be a nice way to get out of your FRN's - but I wouldnt hold my breath

[cabacaba]

The stone age was not all that bad, humans worked 15 hours a week and the rest of the time was yours to do with what you wanted, I read.  It was much more egalitarian, no human living magnitudes ahead of another like we got now and they were in much better shape physically, the average able to run faster than the Olympic athletes we got now, see the article about the Australian aborigine foot prints from the stone age and how they measured his foot prints and how fast he was running after game.  They were also taller and better fed.  So stone age humans had a good life in my opinion. 

Doesn't work quite like that. In the 30's we had no electricity and worked sunrise to dark keeping the farm going. We were the lucky ones. We still had  a farm.   
There were two seasons to farm life, winter and summer.. Both had major problems. Winter you were always freezing. Taking a dump in winter wasn't easy even for a kid. Summer was worse as the outhouse contained black widow spiders, scorpions, and flies some could bite... No way would I go into the outhouse, I would go out behind the chicken house and you wiped on whatever you could find.

Summer had other problems like ticks and chiggers. Every night I would take off all my clothes and lay on the feather bed so Grandma could pick the ticks off and dig out the chiggers. Chiggers are a tiny red mite that burrows into your skin and itches like hell. Grandma would dig them out with a sharp tooth pick. Then she would cover the bumps with calamine lotion. Chiggers liked black berry bushes. When we would go Berry picking I would wash down with kerosene that help keep the chiggers off.. 
The main chore for summer was the garden and canning food. Grandpas saw mill was working all the time getting logs out of mountains while they could. He had a contract with the coal mines for shoring posts.
It was up to mom and me to do the garden and canning. Although, grandpa would plant about an acre of potatoes in late spring... Late summer we had to gather in the animal feed. Usually hay, oats, and high gear. Grandpa would pay the mill hands to help out. I was small and I kept the water buckets filled...

Sleeping in summer was hard. You would lie on the bed sweating while the mosquitoes drove you nuts and occasionally you would feel a tick crawling across your belly. One good thing about summer was that you got to take a bath. Grandpa and I would go to the creek and take some lye soap and take our clothes off and jump in after we checked for water moccasins (poisonous snake) of course.  Grandpa made two large A frames and put a 50 gallon barrel on top with a shower with burlap bag curtains so grandma could take a shower. Grandpa would hitch up the mules and we would haul water from the creek to fill the barrel. The hot summer sun would heat it scalding hot... 

In winter there was less work but, the animals and chickens still had to be fed. You were cold and wet all the time. Taking a bath once a month was a major chore. Mom was first and I was second and grandpa was last. Everyone used the same water in a tub by the cook stove.  Saturday night usually, so you would be clean for church Sunday.
 
Your nose was always dripping something.. When I got sick grandma would cover my chest with hot onion poultices.
And give me some patent remedy that was full God know what. Probably alcohol and cocaine that would make to feel good for awhile until you started puking...

We were the lucky ones we had the farm and the mill for a little money. People in those days were small, their houses were tiny compared to ours today. Lack of food and hard work is what made them small. Lots of funerals, there where no doctors. My other grandma, Annie, was the local midwife and healer. She would set bones and give herbal medicines to those in need. She would find a sick kid on her door step occasionally and she would take it in and care for it until some one came to pick it up...

There was no law. The country had one sheriff to cover a lot of mountains. The local men had a vigilante group that would take care of any problems.   If a man abused his family the guys would tie him to a tree and remove the hide on his back with a bull whip. Thieves and killers were hung...

 

 

[Phildo]

Right... I'm not going to read that big lump.

What I take away is the feds will only take power they will never return it.  Name any power Obama has returned that Bush claimed?

As a friend of mine said, if you invent something new & cool... recall those infomercials on TV that say "Inventors!  Call this number..."... well, if you call that number, and you have some real serious stuff that could change the political/energy/money game, you can bet the black choppers are on their way, and nobody will hear your ass screaming as they haul you to Gitmo.

naw.  It is just business.  Sleazy business, but just business.  The Inventor Submission folks just want your filing fees for most of what are really dumb ideas.  By the time the would-be "inventor" folks are done with the business folks picking their pocket the "inventor" is down at least $2000 to $10K and may wind up with an otherwise worthless patent or not.

