Off topic from is Australia entering Japans Nightmare

Shouganai said:

Yes, the USA has problems, but you can bet that people will be buying up those properties within a year. The US will take a while to pick up, but the world didn't go into a recession in 2000 when the USA faced a comparable asset crisis. Most Americans are sitting on a lot of equity in their homes. Higher interest rates in the USA, probably, but there will not be depression for another 15 years. We are in the midst of a super-cycle. This is just a pause for absorption of credit. So I suggest breathing before you hyperventilate.

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noyhauser said:

You can add the byline "Now with twice as much pachipronomics" to give a real sense of these threads.

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Bloomberg said:

U.S. foreclosure filings rose to a record in August as falling home prices made it harder to sell or refinance homes to pay off the mortgage, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
Owners of 303,879 properties, or one in 416 U.S. households, got a default notice, were warned of a pending auction or foreclosed on last month. That was the most since reporting began in January 2005. Filings increased 27 percent from a year earlier, about half the annual pace of previous months, because of high default totals in August 2007, the Irvine, California- based seller of foreclosure data said in a statement today.......

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Pachipro said:

The reason why the world and the US did not go into recession in 2000 during the dot.com bubble bust was the implementation, by the Fed, of low cost housing loans to anyone who breathed and could sign their name at very low teaser rates of 2-3%. Thus, the US did not go into recession and housing prices went through the roof as many people hoped to make a huge profit flipping houses. Also, it enabled many people to buy more house than they could afford. This is the sole reason why the US did not go into recession in 2000 when it most definitely should have.

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Pachipro said:

Now they are all broke and way in debt and the world back then was also duped into believing that the US economy was sound when the truth is, it was far from sound. The result today is the sad fact that the average American is upside down in their home and car and have more than, on average, more than $8,000 in credit card debt and 7 out of 10 households are 1 - 2 paychecks away from bankruptcy.

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Pachipro said:

Sadly, Shouganai, you need to do a little more research as the majority of homeowners today are upside down in their mortgages and have no equity whatsoever; have not only a mortgage, but also a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit) and cannot afford to pay two mortgages today.

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Pachipro said:

The simple fact is that real income for the average American DOES NOT support housing prices even at their currently depressed levels. 9% of US mortgages are either in default or foreclosure and the economy is worsening on a daily basis. Therefore, the government had no choice but to take over Fannie and Freddie.

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Pachipro said:

This amounts to bankruptcy and nationalization.
Actually there is a world of difference between foreclosure, debt delinquency and bankruptcy. You ignore the assets they hold. There is also a world of difference between absorbing a private banks debts and your presumption that they would be redeeming the housing stock.

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Pachipro said:

According to recent Treasury figures, foreign holdings of US Agency debt, that is debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, rose from $107 billion in 1994 to $1.304 billion as of June 30, 2008. Foreigners own about $800 billion of that debt. Thus, you can see why bondholders were bailed out. In addition, Fannie and Freddie are responsible for $5.3 trillion in mortgages, that impact, by comparison, is 13 times greater than the Bear Stearns failure.

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Pachipro said:

Now that the majority of homeowners have no equity, are "upside down in their mortgages, and many are being foreclosed upon, including the "flippers", they are just walking away and, if the US government did not step in to help Fannie and Freddie, foreigners would be very upset and may have sold their treasuries to make up for their losses. This would bankrupt the US.

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Pachipro said:

Maybe you should think about investing in US foreclosures as anyone with cash is most welcomed today by banking institutions. However, the end is not in sight yet and may not be for at least two more years as now ALT-A mortgages are beginning to default.

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Pachipro said:

You don't have to believe me or call me names like "Pachipronomics". The partial story is here on Bloomberg [bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601213&sid=aWKdjgdwQZQI&refer=home"]US Foreclosurers Hit Record in August As Housing Prices Fell[/URL]

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Shouganai said:

I don't dismiss the fact that the US is going through pain, and I certainly appreciate that the world is looking at higher interest rates and inflation, but that does not spell depression, nor is the credit bubble going to unwind just yet. The sad reality is that people will recover from this thinking there will be no depression in future because people called 'wolf' on this occasion. That cannot be helped.

