Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

[karim0028]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

I think it is incredible to compare the 30s with the 21st century. Today, even in the poorest African country, you can send an SMS using a post paid phone plan.

Thats exactly it..... Even the "poorest" country has SMS (and better cell phone systems than the US i might add, ive seen tomato sales men riding donkeys in cairo with better cell phones than mine)... And its usually "pre-paid"; ie. charge up your minutes in cash.... BUT, that doesnt mean they are making ends meet, or mean they can put food on the table....

People will be poor, just poor with more toys from the days they thought they were rich..... You can have a cell phone and still get thrown out of your house by a bank and end up in a homeless shelter eating ramen noodles.... It wont be EXACLTY like the 30s but it will have its own 21st century flavor.... It doesn't repeat exactly but it rhymes..

[flintlock]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

One major difference in the two eras is the ability to grow and produce food. While there certainly will still be shortages, our technology in that regard has vastly changed. Basic survival is a lot easier now, though by no means guaranteed.

We definitely will have a bigger crash than in the 30s but only because we have a lot farther to fall. Its really a shame because its all quite unnecessary.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

This is not, however, a Black Swan Event. It's a predictable, systemic breakdown.

Nor were the actual black swans a Black Swan Event to certain Australian natives. Whether or not an event is such depends on ones a priori awareness.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

The current global crisis is “vastly worse” than the 1930s because financial systems and economies worldwide have become more interdependent, “Black Swan” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb said.

“This is the most difficult period of humanity that we’re going through today because governments have no control,” Taleb, 49, told a conference in Singapore today. “Navigating the world is much harder than in the 1930s.”

Contrary to the other replies above, I don't see in this quote a claim that people will have a lower standard of living than the Great Depression. It actually is difficult for me to tell, from the fragmented quotes of Taleb in the linked article, just what Taleb was saying. Perhaps he was saying that navigating ones investments through the present crisis will be more difficult. It would be understandable if Taleb was more concerned with preserving investment wealth than he was with finding food, a cardboard box and a good bridge to sleep under.

[skyson]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

Yes, talking about the US, guess I should have clarified that.

It really depends on which country you want to talk about, but I'd still think the average Chinese for instance, will be a lot better off in 2015 than they were in 1930. The farther you go back in time, the more the lot of the common people just gets worse compared to these days, regardless of boom or bust economic times. So history is not on Taleb's side in that regard. Prosperity for the masses is a relatively recent phenomena in history. Not saying things will be rosy, just that globalism has allowed "commoners" in many countries to accumulate some wealth they'd never had in their entire history. People in France may simply lose their car or sense of financial well being for instance, not their whole country to a Blitzkrieg. Not ruling out another war by the way, but so far that seems a lot less likely than in the 30s.

Just keeping in mind that while conditions in most "third world" countries may not have gotten that much worse during GD1, a lot of that may have had more to do with the existing low standard of living than anything else.

I take a dim view on globalism as practiced today by the way. I'm not against trade, just against any nation dismantling its manufacturing, farming, or any other industry it may need for survival someday in return for a cheap buck today. So be it a country in Africa over-relying on food imports, or the US over-relying on oil, I think its dangerous. So yes, I can see how some nations will suffer greatly in this depression. Especially if what it can no longer afford is food and not just cheap Plasma TVs.

Yes, I can personally atest to this view. Average person in present China will be vastly better prepared to navigate this storm.

My father was born in the GD in a major city in China. Life then was very hard. Famine was everywhere, and surprisingly, people most affected were peasants farming on those less fertile land. Death were common. Average life expectancy was like 40 somthing.

I don't think this will happen again now. The social support system is simply not comparable with the old days.

[phirang]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

Taleb doesn't have enough skin in the game to be useful. The bear Generals are John Paulson, Grantham, Faber, and Fleckenstein... and not one of them is bearish now!

[BlackVoid]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

Tale is quite right. It is not just the financial crisis, but also limits to growth.
Look at this:
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...ed=1#post96975

We have reached the point where we can no longer get more minerals out of the ground - we cannot increase production, or not as quickly as before. Resource constraints are starting to appear now, and it will get worse. MUCH WORSE. And pretty soon too.