Real problem is there are a bunch of Wiley Coyote level nitwits who will not get the background knowledge and/or education to actually work or be productive in the fields they fantasize.  

Here is a sample.  

http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.php/topic,44483.0.html

(btw, worth flipping through that thread to get a sail-kite boat video)

The intended topic of that particular post / thread is particularly "Wiley Coyote" comical, but is not untypical of the garbage that comes through places like Invention Submission.  In this case, it looked like our Resident Wiley did not have much bank, so the I.S. grifters would not likely be interested, and instead our Wiley was doing his panhandling via ebooks.    

But none of it is about "some real serious stuff that could change the political/energy/money game."  

Just a pack of greedy business folks and nitwits.

Real invention and/or development and production from it is HARD WORK.  It is really Hard Work.  As Ford said -- Thinking is hard work, that is why so few do it.  

Make no mistake, we are living under marshal law, and it will only get worse and more obvious as the shortage of natural resources becomes more apparent. You think they don't know about this stuff?  bahhhh!

Well if it were, it would Martial (as in things Military), not Marshal -- Like Matt Dillon ala Ms. Kitty and Gunsmoke . . .  

But here is the real deal -- So much sunlight falls on US daily it covers all our energy use many times over.  So far folks are just to dumb and lazy to use it.  

[Domscott66]

Thank you cabacaba. I tend to overromaticise the past but I do think some of the things we have learned can make that life a little easier. I guess it depends on how it all plays out. Please continue your shares about those times, they are a good reminder of what life will become without our industrial complex.

[jtollison78]

The stone age was not all that bad, humans worked 15 hours a week and the rest of the time was yours to do with what you wanted, I read.  It was much more egalitarian, no human living magnitudes ahead of another like we got now and they were in much better shape physically, the average able to run faster than the Olympic athletes we got now, see the article about the Australian aborigine foot prints from the stone age and how they measured his foot prints and how fast he was running after game.  They were also taller and better fed.  So stone age humans had a good life in my opinion. 

Doesn't work quite like that. In the 30's we had no electricity and worked sunrise to dark keeping the farm going. We were the lucky ones. We still had  a farm.   
...

He's not talking about farming.

Problems with hunting and gathering:
Humasn have had time to evolve away the lifesstyle
Life if short, and death at the hands of others much more frequent than today
Farming can support far more people, so the world's population would have to crash harder to transition back.

All that said, the good times were good, with very little work (20 hrs/week are the estimates I remember reading.)

I've wondered about animal husbandry instead of farming. I believe that was big in Europe for a long time and though I haven't really looked into it, it seems less labor intesive than farming, but again, wold probably require a smaller population.

[quick]

The stone age was not all that bad, humans worked 15 hours a week and the rest of the time was yours to do with what you wanted, I read.  It was much more egalitarian, no human living magnitudes ahead of another like we got now and they were in much better shape physically, the average able to run faster than the Olympic athletes we got now, see the article about the Australian aborigine foot prints from the stone age and how they measured his foot prints and how fast he was running after game.  They were also taller and better fed.  So stone age humans had a good life in my opinion. 

Doesn't work quite like that. In the 30's we had no electricity and worked sunrise to dark keeping the farm going. We were the lucky ones. We still had  a farm.   
There were two seasons to farm life, winter and summer.. Both had major problems. Winter you were always freezing. Taking a dump in winter wasn't easy even for a kid. Summer was worse as the outhouse contained black widow spiders, scorpions, and flies some could bite... No way would I go into the outhouse, I would go out behind the chicken house and you wiped on whatever you could find.

Summer had other problems like ticks and chiggers. Every night I would take off all my clothes and lay on the feather bed so Grandma could pick the ticks off and dig out the chiggers. Chiggers are a tiny red mite that burrows into your skin and itches like hell. Grandma would dig them out with a sharp tooth pick. Then she would cover the bumps with calamine lotion. Chiggers liked black berry bushes. When we would go Berry picking I would wash down with kerosene that help keep the chiggers off.. 
The main chore for summer was the garden and canning food. Grandpas saw mill was working all the time getting logs out of mountains while they could. He had a contract with the coal mines for shoring posts.
It was up to mom and me to do the garden and canning. Although, grandpa would plant about an acre of potatoes in late spring... Late summer we had to gather in the animal feed. Usually hay, oats, and high gear. Grandpa would pay the mill hands to help out. I was small and I kept the water buckets filled...

