Is the global economy on the verge of the biggest collapse ever?

ToddyDoody

Someone has to default first? Who's at risk at the moment?

On the domestos front, the banks are somewhat sorted, consumer debt isn't what it used to be, the govt are just about balancing the books, prices don't seem to be too high etc.,

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the 2016 economic disaster is a UK thing in advance of the Brexit.

Corpus Twisty

Oil is at record lows, the price of scrap and metals generally is on its ar5e - scrap cars are making €20 atm...which points to very weak demand and oversupply.. so either the only way is up...or there's an epic crash imminent. Either will be interesting to watch. If you rushed out and bought a scrap-yard or an oil drilling rig in the last few good years, you'd be holding your head in your hands right now..

kupus

CT HAT ON TIME:pac::pac:....too much debt that the world cannot sustain it along with a Population explosion, so generally what would be a good thing is war.
Stems the pop and creates work. two birds one stone. Time to stock tuna fish.:eek:

Victor

TallGlass wrote: »

Take for example the Amazon owner he is worth 40 billion euros, he could spend 2 billion on making Amazon a great place to work and pay low paid workers an excellent wage not seen for there jobs. Everyone would be happy, and you know what? He would be still worth 38 billion and I would put money on it, if the staff are happy and know there paid well then you'll recoup that money in performance.

This demonstrates the financial illiteracy that dominates such discussions.

1. Amazon has many owners, not one. 68% of shares are held by institutional & mutual fund owners. That's ordinary peoples' pensions funds.
2. Responsibility for wages doesn't fall on one person.
3. Due to exceptionally low interest rates, many shares are currently over-valued. At $268 billion, Amazon is probably over-valued, especially seeing as it made a loss in 2014.
4. Jeffrey Bzos's share are actually worth €48 billion today.
5. With 154,000 employees, that $2 billion would give each employee a one-off $13,000 or so (before tax). What will they do next year?

Corpus Twisty

It's feckin Baltic and dry here tonight anyway.

Palbear

Dow is down 400 today and still falling.

its started :eek:

Ardent

It's a bloodbath out there. I'm watching one particular company and their stock has devalued by almost a quarter in the last 10 days.

Palbear

if you were brave enough, you could go long here. Bottom fishing.

would I?
no thanks.

Stock market is a scary beast. will stick to FX trading for now.

Akrasia

Austria! wrote: »

How do the coming environmental crises factor into your thinking?

It'll either work out in the end or it will be a complete catastrophe.

I think we have enough irons in the fire regarding carbon neutral energy generation for at least some of them to pay off before its too late.
Habitat destruction Is a big concern but I think that we'll be able to maintain minimum reserves for now so that when we're more mature and better prepared to maintain the whole ecosystem that we'll be able to restore some of what we're losing now

Junkyard Tom

Austria! wrote: »

If we do have a collapse, will we be able to rectify it?

Yes if the free market fundamentalists (FMFs) can be shut up and/or discredited.

we've already thrown loads of money into QE.

QE didn't work properly because the money printed was given to financial people who instead of lending it out instead used it to shore up their reserves or for speculation.

Here's an alternative way of using money by creating it debt free and spending it into the real economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHQ7wvWzUW0

SEPT 23 1989

ToddyDoody wrote: »

Someone has to default first? Who's at risk at the moment?

On the domestos front, the banks are somewhat sorted, consumer debt isn't what it used to be, the govt are just about balancing the books, prices don't seem to be too high etc.,

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the 2016 economic disaster is a UK thing in advance of the Brexit.

Porto Rico defaulted recently

Little waves get much bigger as they reach the shore

Iwasfrozen

Is there a crash coming? Maybe, maybe not. Either way it won't make much difference to our society. Even during the last crash our standards of living were higher than they were during the 80's crash and we were able to subsidize thousands unemployed and in full time education. The schools stayed open, the hospitals in business and the lights stayed on. It's not the end of the world.

KomradeBishop

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

...
Here's an alternative way of using money by creating it debt free and spending it into the real economy.
...

Slightly off topic:
There was a good point made about the Positive Money crowd - but mainly a semantic-point/technicality, which doesn't detract from their general arguments - that the term "debt-free money" is a misnomer, because no matter how money is created, it has to be written onto an accounting ledger, as: (with 'Liabilities' being synonymous with debt)
Assets|Liabilities
+Money|-Money

So when anyone uses the term 'debt-free money', what they really mean, is money associated with debt, but without the debt having to be paid off after a set time period, and without interest accumulating on the debt - in other words, money free of a particular type of debt.