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Well I wouldn't be surprised if real income is falling at the moment, but unemployment is 6.1%, and I doubt it will breach 9%, which is a recession number, but it will be absorbed in 2-3 years tops. This boom will continue. Oil prices have already cooled, so those people in default or foreclosed (you say 9%, but have not sourced it and you dont even seem to differentiate.

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With RealtyTrac reporting in excess of 750,000 bank-owned properties, we estimate that nearly 0.6 percent of all housing units in the United States are now bank-owned. While this may appear to be a small slice of the total housing stock, this is the same ratio of foreclosed properties to housing units in 1930. Foreclosures increased steadily from 1930 until peaking in 1933, at which point 10 percent of all homes had become bank-owned. They did not return to pre-Depression levels until 1938.
.......Whether the situation is truly a harbinger of things becoming as dire as they did between 1930 and 1933 is something we will only know after the fact. But foreclosures are mounting, with 1 in 11 American families with a home loan in trouble as of June.

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Well I wouldn't be surprised if real income is falling at the moment, but unemployment is 6.1%, and I doubt it will breach 9%, which is a recession number, but it will be absorbed in 2-3 years tops.

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Pachipro said:

I do not have the time to address all your inquiries but I will adress what I can. Suffice it to say that my sources are accurate. I just browse so many web sites and subscribe to more than a few newsletters that I don't source them all.

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Pachipro said:

The sad fact is that the credit bubble is unwinding. It is now harder for anyone, including major institutions to get credit these days without an excellent credit rating. And even then it is not easy. Today anyone wanting a mortgage will have to have a credit rating above 700 and a 20% down payment and even that is not guaranteed. Car loans are harder to come buy and even major stores are starting to cut back as many are defaulting on their credit or just walking away from their homes. The next meltdown will be in the credit industry. Just watch. Maybe not now, but after the elections.

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Pachipro said:

Banks now own same share of homes as beginning of Depression

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Pachipro said:

I believe that 1 in 11 homes is close to 9% if you ask me. In addition I believe their figures to be more accurate than the controlled media and government wants us to believe as they do not want a panic to arise.

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Pachipro said:

The sad fact is that we are already in a recession and have been for many months now, but you will not hear it from the government with their release of bogus figuers.

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Shouganai said:

I don't think it matters how much you read, its a matter of your understanding, capacity to think critically, honesty and the quality of what you read.

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This is all true, but you have to make a case for why inflation should persist as a problem. It is rising because asset prices are falling. So I'm saying they will fall to a point, but they will turn around.

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Not a very good measures because it really doesn't matter who owns them, the issue is whether they exist and whether they can produce an income. I would also suggest that the 1920s resulted in the creation of excess capacity, we are in a period of inadequate capacity now, except in US housing. The Depression was more the result of bad policy during the Depression. Banks are much more astute now in managing crises.

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Rising gold prices are a cold sore on the lip of central bankers. In the world of paper money, it's a clear sign something's not right

.....Central bankers are the keepers of the keys to the kingdom. The kingdom, however, is on the edge of bankruptcy and in danger as never before. Comparisons are now being made to the Great Depression of the 1930s. The comparisons, however, are just that.

.....In some ways, the situation is similar. In many ways, it is not. In a very fundamental way, the conditions are much worse. The systemic strains on the global financial system are today much more profound than even during the Great Depression.

.....The Great Depression of the 1930s was unique in the history of capital markets built on debt-based money, sic capitalism. Until the creation of the Federal Reserve System, the US economy had been a savings-based, not debt-based, economy. The difference between the two, although rarely understood, is profound

.....The price paid for credit-based expansion is debt. Increasing the debt-based money supply increases the amount of debt; and, over the naturally limited life of a debt-based economy, the constantly increasing and compounding levels of debt will grow until the economy collapses.