Sleeping in summer was hard. You would lie on the bed sweating while the mosquitoes drove you nuts and occasionally you would feel a tick crawling across your belly. One good thing about summer was that you got to take a bath. Grandpa and I would go to the creek and take some lye soap and take our clothes off and jump in after we checked for water moccasins (poisonous snake) of course.  Grandpa made two large A frames and put a 50 gallon barrel on top with a shower with burlap bag curtains so grandma could take a shower. Grandpa would hitch up the mules and we would haul water from the creek to fill the barrel. The hot summer sun would heat it scalding hot... 

In winter there was less work but, the animals and chickens still had to be fed. You were cold and wet all the time. Taking a bath once a month was a major chore. Mom was first and I was second and grandpa was last. Everyone used the same water in a tub by the cook stove.  Saturday night usually, so you would be clean for church Sunday.
 
Your nose was always dripping something.. When I got sick grandma would cover my chest with hot onion poultices.
And give me some patent remedy that was full God know what. Probably alcohol and cocaine that would make to feel good for awhile until you started puking...

We were the lucky ones we had the farm and the mill for a little money. People in those days were small, their houses were tiny compared to ours today. Lack of food and hard work is what made them small. Lots of funerals, there where no doctors. My other grandma, Annie, was the local midwife and healer. She would set bones and give herbal medicines to those in need. She would find a sick kid on her door step occasionally and she would take it in and care for it until some one came to pick it up...

There was no law. The country had one sheriff to cover a lot of mountains. The local men had a vigilante group that would take care of any problems.   If a man abused his family the guys would tie him to a tree and remove the hide on his back with a bull whip. Thieves and killers were hung...

 

 

People still live that way in Ukraine last time I visited.

We, and many others in the western world,  just got used to an easy life that was/is unsustainable

[gin]

I think a few trillion can buy us time. Most of us lament the waste of the bailouts at the expense of things we really need.
For preppers though, what is more valuable than time? Keep the bailouts and insider trading and real estate game going!

hopefully you were being sarcastic..
it's not bought us anything.. the banksters yes.. more time for them
to steal more money.. more time for them to get their ducks in row..

why would anyone say the middle class.. what is left of it.. are better off today than they were
one year ago when the bailout thefts of our treasury started.. but the wall street boys sure are..
we the people are now $2 trillion more in debt than we were a year ago.. how the hell is that better..

I'm sure villa's in Switzerland are selling well.. and they don't come cheap
where Detroit homes are a dime a dozen.. why is it that.. just a co-incidence

[quick]

People talk about the bailout like all the debt really matters  -  The thread title is right - This government is dead - Obama is just finishing of the coffin and dead men cant pay.

Get all you can from this crooked, shit hole government while you can and enjoy the good times at hand,  cause when its over - stoneage living will be considered good times.

Dont worry about government debt which is all funny money and surely it was known all along this could never be paid back

[ajhammered365]

People talk about the bailout like all the debt really matters  -  The thread title is right - This government is dead - Obama is just finishing of the coffin and dead men cant pay.

Get all you can from this crooked, shit hole government while you can and enjoy the good times at hand,  cause when its over - stoneage living will be considered good times.

Dont worry about government debt which is all funny money and surely it was known all along this could never be paid back

Oh they will pay it back alright. If all your doing is printing money there is no reason to default. The .gov will just send everyone more worthless money until finally everyone just tells them to keep there TP.

[cz]

To the post. We been wondering around the doomstead if financial collapse might get us before PO. I call it a dead heat at this point.

Oh geez, what the hell do you think is causing the financial collapse? 

Exactly! Our entire economic system is geared around "endless growth".  Look at the "cheering" (rah rah!) about the (doctored/fake number) "3+% GDP 'growth' this quarter".

You cannot have "endless growth" without "endless energy" - and PO makes the falsehood of the latter a *given*, which in turn totally negates the former.    That negation pretty much means "endless depression", or at least a long one, which TPTB are making *worse* by still clinging hopelessly to their "endless growth", "we'll grow our way out of it" mentality.

[cz]

What this country has been doing for years, in our shortsightedness, can be summed up by Wimpy from the old Popeye cartoons:

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today".

