Financial topics

[aedens]

See Details: http://generationaldynamics.com/forum/v ... 198#p17198[/quote]
It will be interesting how they trended out as we noted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pkVLqSaahk
Sad thing the Demos will go the same way.

[OLD1953]

On the issue of the value of US debt, it may be useful to step back and consider this unique moment in history. In so far as I'm aware, there has never been a previous time when the following items have all come together in a single place.

1. The US leads a great trade federation, which is not at all like leading an empire. The US cannot simply say "go" and they go, or "come" and they come.
2. The US - leader of this trade federation - has the strongest military machine in the world. (Yes, China and others are coming up fast, but they are not there yet.)
3. This single nation is by far the largest consumer of imported goods in the world.
4. This nation has agreed to allow its internal currency to be used as the worldwide basic monetary unit.
5. The US does not use military action to prevent others from currency manipulation or otherwise profiting from the fact mentioned in point 4.
6. The US backs its money with debt issued both internally and externally.
7. The US is willing, at its own expense, to protect members of this trade federation from external enemies. There is a military alliance, but most of the members contribute tokens, not real commitment, even when they have direct stakes in the outcome.

No single item above explains why other nations are so willing to absorb US debt instruments. Taken as a whole, the observation can be made that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, that an emergent behavior of dependency on the US is created and enhanced. And that dependancy is why other nations absorb US debt, not for a single reason, but all of them taken together.

[John]

Was Britain in a similar position, prior to WW II?

[aedens]

Damn good question but it must be broken down to segments. The filtering effects we note today can only buffer the time issue. FDR was correct that you can lend a hose to your neighbor when his house is on fire. That was the peak for basically the whole lot. I find it unfortunate today another round of revisionist history to what at times we had to try to check. Point is both sides are the issue again. As the eastern blocs languished in agony from 1945 to 1955 I have a hard time expecting harry or Ike to change footing on the air of simple realism of facts. I find running to this day was Churchhill inability to acept the allieds decisions to move into Italy first than what he wanted to check the soviets in the balkans basin. I know the footnotes are lacking today on this but the burma push back then was more important, and Nov 8th 2012 visit no accident I feel. It was already a post war problem before pearl most sense thus Ideological bias resulted in unrealistic plans that were impossible to execute. It effectively broke the back of the issue to set the true flame burning today other than the seven sisters then. If you follow the nesting processes today of capital it is apparent to some since as we convey it is about flow and to whom it is going to as we note this.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/lea ... d-tidings/

I picked a portion of the cone effect looking forward to our cousins view they seem to espouse.

In the long run, regional hegemons, including China and Germany, may be compelled to take on some of America’s duties, from bailing out bankrupt countries to providing regional security. But that would require their political elites to focus less on economic statistics and more on their people and the world. The equivalent in the US would be a rebalancing of economic power and prestige away from financiers towards others — perhaps leaders of the fracking-driven energy renaissance or advanced manufacturing.

I have a feeling as we all do at times we know what road is paved with good intentions and who is on it. We know the facts that the state can only function
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA95/finseth/america.html
of the wealth it forcefully takes from the private sector. That will appear if they like it or not.

http://www.fdrheritage.org/fdr_museum_feature_Feb05.htm

[Reality Check]

See Details: http://generationaldynamics.com/forum/v ... =14&t=1741

[OLD1953]

John,

Not really, Britian did not have the overreach the US military has, international trade was still backed by gold and silver coins were still common, and the British Empire didn't really fall apart until after WWII. And there's a huge difference between an Empire and a trade federation.

We really are unique in many ways, and it makes it hard to predict anything about the future of the US from history. That's why I've stayed out of the recent speculation on bonds and money, it seems to me that several of the above items I listed have to change or become unimportant to the rest of the world for any of this to come about.

I'm not saying it can't happen, but various other things have to happen first. Trade tariffs and restrictions have to be passed. The US would have to pull back the military and start working on Fortress America (as it's often called). Some form of internationally acceptable reserve funds would have to be established, and that reserve has to be acceptable also as (or easily convertable to) trade tokens. And that's yet another reason gold won't work now, because you can't dump 500 tons of gold on the market quickly without horrible consequences to that market. You'd have to go back to fixed prices for gold again, which brings up a whole different set of problems.

