Is a Meltdown actually going to happen? If so when.

I know we have been looking for this, and some are looking forward to a total collapse and the choas that could follow it. My question is this. People here have been calling it since this all began. The statements are usually as follows.

"Get ready folks it's coming any day now"
"I think this will happen within the next 2 weeks to a month"
"This will happen very soon there's no getting around it"


So I know alot of people are expecting it to happen and happen within weeks, but when it doesnt actually happen, people will say it will still be soon and within the next month or so.

Time goes by and things remain bad but not a total collapse. So I'm wondering have we here been duped or sucked into the mere thought of this collapse and choatic times. Could people be so desperate for a change in the world that we will look to anything and see it, even if it is not there?

I make no mistake in the fact that things are bad, and a collapse is a possibility. I just also see the possibility that things will turn around, slowly, but turn around all the same.

What makes people so absolutley sure that this coming collapse will happen no matter what?

And what kind of actual time frame do people see here? are we talking weeks, months, years?

hey... pssst .... dont look now, but its happening. thi is just the beginning of much more terrible things to come. buckle up boys and girls!

Originally posted by guinnessford
hey... pssst .... dont look now, but its happening. thi is just the beginning of much more terrible things to come. buckle up boys and girls!

This is exactly my point here. I have seen these kind of remarks since September now, and even though I will be the first to admit things are bad right now. It seems to me that people may be trying to hard to see a collapse coming.

Of course I could be wrong, thats happened alot :p

Originally posted by guinnessford
hey... pssst .... dont look now, but its happening. thi is just the beginning of much more terrible things to come. buckle up boys and girls!

We've seen trillions of dollars injected into a failing financial system.

We've got hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars in bailout money that cannot be accounted.

We've seen job losses exceed a half a million per month in the last three or four months.

We've seen the stock markets around the world lost half of their value in less than a year.

We've got 31 million people who can't feed themselves and are surviving on foodstamps.

Approximately ten percent of all mortgages are in arrears.

The manufacturing sector is at a standstill


Hell . . . there ain't nothin' wrong . . . there's no collapse . . . .

Its a controlled demolition and it is well underway.

Very good post. One of the things I have taken from all these types of posts is that it can't hurt to be prepared for anything. If you have a food stash, simply revolve it, and it will not be any wasted investment. Pay attention to trends and the people around you. No one can predict when "it" will happen or what "it" is, I think people just want change so bad they are hoping for "it". I am one of them, but I don't sit at home everyday and wait for "it" to happen. If you spend too much time on some of those types of threads, you will convince yourself to sell everything you own and stock up will supplies for when the SHTF. People have told me to leave Chicago immediately because I am in danger. WTF. Once again, good post, I look forward to reading the replies and I think you will see some extremes on both sides.

reply to post by Trayen11


Anyone who thinks that there is a single day or even week in which we go from where we are now to some kind of lawless society with roving gangs is ignorant of history.

It takes years to fall apart. The USSR is a great example. Crime sky rockets, people starve, and law enforcement becomes nearly impotent, but it does so slowly over time.

We are in a decline that may not bottom until it qualifies as a "collapse" but it will not happen over night.

reply to post by Trayen11


The general notion is that if the S&P 500 sinks too low, then it will cause mass bankruptcy because a large number of companies have defined benefit pension plans and the equity portion is heavily invested in the S&P 500. We could be looking at a 25% bankruptcy rate -- and bailouts won't be an option if we get anywhere close to that level. Insurance companies that sell annuities (almost all of them) would be in hot water. Obviously, if the insurance companies go under then our health care system would experience some severe turbulence, because it's built around the insurance companies.

If it's Christmas and you see bankruptcies piling up and hear that the US .gov has gone into default, then you'll know that it's happening.

[edit on 10-3-2009 by theWCH]

tptb are getting better and better at controlled demo. theyve been staving off a recession for so long its an inevitable issue at this point. and i think the more pillows they throw under us, the higher we have to fall from. i see your point of weve been told this since last sept. bit it doesnt fall out from underneath us in a day, or a week. my guess would be mid to late summer.

i like many posters and talking heads have been saying collapse in coming soon, indeed it did and some states are issuing iou's while people live in tent citys, countries have had riots and civil unrest - it is upon us now.

Will every single person in the world break down into chaos and start firing guns into the air? No, first the slack in the rope gets taken then it pulls the poor and debt ridden off the cliff and the weight of them pull the middle classes, land tied and fairly stable people who in turn pull at the rich, the governments and the institutions who soon follow suit.

This may take years to play out, we might not even see #real# suffering at all this year, unlikely but possible - we can already feel the pull of the rope and the cliff path isn't very stable, the higher ups are already franticly racing to cut as many ropes as possible between them and the people falling from the cliff (its more of a complex web than a classic belay system) but some of the ropes are too tough to undo so they'll never be able to cut them all in time. The governments and business leaders are trying to do what they can to not be dragged down, the tarp is basically an attempt at tieing off the line onto a grounded hook -however the hook can only support 8billion newtons and the downwards force which is being applied to it is trillions of newtons so it's only delaying the inevitable and wasting resources we could use to clime back up assuming we don't splat on the bottom.

