Suppos-ed Economic Collapse.

[NeiChuan]

Well with Greece having there troubles and soon the UK/Europe/US deal with something similar theres been much talk. Theres irony with my profile icon I see.

 

Anyway I'd like to hear your takes on the matter. I understand news stations would love to make people worried about whatever is coming, but no-one knows if it'll be held off for another 5 years.

[johndoe2012]

Once I worried a lot but if you see it as a cyclic phenomenon, it is expected. What goes up comes down and maybe a taoist approach is just to watch the "flow" as it changes.

 

Here in Denmark we will have less money to spend - however I still have food on my table and a bed to sleep in, so in the end, what's the big deal?

 

I am slowly getting used to not to read news that often and that helps a lot to lessen worry and anxiety.

Edited May 25, 2010 by wtm

[joeblast]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/15/business/pension.html?ref=economy

 

well, they keep making comparisons between here and greece for a reason - for the most part unions think that they shouldnt have to tighten their belts, at all, ever...these days unions are mostly nothing more than a ponzi scheme. but basically it all boils down to entitlements - the country was founded by people who believed that we're all equipped with bootstraps and its up to you to pull yourself up with them. why teach a man to fish when you can simply give him one every day and save him the trouble?

[Sloppy Zhang]

I'm not very good with economics, so I can't say overall.

 

But like wtm, I have food and a bed, so I'm good.

Edited May 25, 2010 by Sloppy Zhang

[Birch]

The money might collapse but the economy won't. Another reason to get good at something more practical than bean counting;-) People will just start swapping goods and services again.

 

I'm trying to figure out what I could possibly do that would be of practical use in such circumstances.

[NeiChuan]

All good replies .

 

Right now there seems to be no real problems if it comes to trading goods/services I would chop would kate <.< lol, fire wood.

 

@wtm, yeah your right its bound to happen, the more you hold it off the worse the fall will be aswell.

 

Aslong as people get food/water/ they should be good.. Unless there willing to beat others for Halo or something.

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

The money might collapse but the economy won't. Another reason to get good at something more practical than bean counting;-) People will just start swapping goods and services again.

 

I'm trying to figure out what I could possibly do that would be of practical use in such circumstances.

 

Kate, are you joking? On what planet are you envisioning this, Earth? Are you going to swap and barter with the electric company? Or pay the mortgage/rent each and every month? Or the hospital and cardiologist that's doing your father's heart valve replacement and triple bypass?

 

I find this vision of swapping goods and services naive in the extreme...as if we all live in Mayberry and can swap a haircut with Floyd the barber for grooming his dog. If money collapses, there will be a long period of extreme chaos before some other system is implemented.

Edited May 25, 2010 by TheSongsofDistantEarth

[johndoe2012]

Kate, are you joking? On what planet are you envisioning this, Earth? Are you going to swap and barter with the electric company? Or pay the mortgage/rent each and every month? Or the hospital and cardiologist that's doing your father's heart valve replacement and triple bypass?

 

I find this vision of swapping goods and services naive in the extreme...as if we all live in Mayberry and can swap a haircut with Floyd the barber for grooming his dog. If money collapses, there will be a long period of extreme chaos before some other system is implemented.

 

I don't think money will collapse. In the end all countries are dependent on each other. Eg. if the US collapses China will collapse also because of much less market demand.

 

So all countries will try to avoid collapses and chaos but of course inefficient economies means less money for you and me - which is a real problem.

 

Some libertarians are trying to create floating cities

http://seasteading.org/ which looks like a great idea to avoid big government but it has its share of problems as well.

[NeiChuan]

Kate, are you joking? On what planet are you envisioning this, Earth? Are you going to swap and barter with the electric company? Or pay the mortgage/rent each and every month? Or the hospital and cardiologist that's doing your father's heart valve replacement and triple bypass?

 

I find this vision of swapping goods and services naive in the extreme...as if we all live in Mayberry and can swap a haircut with Floyd the barber for grooming his dog. If money collapses, there will be a long period of extreme chaos before some other system is implemented.

 

Well if it was extremely bad, maybe as bad as people not having enough money for food. Then I don't think its so naive.

[gendao]

But like wtm, I have food and a bed, so I'm good.

Unfortunately, that is a narrow, selfish viewpoint (although not intended that way).

 

The Baby Boomers wastefully squandered & deficit-spent all our resources but will suffer the least now since they don't have to live in the nightmare they've created. There is always a delayed reaction between widescale cause & effect and the world you live in is the one created by those before you (for better or worse). So, it is the young ones growing up today who will inherit this travesty. Talked to any new college grads recently?

 

Most of them can't find professional jobs because there is less turnover and new positions now. One friend told me only 1/30 got a job in a recent graduating class...of a technical major! And if you're in liberal arts, fugghedaboudit!