.....Compounding debt, the wellspring of bankers' profits, will eventually destroy the economy on which it lives. The time it takes to do so is dependent on the strength and productivity of the underlying economy.

.....No economy, however, no matter how strong initially, can out run the constantly compounding debt of credit-based money—not even the United States .

.....In 1913, the Federal Reserve System began feeding debt-based money into the previously savings-based US economy; and in just ten years, the newly available cheap credit poured into the stock market and drove shares prices to historic highs. In 1929, the stock market collapsed and the Great Depression began in 1933, only thirty years after the Federal Reserve Act was approved.

.....It was the vast amounts of cheap credit from the Federal Reserve that fueled the meteoric rise of the stock market bubble in the 1920s, a bubble so large its collapse plunged the US and the world into the first Great Depression in the 1930s; and, now, today, the same is again about to happen.

.....The amount of debt that will soon come crashing down will make the Great Depression seem exactly as it is, a prelude to something much larger and much more dangerous—a possible hyperinflationary deflationary collapse that will soon dwarf the merely deflationary collapse of the 1930s.

.....Americans often tell themselves that safeguards are in place that will prevent another Great Depression; and, as we are now on the edge of another such collapse, it would do us well to take another look at those ﾂ"safeguardsﾂ" to see how safe we actually are—or aren't. (Please read them in the article or don't, if you desire to stay safe in your thinking that all is well and the great banks will take care of us sheeple.)
Glass-Steagall was designed to protect America from another Great Depression, a time where one in four had been out of work, where 60 % of banks had failed, and where bread lines were as common as family misery. But in 1999 Glass-Steagall was repealed by those elected to represent the peoples' will.

.....The subversion of democracy did not happen overnight or by chance. It was built into the process itself. Alexis deToqueville in his seminal work, Democracy In America written in the 1830s, believed that America's version of democracy suffered from a fatal flaw, a flaw that derived from the American character itself.

.....DeToqueville observed that Americans had two conflicting desires: (1) The desire to be free, and (2) the desire to be led. It is America 's second desire that has now led to the undoing of the first.

.....Irrespective of America 's truly revolutionary Declaration of Independence and extraordinary Constitution, America today has become a debased mockery of the founding fathers' original dream and the manifestation of DeToqueville's dire predictions; and, this November, Americans will again go to the polls to choose ﾂ"their mastersﾂ".

.....This is what DeToqueville said of the process: It is in vain to summon a people, who have been rendered so dependent on the central power to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.

.....Delusions die hard. But like the patrons in strip clubs, only when the money is gone, does reality return and so in 2008, America may now be on the verge of a reawakening. With gas above $4 a gallon, its credit cards tapped, home foreclosures rising and its telephones increasingly called by bill collectors from India, Americans, like the patrons in the strip club, are realizing their wallets are now empty—the money's now gone, America's last bubble may be about to pop.

.....The loss of our freedoms has been accomplished by the collusion of two powerful forces, private bankers and public government. Both those forces, however, are counterfeit. Bankers no more represent real money than governments today represent those they govern; and the power of both derives from the false money that has fueled the ambitions of each.

.....When bankers and government first colluded in England in 1694, they replaced gold and silver with government counterfeit coupons and the world has not been the same since. It is little wonder that over the years, bankers have become more and more wealthy, governments have become more and more powerful, and we, the citizenry, have become more and more impoverished and indebted to bankers and enslaved to government.

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Pachipro said:

And I can say the same thing to you. You really need to do a little more reading outside the box of so called controlled media who want you to believe what they want and you do it fairly well I might add.

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Pachipro said:

Inflation will persist because of the Fed's, (and all Central Banks I might add), 18% increase in the money supply with nothing to back it up. They just print it at will or enter about $85 billion in digital numbers as they did with AIG and, like magic it is there. Inflation is already well over 12%. Ask any person who buys groceries or who does any shopping.

