The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Eric Janszen

[oddlots]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Eric Janszen

Karl Marx is my guess. And Sky Masterson to Necron. (Too easy: google search.)

[LargoWinch]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Public Sector Employees

I work in a blue collar community Emergency Department in the Northeast, beside that fact that the hospital is insolvent, the town is about to slash police and fire department jobs and benefits to make the books balance. Many hardworking people who have had good jobs for over a decade will be out of work.

Jay, wait until PPPs arrive in the US.

I suspect public infrastructure will rock and lots will be employed in that sector.

Again, in the US I understand that most hospitals are private, thus results may vary...

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Public Sector Employees

Jay, wait until PPPs arrive in the US.

Pray tell, what is a "PPP" ? A Precision Plumbing Product ?

[LargoWinch]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Public Sector Employees

Pray tell, what is a "PPP" ? A Precision Plumbing Product ?

My apologies PythonicCow; PPP stands for Public, Private, Partnership.

Huge in UK, Australia and starting in Canada.

I believe - and EJ refers to this in his latest article - that this will be one way to "inflate" out of this debt.

[dcarrigg]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Public Sector Employees

My apologies PythonicCow; PPP stands for Public, Private, Partnership.

Huge in UK, Australia and starting in Canada.

I believe - and EJ refers to this in his latest article - that this will be one way to "inflate" out of this debt.

They are already present in the US. They are also growing with the advent of economic development assistance $ from the federal government. See the National Council for Public Private Partnerships website.

[Slimprofits]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Public Sector Employees

They are already present in the US. They are also growing with the advent of economic development assistance $ from the federal government. See the National Council for Public Private Partnerships website.

PPPs to the rescue of the 42 states facing budget shortfalls in 2009 and 2010.

[FRED]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Public Sector Employees

They are already present in the US. They are also growing with the advent of economic development assistance $ from the federal government. See the National Council for Public Private Partnerships website.

Who could have known?

"Supporting this alternative-energy bubble will be a boom in infrastructure—transportation and communications systems, water, and power. In its 2005 report card, the American Society of Civil Engineers called for $1.6 trillion to be spent over five years to bring the United States back up to code, giving America a grade of “D.” Decades of neglect have put us trillions of dollars away from an “A.” After last August’s bridge collapse in Minnesota, it took only a week for libertarian Robert Poole, director of transportation studies for the Reason Foundation, to renew the call for “highway public-private partnerships funded by tolls,” and for Hillary Clinton to put forth a multibillion-dollar “Rebuild America” plan."

- The next bubble, Feb. 2008

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Public Sector Employees

PPP stands for Public, Private, Partnership.

Thanks for the explanation. Yes - PPP and similar such entanglements between the public and private spheres would seem to be a major trend in the United States.

The Wiki page for public-private partnership http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-private_partnership lists the Federal Reserve as an example of a PPP in the United States.

The new equity and debt positions being taken by the Fed or Treasury in formerly private, currently distressed firms would seem to be a related phenomenon.

The likely upcoming nationalization of health care in the United States seems related as well.

As I noted in another post yesterday, I predicted that national socialization of a wide swath of formerly private sectors of the economy would form the new basis for the U.S. currency. We used to have gold, then Treasury bills, as the redemption basis for the dollar. Treasuries are in their final blow-off now. The Banksters are working overtime to change this basis to holdings in America's businesses. Foreign holders of big piles of Treasuries will end up owning chunks of America, for a sweet price if they play their cards well. The dollar bill will become one share in the worlds largest ETF. The federal government will own controlling interest in, or have dominating regulatory control over, all major sectors of the American economy.

(Just beware that like media personalities, I make new predictions frequently, and turn a deaf ear to complaints that prior predictions failed. ;) )

[necron99]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Eric Janszen

Policeman, Fireman, and School Teachers (and Dr.s and nurses too) are always needed and valued because they are local and we all need them. What we don't need are U.S. secretaries of education, labor, health, and the like foisting and forcing their half-baked theories on the rest of us.

...communism which is the other extreme is much much worse....

So a good, but albeit still imperfect, attempt at the golden mean gov, say the democratic republic of the U.S. of 1790 has evolved (or devolved depending on your perspective) ... the government is out of control... While you and others may disagree with Rothbard type libertarianism (and I for one and not a 'disciple' either), at least his views are self consistent and are based on an underlying set of core principles and systematic thought - which to me is an admirable quality and much more refreshing than the typical "I want whatever works best for me" attitude that is more commonly seen and heard.

So the minute I stick up for rank-and-file firemen and schoolteachers, I get called a Communist? Perchance did you actually read my comment? I did say that the rank-and-file are unfairly blamed for "problems that only upper management", e.g. Secretaries of Labor, Education, or perhaps Central Bankers and CEOs for example, "could create." :confused:

I kinda thought the "I want whatever works best for me" attitude was the basic foundation of Individualism, Capitalism, and Libertarianism. Correct me if I'm wrong there. So, ummmm, if what I happen to want is an organized system of firemen and schoolteachers instead of a patchwork pay-for-play one, I guess that makes me a Communist. Fine, I'll accept the label.