Maybe China will come save us?

General Electric's former CEO , Jack Welch, he volunteers, is his inspiration. "I've read a lot of books, and I learned a lot from him," Chee says in broken English amid the sharp smell of grinding steel. "One person can change a lot." As one of China's self-made entrepreneurs, who started Top-Eastern in 1994 with just $500, Chee now has worldwide sales of more than $120 million, 4,000 employees, and factories in Germany and Brazil.

 

And how do the employees feel about having a Chinese entrepreneur come to their rescue? "Just because it's a Chinese owner, they don't really care," says Scott Henderson, a 47-year-old manufacturing manager who had been furloughed one week a month along with his workers before Chee bought the factory. "They're all happy to be working 40 hours a week." They also have the opportunity for overtime, and a third, graveyard shift has been added to serve a nearly 40% rise in orders. "I feel great about it," says Sam Marcengill, a 24-year-old technician at the plant. Last year he was laid off for six months before Chee's purchase gave him his job back. Now he's on overtime, 48 hours a week. "The work's a lot more steady. It's better. Personally I'm a lot better off. It's a great thing."

The real solution to our economic woes? Does it ever really change?

 

Work hard, quit making excuses & handing out welfare entitlements! The "secret" to gong fu - not financial shell games & more deficit spending!

 

Funny how "Commie" China & "capitalist" USA have been role-reversing in the last few decades...

Edited May 25, 2010 by vortex

[johndoe2012]

Of course my comment about food and a bed can be interpreted as selfish, but in the end would it not be better if people cultivated instead of worrying about economics and creating a super-efficient capitalist society?

 

Can you really do anything about how the world goes around anyway?

 

Work hard, quit making excuses & handing out welfare entitlements!

 

Welfare in all so-called welfare states includes everybody in that society including the president, ministers and also rich people in tax deductions which poor people cannot take advantage of.

 

Work smart, not hard. In an office you only work efficiently about 4 hours a day (I read this somewhere), so why are people working more than 4 hours per day?

[joeblast]

Welfare in all so-called welfare states includes everybody in that society including the president, ministers and also rich people in tax deductions which poor people cannot take advantage of.

Who fed you that line of crap, and what's it supposed to mean, for that matter? That state officials are paid is not welfare, it is somebody getting paid to do a job - even though that job generates no revenue whatsoever. People that are able to make tax deductions (i.e. anyone who pays a mortgage) isnt welfare - you are paying more than what you owe, therefore you are reimbursed some. What do you have to say when that is positioned next to the half of the population that pays no income tax? The 'poor people' "cannot take advantage" of those things because there is no positive net input, whereas if you had enough taxes taken out, then there is absolutely a positive net input into the system.

[tumoessence]

Welfare in all so-called welfare states includes everybody in that society including the president, ministers and also rich people in tax deductions which poor people cannot take advantage of.

 

 

 

Poor people take advantage of the same tax breaks in that they don't pay income taxes on their work income. In the usa 50% are not paying into the system yet reap benfits. 10% pay 70% of taxes and they are the top earners.

So if a corporation required to pay more taxes by law and they pass it on to consumers then what do you do? I am not condoning the sytem. I think the problem lay in the very creation of so called money or federal reserve notes in the us. It is backed by and created by debt, and only has worth if they pledge you to pay it back in the future with your labor. If the fed reserve prints more money to bail out everyone and every corp and country the value of the dollar drops and we all suffer, but the banks that own the Fed Reserve earn a guaranteed interest on $ that they just print, then we have a parasite overseeing our economy and every politician is in there poket, and the dem and repub thing is a charade that we all choose sides and root for to blindside us to what is really going on. Everyone top to bottom and all layers are waking up to this fact.

But the bright side is we are all rooted in Tao and that is the true source of wealth.

Edited May 25, 2010 by tumoessence

[Birch]

"Are you going to swap and barter with the electric company? Or pay the mortgage/rent each and every month?"

 

If the cash collapses entirely then my mortage won't be worth anything anyway. It's just a building (quite a nice one, but still.

 

I think I might be naive but not so much that I expect all of this to happen at once at some later point;-) Which is why I'm trying to figure out now what would be a good and more practical skill (or set) to learn that would be useful to other people. Preventive medicine might be a good field to get into. Qi-gong? Social skills so you don't end up going to war over petty details with people who could help me get out of the mess I put myself in?

[johndoe2012]

People that are able to make tax deductions (i.e. anyone who pays a mortgage)

 

Why should you be able to deduct a part of your mortgage? You bought a house/apartment and this should not concern the state.

 

What do you have to say when that is positioned next to the half of the population that pays no income tax? The 'poor people' "cannot take advantage" of those things because there is no positive net input, whereas if you had enough taxes taken out, then there is absolutely a positive net input into the system.