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Pachipro said:

Also, without the massive importing of oil, when we have more than enough for 200 years, thus exporting inflation, it will come home to roost in droves and kill the US economy in a matter of months. Therefore, what the US has not outshored in jobs and such they will buy out until we become a facist state and, if the last few weeks is any indication, we are well on our way. And who is going to pay the Fed (aka Elitist bankers)? Me, you, your kids and grandchildren as it will be paid for by your hard earned wages in the forms of taxes. As of today the US is well over 10 trillion ($10,000,000,000,000) in debt and there is absolutely no way to ever, EVER, pay it back. Only the slaves will pay it back and they will make sure they are paid back.

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Pachipro said:

Today, 20 years later, Japanese housing still has never returned to the levels back then and neither has the stock market which was at 44,000 back then. Therefore, how can you say they will return to their previous levels when they have yet to do so in Japan after 20 years?

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Pachipro said:

Really? Banks, that are owned by the elites and wealthiest families in the world are much more astute in managing crisis? Jeeze, man, they created the freaking crisis to stave off a recession after their dot.com bubble burst! it is Far, far, far from reality and really shows how out of touch you are with real goings on in thsi world and the central banks and their purpose for being, and the news, and the markets, and the price of gold, (which today which reached an historical one day high,) etc

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Pachipro said:

Remember, back in the 30's there were no credit cards and no credit whatsover. It was only for the wealthy. The nation was a nation of savers and they paid cash for nearly everything. Today, it is all based on crediit and living above ones means. Back then if one had a Cadillac, one was rich and everyone knew it. Today your typical Cadillic, Lexis, Beemer, Mercedes, etc. owner is probably lower middle class and leasing the vehicle as is so prevalent in the US today and they owe more than the vehicle is worth. The same with housing. Most people today are living in far more house than their income allows and when their adjustable rate mortgage resets, they can't afford the payments and just walk away leaving the banks holding the bag. Today, with the bailout of "Funny" and "Fraudie" and AIG the banks and the Feds have shifted that burdon back onto all taxpayers and ALL Americans and they are now holding the bag and the bankers are laughing themselves all the way to the bank with your hard earned cash and savings and retirement.

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Pachipro said:

Deny it at your own risk, and whether you believe it or not doesn't matter. I am not debasing you, I am just asking you to look at reality. What matters is that in the not too distant future I believe I will be vindicated, but still then you may not allow yourself to see the forest for the trees and only believing what you want from the controlled media conglomerates. Just look at the markets today and strap yourself in for a wild, wild ride as there will be many bumps, and ups and downs today and in the next year before it finally goes off the cliff to crash into the rocks below.

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Pachipro said:

Keep an eye on the major banks, airlines, auto companies, etc, because I believe they all will eventually be taken over by the US government.

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Pachipro said:

........... there is an invisible guiding had directing market forces, when that hand is the hand of the bankers. I know because I was there...once.... believing in the "system", I know better and am better off because of it...... Maybe. Hmmmm.

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Shouganai said:

Agree partly with that, but you don't understand how inflation works. Its not as simple as money supply rises so inflation rises.

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In other words, M3 tracks what the big boys are doing with the money. This includes US dollars held in banks in Canada and the UK (called Eurodollars) not to be confused with the Euro which is the standard currency of Europe.

With all its efforts at "Tracking Inflation" most everyone agrees that the last thing the Government really wants is for the general public to know how much it is stealing out of your pockets through inflation.

Inflation has been called "the hidden tax" and that is exactly what it is. When the Government "prints" extra money what do you think it does with it? It spends it of course!

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Oil imports have no direct relevance to inflation, though a weaker USD will increase their cost to Americans. Inflation will mean a higher interest rate environment. The lesson is to hold real assets. I see the equity markets turning around in the next few days. Why? Lower oil prices, relatively low equity prices, Fed stimulus. Interest rates going back to 1%. I would not be surprised to see the USD falling to Y80.