'Debt-free money' is still the most useful and easily understood way to frame/explain the general issue though - and is still accurate if read as the above - just an interesting technical point.

Akrasia

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Is there a crash coming? Maybe, maybe not. Either way it won't make much difference to our society. Even during the last crash our standards of living were higher than they were during the 80's crash and we were able to subsidize thousands unemployed and in full time education. The schools stayed open, the hospitals in business and the lights stayed on. It's not the end of the world.

There was a bit of a lost generation though. I graduated at the start of the crash when employment in my sector simply dried up, and 8 years on my income is way lower than it would have been and I've lost all the skills I was trained in

Crashes have very real personal costs for many people.

KingBrian2

Apparently oil is cheaper than water. What that tells us about the world economy I do not honesty know but I know for certain you can't drink oil to keep yourself alive.:)

KomradeBishop

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Is there a crash coming? Maybe, maybe not. Either way it won't make much difference to our society. Even during the last crash our standards of living were higher than they were during the 80's crash and we were able to subsidize thousands unemployed and in full time education. The schools stayed open, the hospitals in business and the lights stayed on. It's not the end of the world.

Unemployment all by itself harms our society - it's well documented to have wide-ranging negative effects on people who are unemployed, including on physical/mental health, and it inherently holds peoples entire lives back as they have to scrape-by without equal opportunities for employment, and so can't progress financially in life (and with todays rising costs of living, they are getting squeezed ever more in multiple ways).

It simply isn't an acceptable way to run the economy long-term - we're on course towards having a decade+ of high-unemployment, now that the worldwide economy is going to start slowing - perhaps multiple decades of high unemployment.

Of course, that's all to the benefit of the groups who cause these crises and hold us in crisis, as high-unemployment, a large reserve-army of labour, is a great way of crippling worker bargaining power - redistributing the rewards from production, away from wages/labour, and into corporate/wealthy/powerful hands. For them, high unemployment is a feature, not a bug - it plays an inherent part in increasing income/wealth inequality - expect it to be a permanent feature of western economies, unless/until there is enough political pressure to fight it.

dasdog

Palbear wrote: »

if you were brave enough, you could go long here. Bottom fishing.

would I?
no thanks.

Stock market is a scary beast. will stick to FX trading for now.

When the man on the street is talking about it, thats a signal of Elliot wave five. Not going to attempt to call the bottom but I've been buying Yen, Dollar and Euro at sensible levels. Sterling, Aus and Canadian dollars are just toxic at the moment. All eyes including the US traders now taking shifts, will be on the Chinese GDP and Industrial data prints at 2am on Tuesday. There is real fear and volitility out there. Definitely want to be able to close instantly and I too wouldn't touch equities.

Iwasfrozen

Akrasia wrote: »

There was a bit of a lost generation though. I graduated at the start of the crash when employment in my sector simply dried up, and 8 years on my income is way lower than it would have been and I've lost all the skills I was trained in

Crashes have very real personal costs for many people.

With respect you didn't lose anything, you earned less than you thought you would based on pre bust boom level wages.

Corpus Twisty

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Apparently oil is cheaper than water. What that tells us about the world economy I do not honesty know but I know for certain you can't drink oil to keep yourself alive.:)

Well the Bush family sold out of oil and bought into water a good while back..and I guess they know a thing or two.

Iwasfrozen

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Unemployment all by itself harms our society - it's well documented to have wide-ranging negative effects on people who are unemployed, including on physical/mental health, and it inherently holds peoples entire lives back as they have to scrape-by without equal opportunities for employment, and so can't progress financially in life (and with todays rising costs of living, they are getting squeezed ever more in multiple ways).

It simply isn't an acceptable way to run the economy long-term - we're on course towards having a decade+ of high-unemployment, now that the worldwide economy is going to start slowing - perhaps multiple decades of high unemployment.

Of course, that's all to the benefit of the groups who cause these crises and hold us in crisis, as high-unemployment, a large reserve-army of labour, is a great way of crippling worker bargaining power - redistributing the rewards from production, away from wages/labour, and into corporate/wealthy/powerful hands. For them, high unemployment is a feature, not a bug - it plays an inherent part in increasing income/wealth inequality - expect it to be a permanent feature of western economies, unless/until there is enough political pressure to fight it.

Do you really think there is a secret cabal running things behind the scenes and planning to keep unemployment high? That's not happening, neither is unemployment by itself a bad thing. It can encourage people to go back to education and adapt to the changing marketplace.

