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The Collapse of the USA Possible?

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The Collapse of the USA possible?
I think that it would effect us all globally if it got that bad so I don't think the rest of the world would let it happen. Debts would wiped clean if it got that bad otherwise there could be a war & that I think no one wants.
 
What happened in the Savings and Loans Crisis in the late 80's?

Didn't over 1000 Banks go under and the appointed underwriter of these savings go under as well?

Government came to the rescue, Recession followed and then things got back on track again eventually.
 
The Roman empire took 200 years to collapse once the rot set in and Mexican's and Canadian's are hardly barbarians.
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Neither were the people that expanded through the Western Roman empire. The Empire collapsed, but the civilisation did not, and it was simply factured off into separate kingdoms. It didn't decend into chaos, and I don't know of any historical example that did.

All the US needs is a couple of good Presidents. I think Obama will help unite the country
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A country requires more than a good leader, and it seems the jury is still out on Obama. Many people think he's doing a very poor job, and in my uninformed view seems to be a typical politician, just better in the popularity stakes.

I think that it would effect us all globally if it got that bad so I don't think the rest of the world would let it happen. Debts would wiped clean if it got that bad otherwise there could be a war & that I think no one wants.
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Enough is enough. Bars cut off drunks, so the world may cut off the US. Likely, the world will just move on from US dominance, just as the world moved on every time a previous power declined.
 
Russia fell apart so united states USA can fall apart too.
Bankrupt states can cause that other states will decide to pull out of the federation.

Do they must go forward together?
 

I agree with this as well. Even if the USD doesn't actually fall in price against other currencies it will effectively become like a protected currency, propped up artificially and thus become shunned as people/countries/businesses turn to some other sort of unmanipulated currency vehicle for value. That could be gold but it could just as easily be another currency (is yen a possibility?) or some other paper that hasn't been considered yet (e.g. some kind of oil derivatives or who knows what - "credit notes for plastic animals made in china" ).

In that scenario the dominant players in that currency will be the countries that are productive and able to service their debt or have little or no debt in the first place. The US will have trouble exchanging their 'valuable' US dollars for this currency even though 'officially' it will have value against that currency. This is because nobody will actually be willing to exchange large amounts of the valuable currency for USD, but all USD holding countries/corporations will play the game and not sell down either because they won't want to see their 'value' destroyed.
 
wayno76 said:
Google video zeitgeist

This could be the start of another play by the real players.
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Just watched Zeitgeist I & II on google video - damn - isnt that rather eye opening. I'd known a little about some parts, ie - how the fractional reserve system worked for all its money & how it was winding up out of control - but the sections on religion and the comparisons & similarities it presented were insightful.

Hendo
 
wayneL said:
they will pull a rabbit out of a hat.
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or shoot a shell out of a tank......

either way you cant possibly go on manipulating the fk out of the system and expect the market to react nicely.

Somethings gotta give eventually and you dont need to be a chief economist to see that one.
 
Here is what a chief economist thinks, and he thinks some of you are deficit hysterics!!

Robert Reich was US secretary of labour from 1993 to 1997 and is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

September 3, 2009 The Age


"AT EVERY stage in the growth of the debt it has been seriously asserted by wise men that bankruptcy and ruin were at hand. Yet still the debt went on growing, and still bankruptcy and ruin were as remote as ever.'' So wrote great 19th-century British historian Lord Thomas Macaulay. He was referring to the English public debt, but he might as easily have been referring to the US in the 21st century.

Last week the White House forecast that deficits over the next 10 years were likely to be worse than had been expected and the same old group of deficit hysterics went ballistic. ''A deficit of $US9 trillion is $US30,000 for each man, woman and child in the US!'' Kabaam. ''Public debt will total $US17.5 trillion by 2019 - three-quarters of the entire economy!'' Kaboom. ''The number would send Reagan's stack of $US1000 bills into orbit!'' Zowee.

