Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics How will the financial crisis develop?

Here is an interesting article:

VISUALIZE THE DOW AT 6,000




This over-populated, over-exploited, ecologically devastated world is starting to wobble, like a top that is about to stop spinning. Are people truly concerned? Are they taking real action? What a silly question! They are humans ---- a bunch of pitifully mindless, indecisive anthropoid apes.
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The world is over-populated? Say it's not so!

...but, but, it's human genetics that causes wants us to have children. We can't consciously choose not to have children.

Of course people are not taking action - simply look at all of the celebrity births filling the birth announcement section of your local newspaper lately.

...and being Americans - we have to keep up with celebrities - they are our new "Jones'."

I find it very interesting that you chose to use this language numan - because I agree.

I've never written this before here on the Internet - outside in the everyday 3-D real non-Internet, non-forum, world, people who know me know that I say often say that humans have AAS: Angry Ape Syndrome. (<----a 'syndrome' that I proudly coined.)

I say this because when humans read or hear or become aware of something they don't like they get all offended and upset and began behaving like an angry ape. Said humans begin to pace back-and-forth all agitated just as an angry ape would, get all bent out of shape, often eliciting members of their society to agree with them (...because there is safety in number and majority rule) and gang-up on and beat down, now as a group or individually, the very thing they don't like - mob rule mentality if you will.

So, I agree that humans are properly classified in the animal kingdom - kingdom as in "kingdom, phylum, class, order" - that kingdom.

And you are . . . ?

Your self-awareness transcends that of the average hominid on this planet, Rick.

When I was young, I was profoundly struck by the extent to which human activities are chimpanzee behavior blown-up to gigantic, grotesque proportions. This was brought home to me by watching TV programs about Jane Goodall and the chimpanzee troupe at the Gombe Reserve.

This is a topic which deserves a thread of its own, though I am uncertain which forum it belongs under.
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I make no prediction on stock prices. I do note a couple of contrary augments.

The fact that "Investors worldwide are betting more than $1 trillion on a collapse in stock prices" could indicate that stocks are over-sold. The fact is that these "investments will already have had their price impact. Additional selling will be required to drive prices down. And should prices start rising, then the investors who have sold stocks will have to start buying, which will drive prices higher and faster.


IMO, we are potentially on the edged of an inflationary spiral. If this happens, then all real assets (including some stocks) will likely rise.


Recent action by the Fed and other central banks indicates that they will work very hard at preventing a stock collapse. This is distinctly different for previous collapses where the central banks stayed out of the issue. Central bank intervention will also be an impediment to collapse. Doesn't mean it will not happen, just that it is less likely.

I personally think we will escape without the dramatic collapse that so many have predicted. However I think it will be very hard to return to aggressive growth we are accustomed to. I imagine this country as having a financial flu for many years to come.

Good counseling, numan, good counseling - its simply a matter of truly being honest - humans haven't evolved that much from our primate cousins in 40,000 years. Isn't our DNA and primates DNA something like a 98% match up?

I snicker at humans that think that they're so "evolved." If truly "evolved" - they're freaks of nature - that's all I'm sayin'. I think its more a matter of elitist attitudes than "evolution" - but if we tell them that, their Angry Ape Syndrome will rear its ugly head.

I'd place it under the HEALTH & SCIENCES forum.

Any one who remembers the financials of the 70’s will remember the stagflation during those years. The markets went nowhere for many years, approximately 1968 through 1982, when it took off with a vengeance. In 1970 there were just 361 mutual funds, in 2008 there are over 11,000!!! .

The question becomes can all these funds survive in a long term drawn out bear market? I think your flu analogy is right on Ardy, and equity returns during the next many years will be meager at best. In fact, it is my opinion than Americans other than the mega wealthy are going to experience a slow decline in their standard of living as the rest of the world improves theirs. I think there is a global wealth redistribution process occurring at this time and the effects will be painful for many Americans.

Politicians can promise pie in the sky but the think the reality will be quite different.

Wow! I didn't realize that for nearly fourteen years the U.S. economy suffered. What was it about 1982 that caused the economy to take off?

Naomi Klein writes about global wealth redistribution in her book, The Shock Doctine. She cites the US failure to secure Russia's markets when the Soviet Union collasped and instead, Russian industry barons took over their markets and became very wealthy.

Ms. Klein also states that the U.S. interests wanted to "privatize" Iraqi markets to gain an extravagant amount of wealth from those markets because they failed to secure wealth from the Russian markets in the 1990s. Ms. Klein states this is one of the reasons for the Iraqi "invasion" by the U.S.

Here's a summary of 1970's dow. There was also very high inflation during those years and the fed ultimately pushed interest rates to somewhere around 17% if memory serves. Can you imagine that today? Bond holders might enjoy it, but not too many others. When inflation was finally contained the markets took off.