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God, your like my mother. Don't listen. I agree with you on many issues, just dont agree with your extrapolation on where things are going. I would argue that there are a great many banks, some run by elites, others just wanting their option payouts, who have a vested interest in boosting stock prices. Really they only need to be concerned with holding market share, that means being better than the other banks as the economy will refloat. I agree, the markets are detached from reality. There will be a doomsday, I just think there is one more credit expansion cycle left in this market in the greater scheme of things. Give it 3 years. I agree holding gold is a good idea, and today is a good day to buy it. You should have bought last night.

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Yep the US has its problems, I don't disagree. I just don't see any reason why it need fall apart now. I see the doom coming after another cycle. Just as you said the Fed deferred the 2000 doom until today, ask yourself why the Fed can't print paper to get itself through the current correction.

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Pachipro said:

As I said above, you really do need to do more reading outside the box. The increase in the money supply (M3) which the US government stopped publishing a few years ago to hide the real inflation figures, is a most accurate indicator of inflation or why would they stop publishing it? Their very own reasons are bogus.

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Pachipro said:

Today, in 2008, M3 has increased about 18% yearly which is near the true inflation rate of about 12%. If the government were using the figures they were using in the 1970's to calculate inflation then 12% would be the correct figure. Instead, we are given the new terms of "core inflation" which excludes energy and food prices! Well what does the average American spend most of their money on? Food and energy!

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Pachipro said:

But the government will keep on supporting debt creation in order to hide the true inflation figures. They will just keep on printing money, as they are doing as we speak by bailing out Wall Street with money we do not have. Even though hard assets like housing and such are decreasing in value, true, core inflation, may be falling, but food and energy is continually rising. Food and energy prices have increased by nearly 15-20% these past two years.

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Pachipro said:

Oil imports DO have a direct correlation to inflation because the US$ is the world's reserve currency and all oil is purchased in US$ as the US forced on the world and also forced them to purchase US T-Bills. If it weren't and we produced our own oil, we would have massive inflation. Therefore, we are exporting our inflation by forcing other counties to purchase their oil in US$.

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Pachipro said:

This is changing soon and even Alan Greenspan mentioned to Middle Eastern Countries that they might want to consider using another currency to purchase their oil: Now why would he do this and it not be reported in the US? Hmmmm.

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Pachipro said:

Yes, real assets are the way to go, but besides real estate (which can lose value in the short term) one should have a significant amount of gold and silver and foreign curerencies to ward against long term inflation as not only will the yen reach 80/$ again, but gold is predicted to reach more than $1,500/oz and silver $100/oz in the not too distant future. Trust me, in the near future the dollar will be as worthless as toilet paper. Unless you really have to "go" then it may be worth the paper it is printed on.

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Pachipro said:

If you don't agree on my "extrapalation of where things are going" just look at what is transpiring in the US today. It is not good and is just as I said only it is at a much quicker pace. As I mentioned above, Gold and silver are the way to go and I'm glad you are among the few that also realize it. I have been purchasing them since 2000 when gold was $250/oz and people thought I was crazy.

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Pachipro said:

One more credit expansion? Credit is the anasthesia of the masses and that's why they are unaware of exactly what is transpiring before their very eyes. Maybe you are correct, but I do not see it happening as even banks today are afraid to lend to each other as they do not trust their balance sheets. It may happen, but I do not think it likely. Maybe a form of socialism, yes, but not like it was in the past.

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Pachipro said:

I believe doom will be BEFORE another cycle as I think this is the end of the road, so to speak. Things will look good until after the election, but come February 2009, when 4th quarter results come in which will probably be the worst in history, all hell will break loose and the US will continue to spiral downward under the weight of its massive debt bubble.
Of course the Fed can print paper to get itself out of this mess, but it is just that, paper, with nothing to back it up, except hard assets which foreigners are sucking up in the US. In fact today the Fed is printing $700billion and who will pay for it? The average working stiff that's who through inflation and higher taxes at the expense of education, infrastructure, housing, etc. The US, in the end, will become a third world country with their money, assets, retirements, etc stolen from them by the elites as they have done for the past several hundred years.