[jtabeb]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

We have people here on Vancouver Island that are now just eating soup broth and rice to survive. And the government here in British Columbia is so out-of-touch that they are letting BC Hydro double electric rates starting this summer. So add another $100 per month to the cost of living. And ferry fees are up $20 per car. And grocery prices are up 9.5% so far this year according to Statistics Canada, nationwide.... This is what we are up against, so I don't think it is too early to make a judgement. What is going on here on Vancouver Island is going on in other ways all across Canada and America. Things are so bad now that even life in Mexico looks better than this, and this economic tragedy, apparently, is just the beginning of what we are facing.

There is a solution to this: going onto the gold standard in every country. Paying-down deficits everywhere. Rewarding savers with real interest rates. And to solve the energy crisis which is part of this economic crisis, to build atomic power plants everywhere. Natural gas has to be better developed, especially here in British Columbia. Heavy oil has to be better developed in Alberta. And drilling for offshore oil has to be undertaken all along the coasts of Canada and America.

One thing is crystal clear now: These so-called economists like Alan Greenspan know nothing at all about economics, and they have lead the world into an economic swamp deeper than the Great Depression. Printing paper money is no solution at all to economic depression.

Agreed.

I am seeing and noting the things that I am really going to miss about our society. The great people I've met from all across the country, little league, kids soccer, my daughters dance class, all of it, very small individually, but collectively, it makes my heart weep.

I just can't decide what to do.

A big part of my says I should staying and fighting for WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS country and trying to take it back from the Oligarchs that have ruined our society. Another big part thinks it's too late and that society will have to disintegrate before real change is possible, which leads me to the conclusion, that I should take my family and LEAVE and provide for them the best that I can with hopes of returning some day when the points of view expressed here on Itulip and numerous other places carry weight and people are actually paying attention to reality and looking for productive solutions that work, not another dose of false unreality. I hope if I leave that I can come back and be a part of restoring everything that we had right and then lost in 1913.


I think I know now how the the Jews that were contemplating leaving Nazi Germany felt. It is not an easy decision to contemplate fleeing one's homeland, but it's to that point where I feel it's what I must do to protect my family as best I can.

[ax]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

Wow, JT, strong words. However, I doubt that the collapse of the FIRE economy will lead your family to be rounded up and exterminated or sent to a slave labor camp.

[jtabeb]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

Wow, JT, strong words. However, I doubt that the collapse of the FIRE economy will lead your family to be rounded up and exterminated or sent to a slave labor camp.

It's not that, it's the freedom to choose how to live one's life that's at stake. Not death camps and exterminations, but the extermination of honesty integrity and justice. Do I want my kids to grow up here during this painful period. Or do I do what I can and protect them the best that I can.

To really see what I mean, just look at what we used to have for a media vs what we have now. Do I HOPE that corperate media is displaced by the internet due to it's lack of ground in the factual world that exists around us, you bet. Do I worry about things like voting down "net Neutrality" as a further powerplay to stifle dissent, you bet. What I'm saying is that it's to the point, were I'm not sure I want to STICK around and see how it ends. I might just rent the DVD and see it after the theatrical release.

If this "false Flag Rally" succeeds in restoring confidence in the system, well, then I don't want it to succeed in anyway shape or form, I want it to fail as badly as possible, because anything that perpetuates THIS SYSTEM, leaves me without hope of changing things.

The world where no good deed goes unpunished, the strong victimize the helpless, and the only check on power is the restraint of those who wield it is not a world I choose to be a part of. I don't like it, and DON'T want to be an enabler of it. A little bit taken here, a little moral comprise there, we have done this for so long, so many of us have, that it becomes routine. We are conditioned to accept that things can't work with justice, or correctly, when the fact is THEY CAN. The people in power are unwilling to change their ways, and we as a society are unable to compel them to change their ways, so I see two choices.

Participate, and hold my nose for as long as I can (NAh, too late for that one already). So that option is out.

