Please, someone explain it all.....

Ok, it may be a tall order (and if you can perhaps you should be leading the banks etc.) but could someone please explain what on earth is going on.... am I missing something but every week there seems to be a news article that says someone (Government) is sticking another billion or trillion (s) of £ and $ into the 'system....

- Where is it going?
- Where does it come from?
- How is it getting there?
- What will it mean in a year or so?

Surely, this will mean a bit later that a loaf of bread will end up costing me £10,000? I don't know the full history of Zimbabwe, but they have ended up with hyper-inflation...is that where we are heading or is the scenario different?

I can't see how it can go on? It's broken but stuffing monopoly money into the 'system' surely just delays the inevitable .... Kaput.

Maybe someone can make sense of it all and make it sound all ok......that way I can sleep better knowing my kids are going to be alright.

everyone's going to die. make the best of what you have.

that's what's going on.

This is how i see it:
Real-life value of production capacity of our economy (globally) was , say, X.
"Virtual" value representing this production-capacity is Y. And this Y is much larger then X. So it means that total financial market had much more money in it then economy in reality. Now this bubble is exploding/deflating, and all the government money-injections do - is to keep this explosion/deflation under control. Also , if i/you would tomorrow realize that our money (say 1000$) in reality worth 100$ since financial market was operating with sums it did not have, then we (and several billions worldwide) would rise and ask - what the heck? And how the heck? And - most importantly - who did it and why people who are payed to prevent all this failed??? So since politicians are part of those people, they try to make the process slow and controlled. In the end our 1000$ will be able to buy what 100$ buys now anyway, but it will not happen overnight. Unhappy person is still better then furious one.
I am not an economist, but this is how i see it.

[edit on 12-2-2009 by ZeroKnowledge]

Originally posted by AlwaysQuestion[...]
Maybe someone can make sense of it all and make it sound all ok......that way I can sleep better knowing my kids are going to be alright.

Worrying won't help you. Enjoy the time you have with your children as long as it's enjoyable.
If and when the SHTF try to have an umbrella ready!! (food in the cupboard is always a good start)

As far as I understand it, the system will fail and all that has been done over the last few years is botching the system up. Nobody wants the system to fail, but I fear that water is flooding in quicker than it's being bailed out. We'll see if and when it sinks, could be in the next couple of years, but it could also take a few decades.
Worrying never helped => enjoy your life with your family, but don't forget that umbrella!

BB,
Samuel

The almighty dollar!

Lets make it simple...

All of that money has been sucked into a cosmic void, most of it is irretrievable, so the fed through plans has printed new money, and with the new economic stimulus plan will print billions more.

What this does ultimately is devalue the dollar, first by causing inflation and in a worst case hyperinflation.

Think of it this way... Imagine at some point in the near future where there is little or no slowing of this economic collapse (more money in the void) while more and more money (printed by the feds) is flooding the economy... You will at some point see hyperinflation. That, for the average person could mean seeing the prices of nearly everything doubling or tripling in weeks or a month, ultimately you could fill a shopping cart with $20 dollar bills and if you can find any stores still open with products to sell you may be able to purchase a few days of groceries with it... That is where we are headed along with the economic collapse we will be dealing with a devalued dollar and hyperinflation... And it will impact the lives of all Americans and much of the world's economies.. In fact it already has and I hate to say it but is getting worse.

reply to post by Walkswithfish

I disagree with you there.
As you said: money has 'disappeared'. If there is less money in the system it causes deflation. This deflation is being tackled now by pumping money back into the system. The problem that I see, however, is that the money is coming from the governments, increasing spending of already near-bankrupt governments
How long can governments around the world keep this up?
(Basically until they don't get anymore money.)
What happens then???

Who is going to bailout the governments? What will they 'sell'? How will they run without money? What will happen to the economy?

That is IMHO what might happen.

reply to post by Aldolas


Keeping it simple... if you put a $100 bill in a slot machine and lose it for you it is gone... Just like the trillions lost on the stock market are gone, bad loans that are irretrievable for banks are gone... etc.

If you create capital from thin air (printing money) and flood the economy with it... Think of it this way, You are at an auction, no one has a lot of money, bids are relatively low then all of the sudden the room is flooded with new money and bids go very high..... A small scale example of how hyperinflation can occur. Get it?

Who will bailout the government?

I'll answer that with a question...

Why do you believe that the vast majority (hundreds of billions) of this current stimulus plan is going to be spent on government projects that do not necessarily have any effect on the economy?

Though it will offer social programs that will greatly increase dependence on government.

Yeah it is bad no matter how you look at it, either the simple way or the more complex.