Of course, "Tuesday" never seems to come - because when it does, we can't actually pay it anyways.

[alan2102]

The Peak Oil collapse is going to make the Black Death look like a Sunday stroll through the park.  We're
talking about the total collapse of modern petro-based agriculture and AT BEST, the return of the
world's human population to pre-industrial levels (about 1 billion).  And that assumes no nuclear war
breaking out as the world flies apart. 

ONE BILLION?!  Sunday stroll through the park?! That's a dreamy Pollyanna
scenario if I ever heard one!  

The collapse will NOT make the Black Death look like a stroll thru the park. It will
make it look like an extended vacation in paradise -- lolling on the beach, sipping
pina coladas in between massages.

Within 3 years -- 5 at the outside max -- there will be 10 million of us humans
left, or less. "Humans" reduced to a miserable sub-human existence: cold,
shivering, half-naked, hungry, wet, chronically infected with untreated wounds
and horrible parasitic infestations, in physical pain, and living continually in terror of
being caught and tortured to death by neighboring barbarians. The living will envy
the dead, and few will be able to refrain from committing suicide.  And that is
the BEST CASE scenario.

If you want to believe those fairy-tale tra-la tra-la stories because it makes you
feel good, then... OK. Whatever. You can all join hands and sing Kumbaya, for all
I care.  But SOME of us have the cajones to FACE the grim realities of our inevitable
future.  Maybe if you really believe all that asshattery  then you should get out of
here and go post on one of the many forums for idiots in denial.

[cz]

If you want to believe those fairy-tale tra-la tra-la stories because it makes you
feel good, then... OK. Whatever. You can all join hands and sing Kumbaya, for all
I care.  But SOME of us have the cajones to FACE the grim realities of our inevitable
future.  Maybe if you really believe all that asshattery  then you should get out of
here and go post on one of the many forums for idiots in denial.

And here's the lyrics for Kumbaya... I might suggest you *print* them out, because when you need them there won't be power or "online" to find them otherwise. 

Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya

Someone's singing Lord, kumbaya
Someone's singing Lord, kumbaya
Someone's singing Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbayah

Someone's laughing, Lord, kumbaya
Someone's laughing, Lord, kumbaya
Someone's laughing, Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya

Someone's crying, Lord, kumbaya
Someone's crying, Lord, kumbaya
Someone's crying, Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya

Someone's praying, Lord, kumbaya
Someone's praying, Lord, kumbaya
Someone's praying, Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya

Someone's sleeping, Lord, kumbaya
Someone's sleeping, Lord, kumbaya
Someone's sleeping, Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya

... although we should probably add another verse or two:

We're all starving, Lord, kumbaya
We're all starving, Lord, kumbaya
We're all starving, Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya

We're all dying, Lord, kumbaya
We're all dying, Lord, kumbaya
We're all dying, Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya

[digger]

Destabilize the world a bit more, not too much, just a little more each year, and risk-flight capital will come to the US to finance the deficit. We may not even have to do anything, as PO will destabilize the world all by itself. Just by virtue of being a superpower in an increasingly uncertain world, capital will flee here and to other safe-havens.

This is nothing new. It has long been in our interest that most of the earth be politically unstable and poor. Keeps prices down on raw materials, and ensures that some of the money that does accumulate in the non-"first"-world comes this way. See Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and The Export Land Model (at The Oil Drum).

The BRIC nations are changing this dynamic during this decade, though. Between the BRICs and the former "first-world," I wonder who can keep their shit together the longest? That's where the world's capital will go. i'd put my money on the countries/regions that have a strong military and indigenous energy supply. The ability to continue innovating and attracting the world's talent helps, too.

It's a balancing act, but we might keep that deficit financed another 10 years.

Don't like it, but that's the way I see it.

[DoomandGloom]

Oh the Dark Ages and the Black Death are real nail biters huh? 
 Not to sound like a smart ass or anything but this is just a fart in history. It's important to us because we are going through it. Just like the people who were dying of bubonic plague must have thought they had done something to piss off God.
 Face it in a couple of hundred years, this little point in time will be a couple of pages in a book about how we screwed up and should have done this, instead of that. The only difference is we get to live, or die, during this time in history.

I would agree - I don't find the fall of the Roman Empire too exciting either.