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Pachipro said:

Does not one find it interesting that today Goldman Sachs stands as the only winner on Wall Street and they are now a bank holding company also and all banks and financial institutions under the control of the government in the not too distant future? Does not any one consider it interesting that the former head of the Bank of Japan, The Bank of Canada, The Central Banks of Europe, etc, as well as the Fed Head Paulson were/are former Goldman Sachs CEO's/Chief Executives? Does not anyone make a connection and a possible connection to, <gasp> a New World Order with one government and one currency and a return to a feudal system? I hope not, but I see no other course based on their (the elites) very own words of which I will elaborate on later.
In a way you and I do see see eye to eye on most things, it just in our interpretation that we differ.

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Shouganai said:

You're the one who needs to read. Start with what I say. I know about the M3 coverup. I'm not arguing that there is inflation. I'm saying you don't know even what is inflation if you are looking at CPI because its just 'cost of living' inflation, ignores asset price inflation.

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Anna J. Schwartz said:

It is crucial that central banks and regulatory authorities be aware of effects of asset price inflation on the stability of the financial system. Lending activity based on asset collateral during the boom is hazardous to the health of lenders when the boom collapses. One way that authorities can curb the distortion of lenders' portfolios during asset price booms is to have in place capital requirements that increase with the growth of credit extensions collateralized by assets whose prices have escalated. If financial institutions avoid this pitfall, their soundness will not be impaired when assets backing loans fall in value. Rather than trying to gauge the effects of asset prices on core inflation, central banks may be better advised to be alert to the weakening of financial balance sheets in the aftermath of a fall in value of asset collateral backing loans.

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Well I know you don't read because I said I hold gold stocks, and I bought more small gold stocks whilst you were panicking.

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Well you were crazy because gold has under-performed compared to other assets. Too self-righteous I guess to make the best asset pick, but you won't loose money if you sell at the right time. And you were not alone. I also over-invested in gold back then, though did better than you because I bought gold stocks.

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Well there will be one more credit expansion because there is no huge over-supply of capacity. The Fed is partially recapitalising the banking sector with funny money, so in a few years when the foreclosed properties are absorbed, it will happen again. People will say, oh this is a few era. The Fed bailed us out last time, they can do it again. The fear of bank credit is short term, and the central banks will just underwrite the whole banking sector. Well its fascism, but you are close enough because fascism & collectivism come from the same root cause - collectivism. Read Ayn Rand.

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Well ask yourself what made the market fall? It was not inflation because asset prices started falling before they did; since they move adversely. The US will rest for a few years and underpriced Asia will have a property boom, and commodities will go back up supported by a weaker USD too. So inflation will restore yields over the next few years in the USA. Ok, no credit creation in that period, so recession. You can't compare with the Great depression as that period was mismanaged by an inexperienced central bank.

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Wikipedia said:

On Milton Friedman's ninetieth birthday, November 8, 2002, he stated: "Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve System. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."

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Wikipedia said:

In 2002, when the word "deflation" began appearing in the business news, Bernanke gave a speech about deflation.[13] In that speech, he mentioned that the government in a fiat money system owns the physical means of creating money. Control of the means of production for money implies that the government can always avoid deflation by simply issuing more money. (He referred to a statement made by Milton Friedman about using a "helicopter drop" of money into the economy to fight deflation.) Bernanke's critics have since referred to him as "Helicopter Ben" or to his "helicopter printing press". In a footnote to his speech, Bernanke noted that "people know that inflation erodes the real value of the government's debt and, therefore, that it is in the interest of the government to create some inflation."