 

I don't like either that people are not paying taxes. However, poor people are generally socially outcast from mainstream society and lots of them are wrecks emotionally, so I don't envy them.

[joeblast]

Why should you be able to deduct a part of your mortgage? You bought a house/apartment and this should not concern the state.

 

 

 

I don't like either that people are not paying taxes. However, poor people are generally socially outcast from mainstream society and lots of them are wrecks emotionally, so I don't envy them.

You dont appear to understand how things work. What is deductible is the interest, not the value of the building or the mortgage itself.

 

How are you defining poor people???

[johndoe2012]

You dont appear to understand how things work. What is deductible is the interest

 

Yes, I understand perfectly. I own an apartment as well. That's why I wrote "part" because tax laws wary in different countries. The interest is still a part of the mortgage. So why should this be deductible?

 

How are you defining poor people???

People without food and shelter, that's poor - economically. They may be rich in other ways.

[That Guy]

I don't know why all this speculation goes on, we've all seen what will happen when the economies of the world die.

 

[That Guy]

People without food and shelter, that's poor - economically. They may be rich in other ways.

not sure I am understand what you mean, please elaborate on who you mean by "They"

Edited May 25, 2010 by That Guy

[Martial Development]

Once I worried a lot but if you see it as a cyclic phenomenon, it is expected. What goes up comes down and maybe a taoist approach is just to watch the "flow" as it changes.

 

Here in Denmark we will have less money to spend - however I still have food on my table and a bed to sleep in, so in the end, what's the big deal?

 

And those people without food on the table and a bed to sleep in? They will not fade quietly into the night.

 

If they remain unable to find or create a job, we will have to feed them. The only question is whether we (as a society) will decide to feed them outside, or inside a prison cell.

[trailmaker]

Sure - Be prepared...

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

[Sloppy Zhang]

I think that's also kind of naïve to assume that one can really be prepared in a significant way unless one has spent an enormous amount of time and energy a long time before a melt-down.

 

What would a Taoist do?

 

What would a Buddhist do? It seems to me that there is a conflict between cultivation and full-time preparation for all the aspects of a collapsed civilization. And no, I don't mean common sense things like keeping some blankets, food, flashlight etc., in one's car, but rather really being prepared. There are books like this one, that describes one man's attempt to become prepared for an apocalyptic world to come. It's an entertaining read, but one can perceive the futility of becoming self-sufficient in the event of societal and physical breakdown.

 

It seems to me that an awakening human being would continue to cultivate, be prepared in common sense ways, and then keep one's heart open and surrendering to what-is. To be a hard-core survivalist is really a big ego trip that really can't be achieved by most people anyway.

 

Five years ago my grandparents bought a house that was 3 hours away from any major city, stockpiled a year and a half's worth of food, and began collecting guns.

 

They were convinced that within months there would be a total economic and social collapse, and that the guys with the guns and food would be the ones calling the shots. So, stuff didn't collapse when they said it would. But they've worked hard for the success they've had, never taken any handouts, and are still firmly convinced that any minute now, the poor, unable to be sustained by the handouts from the rich, are going to rise up in revolt, what hasn't fallen through economically will fall through, there will be years of chaos, strife, and dog eat dog might-makes-right living.

 

 

But now it seems like things are about to collapse. Let's all start stockpiling weapons and buy houses in the middle of nowhere. I already have four identities across three countries, and I have homes in two of them. I'm ready to go anywhere in the world I need to with multiple bank accounts, and if I can't get out of the country, I can retreat to my fortress with a ton of food and weapons.

 

In the meantime, I'll keep working, try to be smart with my money, and every once in a while check up on some of my foreign homes.

 

 

 

**notes**

 

I was joking about my international identities, but not the actions that my family has been taken. I'm a junior in college right now. I'm not ignorant about the job market.

 

So, I wouldn't say that I'm being naive. I know all the facts. I'm up to date on all the current speculation. But the computers were supposed to fail in 2000 and we would be thrown into years of chaos, strife, and dog-eat-dog might-makes-right lifestyles.

 

I've got what I've got right now. What happens in the future happens in the future. And much of what makes the future is what you do in the present. So if you are terrified in the present, your future will be terrifying.

 

There are going to be people who aren't worrying, and the worriers will be telling them they should look to the future and prepare. And there are going to be worriers, and people who aren't worrying are going to tell them they shouldn't worry.

 

And everyone will be doing it wrong.

Edited May 26, 2010 by Sloppy Zhang

[de_paradise]

This thread could be viewed as a contrarian indicator.

[Birch]

What did Taoists and Buddhists do when stuff like this happened before?

 

I thought the idea about the ego-tripping gun and blanket wearers was quite good.