The other option is to try to change the minds of as many people as possible through my words and actions.

That actions I choose are to NOT HELP this system survive, I want it to fail and will do no part to aid or abet it's continued existance. It's the moral obligation to my children that I do everything possible to ensure that they will not have to endure such a bankrupt and unethical system of financial existance.

It may be a small impact or no impact, but by not contributing to this system I'm making a statement AND a choice and mounting a protest all at the same time. It's all I can do and the best that I can do, so I choose to do it.

I will not have my kids lied to, misinformed and consigned to debt slavery for the rest of their lives (ad-infinitem).

So I take a stand and will not play this game, because even if I play it and profit and win, I have still lost that which I seek. And that is too high a price to pay for me, because I will just be pushing this burden down to my children. And then they will have to have courage when I had none. And on and on it goes, the systems becomes more powerful and simultaneously more corrupt, until that final day when that last remnants of power we as individuals possess, slips quietly through our fingertips and evaporates into nothingness.

[Sharky]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

A big part of my says I should staying and fighting for WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS country and trying to take it back from the Oligarchs that have ruined our society. Another big part thinks it's too late and that society will have to disintegrate before real change is possible, which leads me to the conclusion, that I should take my family and LEAVE and provide for them the best that I can with hopes of returning some day when the points of view expressed here on Itulip and numerous other places carry weight and people are actually paying attention to reality and looking for productive solutions that work, not another dose of false unreality. I hope if I leave that I can come back and be a part of restoring everything that we had right and then lost in 1913.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I reached that same point in 2005. My decision was to take my family and move to NZ. I do still hope to come back someday. I am and will always be an American.

The US government's moves in direction of tyranny after 9/11 were one of the deciding factors for me, along with the obviously-crumbling financial system. Tyranny is a slippery slope. History says that a reversal in direction never happens voluntarily. In the end, I rationalized the decision in part by saying that it would be fun to live overseas for a few years. Even if I decided to come back after that, with permanent residency in hand I would at least have an escape path if things went sour. Luckily, I love it here. Seeing the US from the outside has also been a real eye-opener.

[MarkL]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

The world is certainly unfair, dishonest, and the powerful do take advantage of the weak. However, I fail to see any period in history in which it's been better.
Those American's that are "debt slaves" today are so due to their own lack of control, ignorance and failure to inform themselves. These people are exemplified by excessive credit card debt when anybody who can read knows that rates can adjust at the whim of the lendor, buying into a housing market bubble with an adjustable rate mortage when they can't afford it, and a failure in general to consider risk.
JT, I'm sincerely sorry if you're one of those people, and I sympathise because I was too in 2000. But your children don't need to be. More information is available now than ever before. You just have to be prepared to dig, sort, and most importantly, think. You've made a great start by investing time in iTulip.

[santafe2]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

It's not that, it's the freedom to choose how to live one's life that's at stake.

The freedom to choose is never at stake. Freedom is not a thing given it is taken. Look inside and choose your best definition of freedom. For Sharky it was moving his family to NZ. For me it was moving out of LA to a small town in the US and using my influence locally to drive small changes. When you reference the Holocaust to mitigate your own struggles it doesn't serve you well. Define your own version of freedom and take it. Governments can only deeply affect the dependant. I've never sensed dependancy in any of your posts. Just make a decision about how to define your own freedom, influence your family and associates to make the same decision and demonstate your conviction. The rest is outside your influence. I don't know if I'm correct but I live this way and it's worked well for us.

[Guest]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

I do still hope to come back someday. I am and will always be an American.

Nah you won't mate. You'll be a Kiwi before they've done with you. Kiwi with a slightly wobbly accent. No fear. There's worse ends to come to. Your kids will wind up Kiwis for sure, or they'll come back to the States with Kiwi accents one day.

[marvenger]

Re: Vastly Worse than the 1930's Taleb says

mate think about education and health care. Privatising these vital services for humanity has significantly contributed to the systemic breakdown the US is now facing. You too need a little wake up shake in my opinion.