Originally posted by AlwaysQuestion
Maybe someone can make sense of it all and make it sound all ok......that way I can sleep better knowing my kids are going to be alright.

Forget about reading about global meltdown on ATS if you want to sleep well. Just remember that most that create threads about it have no idea what they are talking about or want something to be true so badly, they cling to doomsday scenarios like glue

So just relax, enjoy life and take it as it comes

What kills me is that if I wanted a loan from a bank a couple years ago they would have laughed me out the door. "You have bad credit" is the reason for me not getting the money that I need.. But, now WE are lending to the BANK who obviously are not doing great with the credit aspect and we all have to give it to them?!?!?! Thats bull! I couldn't get a loan, but I can give one to them?!?! Ugh

Originally posted by Walkswithfish
reply to post by Aldolas

 

Keeping it simple... if you put a $100 bill in a slot machine and lose it for you it is gone... Just like the trillions lost on the stock market are gone, bad loans that are irretrievable for banks are gone... etc.

...bad example since the $100 bill is not gone and someone is going to spend it. Stock market loses are "POOF" gone.

The solution is so amazingly simple that even I can comprehend it.

Lets say they give me 24hrs to fix it.

1) raise sales tax on non essentials to 22% (push a few buttons to do that like they already do)
2) Tell everyone from the IRS..."today is your last day"
3) the trillion $$ in off-shore accounts come right back into U.S. banks now that they won't be taxed on it.
4) give the bank people some oxygen to keep them from passing out.

Did I forget anything? Oh, and give a toaster to everyone who takes out a new loan.

This current economic mess is caused by an imbalance in trade, which is the result of our high labor costs here in America. Most Americans can't afford to buy American, so they shop in China (via China-Mart). This results in all those US dollars ending up in China, and also in all those OPEC nations. Now, this would not be a problem if China and OPEC nations used those dollars to shop in America, but they don't either. Thus, we have to keep printing more money to replace all those dollars being exported. So, what does China and those OPEC nations use or plan to use those US dollars for? Well, they are using them to BUY America, not MADE in America! In other words, America is being traded to China and OPEC nations by today's Wal-Mart shoppers looking for cheap CRAP. The failure of the US economy is being perpetrated by all those you see shopping at Wal-Mart.

Essentially, what is going on here is that Americans are taking advantage of cheap foreign labor in order to live the high life .. at the detriment and expense of their nations and decedents future.

The second cause of this collapse are the freeloaders, those living immorally on the backs of others, on welfare, food stamps, medicare, and unemployment. This kind of system takes the pressure off people from becoming self sufficient and self supporting. It's the same kind of problem you end up with when you toss free seed out there for the pigeons. Given enough time, you become overwhelmed with dependent pigeons all over the place, all expecting and demanding someone else take care of them and their lame inept helpless asses.

The third cause of this mess is funny money. Fiat money. It's a cheating game created by the bankers. Imagine if you or I could print up a billion dollars and then loan it out at a profit. An economic system designed around fiat money is a cheating system that profits those that control the money and enslaves those that think they need money to survive. I mean, how did man ever survive before the first coins were created? Seems like modern man is more hopeless and helpless than man was a few thousand years ago. Man did not need JOBS or MONEY to survive before. Now they do? Why?

An economic system designed around fiat money will always eventually crash, because it's too easy to cheat and print more funny money at will, which results in devaluing all those dollars already in circulation. And, these welfare entitlements will eventually doom an economy too, as more and more pigeons give up the self-sufficient life in exchange for free feed handed out by the evil wicked ones that want the pigeons to become inept and dependent on their free entitlements.

The only way out of this mess is to let this cheating funny money economy crash and let the excess inept dependent pigeons that do not know how to sustain themselves starve to death. After the population has been reduced and cleansed of all the inept bottom feeding leeches and freeloaders, and nobody trusts or wants to play with funny money any more, only then can a new way of life emerge.

There's a children's show about nature & animals that my kids watch sometimes on PBS called Zaboomafoo. It stars the Crat(?) brothers and a puppet lemur named Zabu. Every episode the brothers visit some remote wilderness/wildlife area somewhere on the globe to investigate a particular animal or habitat. The show has a little jingle/theme song they play while watching the brothers get packed up and travel to the location. This song is totally appropriate for what our government is currently doing and it fits very well anyone who supports all these bailouts/stimulus/gang rapings of the US taxpayer/etc:

The lyrics are as follows:

Narrater: Where are we going?
Group: I don't know!
Narrater: How do we get there?
Group: C'mon, let's go!

That's us in a nutshell right now... we have no clue where we're going or how we're going to get there, but by God we're going and we're in a damn rush to get wherever it is.