Corpus Twisty

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Do you really think there is a secret cabal running things behind the scenes and planning to keep unemployment high? That's not happening, neither is unemployment by itself a bad thing. It can encourage people to go back to education and adapt to the changing marketplace.

You say this from your position as a billionaire, right?

KingBrian2

Corpus Twisty wrote: »

You say this from your position as a billionaire, right?

Boards.ie is a billionaire free zone. God forbid anyone of wealth was on this forum.:eek: The forums are over crawling with socialists. Now I feel the people in the upper income bracket have contributed to Irish society in ways that has not always been malign. Most others would consider anyone left of centre as Blueshirts.

Akrasia

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

With respect you didn't lose anything, you earned less than you thought you would based on pre bust boom level wages.

There are losses in time, investment and opportunity costs when boom bust cycles occur. Kids are asked to choose a career path years before they are qualified and it's not fair to say that they suffered no loss when they find themselves in the job market with no marketable skills because their industry has collapsed

Akrasia

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Boards.ie is a billionaire free zone. God forbid anyone of wealth was on this forum.:eek: The forums are over crawling with socialists. Now I feel the people in the upper income bracket have contributed to Irish society in ways that has not always been malign. Most others would consider anyone left of centre as Blueshirts.

Only the owners of boards.ie are billionaires. Us users are just plebs, hamster feed for the server hamsters

Akrasia

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Yes if the free market fundamentalists (FMFs) can be shut up and/or discredited.



QE didn't work properly because the money printed was given to financial people who instead of lending it out instead used it to shore up their reserves or for speculation.

Here's an alternative way of using money by creating it debt free and spending it into the real economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHQ7wvWzUW0

I'm a big fan helicopter money, especially if it's landing on me

Corpus Twisty

Akrasia wrote: »

I'm a big fan helicopter money, especially if it's landing on me

The tail rotor would probably lobotomise you. Same as it would me.

KomradeBishop

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Do you really think there is a secret cabal running things behind the scenes and planning to keep unemployment high? That's not happening, neither is unemployment by itself a bad thing. It can encourage people to go back to education and adapt to the changing marketplace.

No, I think it's much more simple than that: Self-interest.

You don't need people to conspire together to screw the rest of society, so that they can enrich/empower themselves when in a position to do so collectively, when you can rely on them to do so purely out of self-interest, and the knowledge that others share the same self-interest - without any conspiracy being needed. Indeed, the industries most involved in this, have a whole philosophy based on this kind of self-interest built-in to part of their culture.

No conspiracy needed, complete plausible deniability.


I don't think you're going to convince anyone but yourself, that permanently high unemployment is a good thing.

Iwasfrozen

Akrasia wrote: »

There are losses in time, investment and opportunity costs when boom bust cycles occur. Kids are asked to choose a career path years before they are qualified and it's not fair to say that they suffered no loss when they find themselves in the job market with no marketable skills because their industry has collapsed

It's also not fair to base the child's projected career, either in wages or availability of work on a pre bust, boom model. A more balanced view takes into account the artificially high demand created by the boom.

Iwasfrozen

KomradeBishop wrote: »

No, I think it's much more simple than that: Self-interest.

You don't need people to conspire together to screw the rest of society, so that they can enrich/empower themselves when in a position to do so collectively, when you can rely on them to do so purely out of self-interest, and the knowledge that others share the same self-interest - without any conspiracy being needed. Indeed, the industries most involved in this, have a whole philosophy based on this kind of self-interest built-in to part of their culture.

No conspiracy needed, complete plausible deniability.


I don't think you're going to convince anyone but yourself, that permanently high unemployment is a good thing.

So these thousands of wealthy conspirators all acting in their independently of each other for their own collective self interest are able to keep their neferious plots a secret? It's a good thing the wealthy are a collective or that would be impossible.

I don't need to convince anyone of anything. Everyone is personally responsible for where they want to end up in this world. I've seen second generation immigrants become Accountants, Doctors and CFAs while native Irish students who had far more oppertunites presented to them drank in college than moan when they end up unemployed.

Perhaps the economy will crash again, who knows, we can't do anything about that but on an individual basis one of the best things we can do is instill a sense of personal responsibility in people for how their own lives have turned out. You can only help someone once you cut through the wall of excuses and deflection of blame.

Eugene Norman

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

With respect you didn't lose anything, you earned less than you thought you would based on pre bust boom level wages.

So he did lose something, just worded differently.