But, having been called "un-American" so many times to my face in the past, it always amuses me how my political opponents can heap praise on America and then turn on it like vipers in the next breath. Are you implying that Murray Rothbard's work was "self consistent and are based on an underlying set of core principles and systematic thought" -- but the tens of thousands of word penned by the Founding Fathers about constitutional representative Democracy are not? Are you implying that the centuries of philosophy they incorporated by citation, stretching from the French back to the Greeks and Romans, don't count as "systematic thought"? The Founding Fathers didn't just talk about liberty and independence, ya know, they wrote quite a bit about how to maintain those things, via a massive, oppressive monopoly-of-force agency called a 'government'. Libertarians read their work just as selectively as "fundamentalists" quote the Bible. The Founding Fathers might well be surprised at what the U.S. looks like today -- but if it is indeed "out of control", and I happen to believe that the system of checks and balances they set up might be used to repair it and update it rather than trashing it, that makes me an Enemy of Liberty?

Feh, I used to waste enormous amounts of time on discussions like this, but I ain't got the time this week. I know very well where this is going. When you say you stick to "core principles and systematic thought," I will then accuse you of preferring a Utopian economic model to real-life practicality. When I insist that my mind is open to new theories and evidence, that I'm pragmatic, you will accuse me of being unprincipled ("whatever works best for me"). When I cite some humanistic principles as goals of my pragmatism, we will then switch places: you'll accuse me of being Utopian, while insisting that a "pragmatic" view of human nature leads you back to Libertarianism. Start over at square 1. Well, with respect Sir, feel free to continue spinning your wheels, but I gotta log off the site and go earn my rent for the week...

[Uno]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Eric Janszen

This public vs. private employee issue is very interesting. In a way it came about because of socialist policies put in place during the last great depression. So now what? More socialist policies, is that even possible?

Public employees have gamed the system for a long, long time. The well is now dry and the private sector paying the bills are unemployed and unhappy.

Once those in the public sector start to live better then those in the private, then perhaps that is the road towards communism people are talking about or some wierd latin American style socialism.

One can only hope Americans wake up long enough to replace all local governments with libertarians.

and my guess is that if Obama throws money directly at the public sector, then that will be the end of his presidency, 1 term president.

[Charles Mackay]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Eric Janszen

Just for some contrary opinion, Louis-Vincent Gave was quoting Galbraith's three phases to a bear market

First: asset prices fall
Second: bank credit contracts
Third: all the crooks are found out Satayam, Madoff etc. etc.

By his reckoning (not mine) we are in the third phase similar to 2002 when Enron was exposed. He's an optimist by nature and has explained how much better off the US is for having platform companies that mfg in China than the Chinese are with the actual plants (Apple's ipod city for instance)... i.e., Apple makes much more money from the process than the Chinese.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Eric Janszen

Just for some contrary opinion, Louis-Vincent Gave was quoting Galbraith's three phases to a bear market

First: asset prices fall
Second: bank credit contracts
Third: all the crooks are found out Satayam, Madoff etc. etc.

By his reckoning (not mine) we are in the third phase similar to 2002 when Enron was exposed. He's an optimist by nature and has explained how much better off the US is for having platform companies that mfg in China than the Chinese are with the actual plants (Apple's ipod city for instance)... i.e., Apple makes much more money from the process than the Chinese.

I don't know how long it takes to find out all the crooks. We are getting toward 9 years from the 2000 tops and today even I received another (must be the 25th to 30th) class-action participation filing form for stocks I owned in 2000-2002. I don't know if the lawyers really have valid suits, or whether they have just succeeded in black mailing some of these companies into coughing up dough to prevent going to court.

So if what is happening with the current crash has a lot or even some to do with illegalities or assumed illegalities, if history is a guide, it will be near a decade before all the legal crap is resolved.

I quit filing these forms as the usual return to me was spit, compared to my losses, and the only ones I suspect making serious money are the lawyers.

[jk]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Eric Janszen

Just for some contrary opinion, Louis-Vincent Gave was quoting Galbraith's three phases to a bear market

First: asset prices fall
Second: bank credit contracts
Third: all the crooks are found out Satayam, Madoff etc. etc.

By his reckoning (not mine) we are in the third phase similar to 2002 when Enron was exposed. He's an optimist by nature and has explained how much better off the US is for having platform companies that mfg in China than the Chinese are with the actual plants (Apple's ipod city for instance)... i.e., Apple makes much more money from the process than the Chinese.

he left out lather, rinse, REPEAT.
a new leg down will expose the next group of crooks.

[Charles Mackay]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Eric Janszen

he left out lather, rinse, REPEAT.
a new leg down will expose the next group of crooks.

Good Point JK... 2000-2002 was the first rep of lather and rinse and now we are in the second. My hope is that the naked short sellers and their collusion with banks will be the third...

[Slimprofits]

Re: The Myth of the Slow Crash Revisited – Eric Janszen

Ever drive down your street and notice the lousy roads and sidewalks but the fine new school buildings, and fire and police stations? Ever wonder why? Road construction comes straight out of tax revenue, but those buildings just might be paid for using bonds floated in insider deals where tax revenue can be leveraged, leaving yet another FIRE Economy liability that will climb onto the backs of tax payers in 2009 and 2010 as local property and income tax revenues plunge and waves of municipal bond defaults mark the next stage of decline of the 1980 to 2006 FIRE Economy.

EJ, Even worse than a school or a fire station though are the stadiums. As if we all didn't need another reason to hate the Yankees.