Totally agree. Just imagine a world where the U.S. no longer sapped all the resources out of the rest of the planet (both labour power and natural resources) and instead produced for itself as all other countries could then do.

A world free of capitalism-imperialism. A great thought.

Typo in last sentence:
“Or at least no the “we” that Warren is talking about.”

Yes, we’re coming back. But first, the little matter of massive deflation and currency repudiation.

I’m still trying to figure out which way it breaks: we’ll either be in the supermarket with nothing on the shelves (deflation) or with everything there but too expensive (inflation).

Stumbled upon this (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/your-money/04stra.html?_r=3) right after I read your post. Quite interesting.

Yeah, phoney M3 with nowhere to go now that they’ve essentially destroyed the real economy. It’s like we’re getting down to the last and narrowest couple of tiers on an enormous pyramid scheme.

Douglas,

Something I’ve realized is that waste is where jobs are. I work in manufacturing and when I first worked with China, I thought it was all about the worker hourly wage. For example, 1-2 worker minutes in Canada costs the same as 1 worker-hour in China.

However, after working with the Chinese and seeing them invest heavily in means of production (machines), while decreasing labor involved in manufacturing I realized that the efficiency is where there aren’t jobs.

Reminds me of the ‘Ginsberg’ poem by Julia Vinograd:

http://www.echonyc.com/~poets/vol9/vinograd.html

Douglas I don’t want to seem uncaring, and I do see some merit in your post. But quite frankly this piece seems to have little factual underpinning and is akin to the right wing rabble rousing we are so used to hearing from “reputable” sources like Glenn Beck.

You make gross exaggerations and all encompassing assumptions that are frail at best. Yes there are problems right now. Yes it really sucks. But, No this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Our situation is not a novel, every 4-6 years some bubble bursts and woe sayers decree the end of modern society.

Imho the economy is recovering. If you look at data most indicators are looking good. Sure unemployment is still high but that is a lagging indicator and will probably take more than a couple months to sort out.

Also @ comment #3 your understanding of inflation and deflation is backwards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

K thanks sorry for the rant

@4 – Yeah Schecter is one of those mega trends fractal geometry kind of guys. He uses systems theory to look at the shapes of cycles. Not sure how much I believe in all that, because it starts to get like TimeWave Zero and the Mayan Tzolkein. On the other hand, it’s the same science that helped IBM figure out how to crack line interference.

I think it works if the markets can be considered chaotic enough to exhibit the properties of natural systems. He’s super negative, though. I mean, if he’s right it’s time to stock up on canned food and water.

Read the book Life Inc, which will give you 300 pages of history and economics. Sorry for posting in a way that really only expands on the conversation I’ve been having with the readers. I’ll take more time to write pieces, or write prefaces that explain sometimes I post to my blog not like I’m writing for Time magazine, but as if I were continuing a conversation in progress. Perhaps a sign-in feature, making the blog less public would help.

@Doug: You may want to consider a 2-tier structure to the site.

You could continue to offer the same type of comment posting features on this page. maybe limit the length of comments, though, in order to keep things from getting chaotic. I know you’ve been rather indulgent vis-a-vis the length of my own rants.

But you could also link to a 2nd-tier page to offer more sustained and structured discussion format. Could require log-in, maybe even subscription. Another revenue stream could be handy, though there’d be potential branding issues.

Anyhow, taking the deeper dives outside of your main page could allow you to delegate moderation to a team of your pals–giving you more time to write and make public appearances.

Just sayin’ you might think about it.

I’ve considered it, but it’s hard to find people willing. And it sometimes creates a whole lot of places for me to be – the blog, the forums, the mailing list (there’s a media-squatters email list which does get busy at times). And there are so many great places online already. Does the world need more?

Resources are crucial. No doubt about it. If it can’t be done right, better to not do it at all.

But, maybe as a purely academic note, I’d say that it’s not clear to me at all that there are a lot of other great sites out there. Maybe some other posters can point to specific examples out there, but I personally have yet to encounter another site that seems to ‘get it’ that this economic slurry we’re teading right now is a product of our own misplaced priorities as a culture.

Could be ’cause I haven’t surfed enough, but frankly most of what I’ve seen to date falls squarely into one or another of the false tropes of “Big Government Kills Jobs” or “Conspiracy of Plutocratic Elite”. Both, I think are go-nowhere loops that can admit no productive discussion–their very premises preclude objective discussion of the problem.

I was very encouraged to see sensible treatment of the relevant dynamic on this site, though–sclerotic concentration of financial capital as a cultural phenom rather than a dastardly cabal.

Well, that’s my interpretation of what I’ve seen, anyhow. Loved not only your stuff, but also comments thereon. Jepson really seems to have his head on right.

I will keep looking, though. Best of luck to you.

here is one other site Liam.
http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/

I’d like to hear more from mika & denis. As i have been able to understand it, ‘currency repudiation’ takes place in the sphere of global currencies.

If corporations or other investors like our currency and doing business with us, good for our currency relative to some other state currency.

I’d rather use anything but state currencies, but especially not corporate currencies “stock,” when transacting life with my neighbors. If however people need to throw a little state currency in the pot, it is up to those two people and their neighbors what the currency is worth and why.

*******

fractal theory or not, the corporations are burning the candle at both ends *and* playing both sides against the middle. they have dividends to pay to their owners which, if they even exist, are already worth less and less every day.

*******

just take the last imaginative step. corporations don’t really exist. they have no value. pretty soon most of their “stuff” is going to be without value. Some things will be terribly expensive, but if one has the knowledge and the community one will not be paying or working for a corporation. The rest is planting trees and chilling in the shade.

********

the war is over now

-mason

Oh, it’s definitely a currency thing. I’ve heard a couple of folks make a persuasive case that poor regulation of markets and “innovative” financial products have effectively resulted in public corps counterfitting trillions of dollars of phoney M3.

I don’t know anyone that has super confidence in a precise measure of M3, though. Hell, even the Federal Reserve gave up reporting it after 2005. Maybe that should be another warning.

Financial markets are vital. They provide a common medium of exchange and store of value that can allow optimal trading of resources, labour and technology across enormous political/geographical barriers. If the West hadn’t developed money economies in the 14th century we’d probably all still be serfs paying feudal burden in kind to a military lord.

But as you say, that currency has to be credible. People have to KNOW they’re gonna get some value back when they accept it–not just hope they will. No more of these phoney credit default swaps sold in volumes that exceed the face value of the underlying securities by tens of billions of dollars. No more weird kabbalistic valuation models that have no more statistical validity than a hoodoo gris-gris. And why the heck are we letting the board of directors of SEC registrants hire the auditors? It’s our money supply–the SEC should be hiring them.

Yeah, from time to time you hear about a town or other local authority in Germany or the U.K. authorizing a “local script”–a currency to be recognized by solely by local merchants. And that goes some way in helping a community maintain its economic autonomy. But I can also imagine the situation, taken to its logical but extreme conclusion, resulting in ourselves having living standards little better than our 15th century ancestors.

Another interesting view of the next two years through the lens of bonds obligations.

http://tinyurl.com/apy22s

Good stuff, mason. I will recommend this one to my friends.

Uh-oh. Looks like these ideas are getting out into the mainstream.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/24/AR2010062406194.html

Quelle horreur! What terrors await us? An informed electorate? Saints preserve us!