Those things won't happen overnight, there will be considerable warning. As in the last crash, those who are watching will know ahead of time. Those who aren't paying attention will be surprised at this new "black swan".

[Reality Check]

2. The US - leader of this trade federation - has the strongest military machine in the world. (Yes, China and others are coming up fast, but they are not there yet.)

One must keep in mind that a rapid, and accelerating shrinking of the U.S. Military is also taking place. When the land based ICBM warheads are already being reduced by two thirds ( one third of that reduction just completed this year, second third in progress ), and the Obama review of Nuclear Weapons is already considering a further reduction to between 300 and 400 total strategic nuclear ware heads, the United States is heading to nuclear strategic weapon parity with Pakistan, well below the levels of China and Russia. With the re-election of Obama U.S. military plans to do just that are a very real possibility in the next year or two.

The relative military strength of the U.S. versus other major military powers is as dependent on retention of trained leadership within the U.S. Military as it is with the growth of Chinese military numbers. Unlike the prior demobilizations after Vietnam and Korea, the Obama administration is keeping higher paid Defense Department civilians, hired to free up military personnel to go to war during the mobilization for Afghanistan and Iraq, and instead separating trained, and experienced, commissioned officers and NCOs.

Military power when wielded as part of an alliance is dependent on the political leader of the dominant military power being both willing, and perceived by potential enemies as being willing, to use military power in the defense of allies.

Japan lacks nuclear weapons, and I would not be surprised to see Obama rule out, in advance, the use of American nuclear weapons to defend Japan against a nuclear attack on Japan's navy.

[aedens]

The US Department of Education found that of these 1,065,794 children, many lived in abandoned homes, cheap hotels, stations, church basements and hospitals. Some spent their time sleeping over at the houses of various friends whenever they could. Others fell victim to drugs and sexual abuse, in some cases trading sexual acts for food, clothing and shelter or selling illegal drugs.
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 requires pubic schools to register homeless children. The Department of Education report was only able to compile data from those currently enrolled in school, which indicates that there may be many more homeless children or infants living on the streets without an education.
The southern US state of Georgia has in recent years always had the highest number of homeless children. As many as 45,000 homeless kids and teens are on the street or in a temporary shelter each night in Georgia, 14,000 of which are in Atlanta.
But the states that reported the largest year-to-year increases in the June report were Kentucky at 47 percent, Utah at 47 percent, Michigan at 38 percent, West Virginia at 38 percent and Mississippi at 35 percent. In Michigan, where unemployment is above the national average, every county reported an increase in the number of homeless students.

Famine: Syrian President Bashar Assad appears to have targeted the food chain by bombing bakeries throughout rebel-controlled areas. The activists, who represented municipal councils in most parts of Syria, had been summoned to Turkey as part of an attempt by the former Syrian ambassador to Sweden, Mohammad Bassam Imadi, to set up a new aid effort. The attendees said pro-Assad forces had destroyed 38 bakeries since August, when Human Rights Watch first noted attacks on 10 bakeries in Aleppo. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BljwBC ... d&index=62

Its coming...................
You will acquire a clear portrait of the attitudes of Muslims in Europe, as well as those of elitist Europeans in all of their moral smugness and self-assuming superiority.
Bruce Bawer, who has wrestled previously about American fundamentalism (Stealing Jesus) and gay rights (A Place at the Table), finds an equally contentious and compelling subject in the blind eye of European liberalism. Enchanted by the famed tolerance of Amsterdam, Bawer moved to Europe in 1998. But after settling in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, the author noticed a society that offered "millions in aid, but not a penny in salary." Reviewers find Bawer an eloquent writer with his passion balanced between his American sensibilities and his European residence. The sharpest criticism—that a lack of a bibliography turns While Europe Slept

[Reality Check]

The last hero generation survived not only World War II but also the Great Depression.

The matriarch of my immediate family grew up during the Great Depression as one of eight children. After they lost their homestead they lived on various abandoned homestead's near older relatives who still had their farms.

Visiting the dozen or so places they lived during the nineteen twenties and thirties really had a large impact on her children and grand-children.

The homeless children of today are members of the current hero generation.

[Reality Check]

Do you think they sent them here to plant flowers ...
Our 5 districts paid for them to be unleashed for a generation
paid on your dime and the Feds dumped countless thousands here.

Who were the Feds sending / dumping on you?