Can we please relax? Ten-year budget projections are notoriously wrong. Remember Ross Perot? He ran against Bill Clinton and the first George Bush in 1992, garnering enough votes to deny Clinton a majority. Perot based his campaign on deficit hysteria. He argued that the federal budget deficit was on track to end the world as we knew it. In fact, the growth of the economy from 1993 to 1998 reduced the deficit to zero. Neither Clinton's famous deficit-cutting nor Republican insistence on a balanced budget was primarily responsible; the deficit reached zero before most fiscal changes kicked in.

The numbers attached to deficits and debts take on meaning only in relation to something else. And the most important something else, in terms of what the nation can afford, is the size of the national economy. Pay close attention, in particular, to the debt-to-GDP ratio. True, that ratio is heading in the wrong direction - it's likely to reach 80 per cent by the end of 2010. That's high, but not compared with the 119 per cent it reached in 1945, after the ravages of depression and war.

Yet by the mid-1950s, the debt as a proportion of GDP had been tamed. How did that happen? Not mainly because of cuts in government spending. Yes, wartime spending had ended. But the most important change occurred in the denominator of the equation. Economic growth kicked in big time after the war, and reduced the debt as a proportion of the US economy to manageable levels.

The US has always reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio by expanding the economy. As Macaulay noted, that's also the way Britain has done it. GDP growth makes even large debts manageable. When the economy is cooking, more people have jobs and better wages. So they pay more taxes. And they require less unemployment assistance and other social insurance.

That's why it's so important now that the Government step in and run large deficits. Without large deficits this year and next, and perhaps even the year after, the economy doesn't have a prayer of getting back on a growth path. In that case, the debt-to-GDP ratio could really get ugly.

Which brings me to the only item in last week's White House budget report worth looking at. It predicts a deficit of nearly $US1.6 trillion in the 12 months to September 30. This number worries me not because it's so large, but because it's so small. I'd prefer a larger deficit this year.

The US economy is still mired in the worst depression since the Great Depression. Consumers are incapable of buying. Unemployment is soaring. Businesses are still not purchasing or investing, for lack of customers. Exports are still dead, because much of the global economy remains weak. So the purchaser of last resort - the Government - has to create larger deficits if the economy is to get anywhere near capacity and start to grow again.

That growth, by the way, will be faster and stronger if the nation invests in infrastructure, schools and the environment - which is exactly what Barack Obama is trying to do. The stimulus that's now kicking in, as well as the long-term spending budget, is focused on just these public investments.

Everyone who has looked at America's crumbling infrastructure knows how badly it suffers from decades of deferred maintenance: bridges collapsing, pipes bursting, sewers backed up, highways impassable, public transport in disrepair. Many schools are falling apart. And unless the US reduces its greenhouse gases, the world is heading for lots more trouble.

In this respect, national budgets are like family budgets. It's dumb for an indebted family to borrow more money to take a world cruise. But it's smart even for an indebted family to borrow money to send their kids to college. So too with the Obama budget. Public investments, just like family investments, build future wealth. They allow faster growth. They make the debt-to-GDP ratio even lower and more manageable over time.

Yet deficit hysteria might jeopardise these investments. It is already threatening Obama's goal of universal health care. The hysterics are screaming that the likely cost of $US1 trillion over the next 10 years is impossible to afford. Yet almost every expert agrees that without universal health care the nation's future health-care tab will be far higher. Those without health insurance will continue to wait until their health problems become so bad that they have to use emergency rooms, at huge cost to the system.

And pharmaceutical companies will continue to jack up their prices until the costs of America's large health programs for the poor and the aged - Medicaid and Medicare - are out of control. If ObamaCare includes an option capable of negotiating lower costs from drug makers and medical providers, it will tame these costs.

Look at the record of the past 75 years - how the US got out of the Great Depression, and the critical role that public investments, such as the interstate highway system, have played in speeding up growth - and you have ample evidence that the deficit hysterics are wrong. They

were wrong when they persuaded Clinton to chuck a large part of his investment agenda (the nation is now paying the price), and they're wrong now.