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Pachipro said:

You're jumping to conclusions. I'm not only looking at CPI. The US economy, as well as most economies, depends on Asset Price Inflation to fuel it's growth, but when real wages are deteriorating, and jobs are being offshored, and factories closing, unemployment is increasing, where are people going to get the money to purchases these inflated asstes especially when more than 75% of the US economy depends on consumer spending? Now that credit has all but dried up and a majority of the middle class is in debt up to their eyeballs where are they going to get the money? Therefore, there will be a contraction in these assets as the economy slowly collapses as is evident from the sharp drop in housing prices.

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Pachipro said:

In a boom economy, lenders lend based on the value of assets, but in a bust economy, when the prices of the assets deteriorates, lenders are not so willing to lend. Thus we have the dire situation we are in today with the US government nationalizing many financial institutions to hide the real effects of this bust. It will get alot worse before it even attempts to get better.

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Pachipro said:

Agree with you to a point, butI kind of doubt it IMO as there is a huge oversupply of housing that the Fed will just suck up from the banking sector. Is it any wonder why the Feds took over these banks and institutions? Because if they were allowed to file for bankruptcy then tghe bankruptcy courts would discover exactly how much worthless paper they actually held on their balance sheets. The next bubbles to burst will be the credit bubbles and the derivatives bubbles. Also, 20 odd years later, Japanese housing prices have still come nowhere to their peak back then as well as their stock market which today is below what it was in February 2002.

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Pachipro said:

The more $'s in circulation reduces the value of all $'s leading to inflation and if they keep up leading to hyperinflation and maybe even, heaven forbid, deflation as Japan was wise enough to allow to occur. Japan will probably be among the very few countries that will not be involved in this meltdown as they already experienced it, allowed deflation to take hold, and survived because of it.

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Pachipro said:

Even today the BOJ refused to lower interest rates because the governor of the BOJ did not want to participate in this bailout. Or so they said.

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Pachipro said:

Remember in the great Depression there were no credit cards and hardly any credit, most people didn't own their own homes and, if they did, and had a second mortgage, they were considered losers. There is no comparision between then and now and this one will be far worse as it already is, but no one is willing to admit it yet.

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Pachipro said:

In the end shouganai, I guess we'll just have to wait it out to see who is right and I do not want to prove, as I state d above, who's dick is bigger as this is not the point!

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Shouganai said:

Yep, lets see. I have a pretty good track record on these things. I used to be as dire as you, in fact, stretch your fears out another 10-15 years and I think you will be right; but I've since come to see another expansion before the ultimate collapse. This is because we are in a super cycle like you have not seen before. The productivity benefits of China & India will not disappear I believe, the scalability of internet solutions. You will not see more protection as you did in the 1930s. I think you will see more liberalisation not less. Asia is going to catch up faster than you can imagine.

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Pachipro said:

Well please share your thoughts and opinions in a thread or two as I am always willing to learn from others and I am not being sarcastic either, unless you charge a yearly fee for your newsletter! LOL

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Pachipro said:

Still things do look dire for the short term as the yen for a "Global Economy" from those that actually run this planet seems to have been accelerated a bit and many are scratching their heads wondering what the hell is going on. MAny have said that nothing is going to the formulas they, and I and maybe you, were taught in economics in which I majored. But hey, these past several weeks has completely changed the face of economics and the books will probably have to be rewritten.

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Pachipro said:

Do you really believe there will be another expansion before the "ultimate collapse"? Perhaps you are right, but I think if it is to be it will be a far different market environment and will more centralized and controlled. However, I believe this is the beginning of the ultimate collapse. I hope I am wrong. At least the yen I bought at 121 about a year ago is starting to show some profit with the yen finally falling below the 100/$ level. Perhaps this is the end of the carry trade. I can't say the same for the Aussie $'s I bought, but I will hold them and maybe add to my position.

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Pachipro said:

Stock markets around the world are in free fall and Japan's fell the most since October 1987 (which I experienced when I lived there) and the world treasuries are just pumping money into the banks like there was no tomorrow. Even Iceland may go bankrupt!

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