GUARDIAN

Robert Reich was US secretary of labour from 1993 to 1997 and is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
 
we still have dollar hedgemony= everyone forced to buy US dollar in order to buy oil, so until that is removed or downgraded from more oil moving out of the dollar, there won't be a total collapse.....at least that's the way its suppsoed to be, but the powewrs that be could innitiate a collapse by pulling alot fo moola fromt he system, like they did with bear sterns last fall
 

for that to happen, we would need a new standard currency... not sure what we would revert to at the moment. There really isnt any replacement for the USD yet... we dont quite trust the chinese enough i think
 

That's true and a lot of the big companies that had those debts collapsed along with the banks, correcting the debt imbalance.

I think this time, the difference is that consumers which usually drive growth, still to have large debts.

At the moment, Governments are generating much of the current growth, but when they withdrawal the big question will be, are consumers able to take the reins especially in light of rising interest rates & taxes?

Cheers
 
"The Collapse of the USA Possible?"

Yes and No. There is a tendency in human psychology to fear the worst, and this is no exception. There is a lot of talk right now about the imminent collapse of the US, but this is not going to happen. I answered "yes and no" because yes, it is possible for any state to collapse, but no, not the US any time soon.

It is still far and away the most powerful nation on earth. In fact it is several times more powerful than its next few rivals all put together. Economically, it has had difficult times before and like other Anglo-Saxon economies it is absolutely ruthless when ensuring its own survival and development. Writing off the US is a foolish pastime, IMO. My view on the current crisis is that the US will emerge with a lower standard of living for many of its citizens, but still decades ahead of its nearest rivals in both economic and military terms.

Let's look at those rivals:

1. Russia. A failed and directionless state dependent on oil and gas exports for its prosperity. It also has a seriously dangerous depopulation problem. It has more nukes than the US, but their C&C is questionable, and the rest of its armed forces, despite enjoying a recent upgrade (oil money) are in a wretched state compared with the US.

2. China. Despite all the hype, China remains a corrupt totalitarian state with truly abominable civil liberties and a seriously scary demographic problem thanks to its state-enforced family planning laws. It is totally dependent on the Western consumer buying its products, and the absence of a Chinese middle class for at least another 20 years means this dependence will continue. Militarily, the Chinese are expanding at an alarming rate, much like the USSR did, but this is to prop up its economy. It has no other reason to do so and the US cannot claim hegemony over Asia anyway.

3. EU. The EU has serious problems. First, indigenous Europeans are disappearing en masse from the continent. Part of this reason is the large numbers moving to Australia, Canada and NZ, but the main reason is that they are reproducing well below replacement ratio, with only 1.4 children per couple. The population of the EU is increasing however due to largely uncontrolled Islamic immigration from North Africa, Turkey and the Asian subcontinent. Add this to its bloated and unaffordable welfare programmes and its lack of natural resources, and it's clear to see the EU presents no threat to the US.

 
its lack of natural resources
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Economically those countries with resources more than others tend to never progress or become inneficient or don't progress as well as they could. many countries without resources do much better and quickly.
 
It's Snake Pliskin said:
Economically those countries with resources more than others tend to never progress or become inneficient or don't progress as well as they could. many countries without resources do much better and quickly.
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So true.

Take Japan, Korea or Singapore as a couple of classic examples of the above.
 
The collapse of the US is inevitable just like other great empires & IMO not far off.

It will begin with the unraveling of derivatives & the first sign may be gold breaking the $1000 barrier. When this happens it be a signal of loss of confidence in the US dollar.

And for a replacement of the US dollar...what about gold & silver, maybe in the short term?

As more US dollars flood the world, there will be a time when the dollar will no longer be acceptable for payment of commodities. Something will have to be found quickly and I reckon gold & silver will be the only reliably valued asset that can be easily exchange.

Sounds far fetched? maybe but whats the alternative if the US collapses?

Cheers
 

Arh!! Another that has swallowed the tin hat end of the world because of the $45736754838 tril dollars of Derivatives BS!!

Just run us through that again so we can understand it.

LOL.
 
GumbyLearner said:
So true.

Take Japan, Korea or Singapore as a couple of classic examples of the above.
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All totally reliant on the resources commodity countries. Japan even went to war over it, and would do again. Singapore's wealth derives from its money markets and tourism, both of which are driven by larger economies and resource nations.
 
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