So if the wall hooks buy enough time for the fatcats to unhook then we unlucky few can crash to the floor while the rest of the party (humanity / the western economic empire) can carry on up the mountain.

So there you go, me extended metaphor hopefully helped you understand the complex dynamics of a situation like this, we can't say at which time a certain person and group will be pulled off the edge anymore than we can say when we'll reach the top of the mountain - however at the moment it looks like this path leads nowhere, we've tried to go as far as possible and slipped, maybe we can find another way around, or maybe we'll try again and go slower, more carefully this time.

The OP here is one of three things:

1. A paid agent of someone.

2. A Troll

3. Or a cockeyed optimistic proverbial ostrich.

And I have a remedy for all three scenarios.

1. Ignore him and he will either go away or try a new angle.

2. See solution 1

3. Cook up the big turkey and feed some hungry folks.

My point is this, people are naturally optimistic and this often prevents them from making preparations or seeing things for what they really are. If you don't have the commonsense to get out of the way of a speeding train when you see it a mile down the track then why should I risk my neck to push you out of the way at the last second.

Hopefully, the economy will turn around, but the reality is that it is highly unlikely. We are in truly uncharted territory. And I hope some of the overly optimistic types have enough sense to at least make some basic preparations!

It's not going to happen. The continued intervention in the bank crisis will save the day. The big worry was failure and the implosion of derivatives. With the assurance from the Fed that the banks won't fail, the danger of derivative implosion is much less likely. Once that danger passses we can take more steps about getting them back in line. Averting failure also allows the banks to pay back the goverment. In a year or two it will seem like this whole thing didn't happen and the banks will be operated in a fashion most Americans would approve.

reply to post by Trayen11


My reason as to why the collapse is inevitable?

Because the whole system is a house of cards, upon a house of cards, upon yet another house of cards -- and the wind is beginning to blow stronger and stronger to knock it all over. Knock one card over, and the rest will start to go with it.

Will it happen overnight? It did to Iceland. Will it happen over a period of months? Maybe. Will it happen over years? A really good chance as it's already been in process.

If you're expecting some explosive event that will draw major headlines around the world of "United States Collapses Overnight!" you're looking for the wrong headlines.

Nearly 11 trillion has been committed to this situation alone ignoring all our previous deficits, whither from promising backstops or more direct funding such as TARP. Who is going to pay for it all? The taxpayer? Your children? Your grand children? Your great grandchildren? You can only pull forward so much before you can't pull forward anymore. That's a GIGANTIC number, without interest associated with it.

With that in mind, the system as you know it is living on borrowed time, and has for the past 20 years. We've all been beneficiaries of Ponzi finance on a global scale, so in part we are to blame.

Add in the grand Messiah's plans for free higher education and free health care for all, and see my question again as to where are we going to get the money from? Tax the evil richman? Even if they paid 100% they can't afford it.

Nothings free.

Those same nations funding our deficit spendings are also hurting pretty bad. We're screwed, but they are screwed worse. Eventually that funding will be cut off in favor of their own nations and own power interests.

The same person who has lost their job, their home, their insurance, and lives off the government for the time being will contribute? There's no indicator that the job market has turned around with 500,000 jobs lost every month or will turn around. They want to work, but when you have 700 applicants for one Janitorial job, that should give you pause. That adds up overtime and the % continues to climb. That's just another burden your seed will have to endure for us.

Our chief export are jobs, and our chief import are illegal aliens which take up the remaining jobs and cause wage depreciation while prices go up.

S&P 500 to 500 will force a ton of corporate bankruptcies, or eating themselves for previous entitlements. That's millions out of work. More going into the system by no fault of their own to leech even more.

Credit markets? Pfft. There's plenty of credit to go around. The problem is no one wants more credit, especially those with good ratings. When the average household holds an average of $20,000 in credit card debt alone, what makes you think they want more? I know I don't. Those that are in good standing are paying a ton of money on interest alone, which is money out of the economy right now.

You also have a $50 trillion dollar ticking time bomb called Social Security. Wait till that one goes as baby boomers retire -- and they are doing so right now.

But the nuclear bomb NO one wants to talk about is the derivatives market. $700 trillion of worst case scenario that all the nations in the world together couldn't back stop -- and that tree is beginning to shed leafs.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of a plethora of real problems today. Any major EU/Asia nation collapse, bond market dislocation, panic sell/market crash, major banking collapse, currency crash, bank runs, etc can cause the whole system to come down on top of each other.

I ask you, what do you see that prevents such an event from occurring?

All I see is solutions to kick the can to deal with it another day like the past 30 years. That can however is filled with cement.

How far do you think we can kick it this time?

Part of me thinks that the meltdown is already underway, and that we are in big trouble. I've been taking steps, doing what I can to be prepared if the worst does come to pass. Everything I read and hear makes me think that the worst may be happening or may happen sometime soon.

However, I was driving downtown this morning to a meeting, and it was beautiful. The weather was perfect, the flowers were blooming, the city was bustling as normal. All along my route, large construction projects were underway, with several high rises in various states of completion. There was the usual traffic, the usual road construction. There were all sorts of people on the street, all seemed content, and were going about business as usual. The stores were open, people were drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. It sure didn't look like a society on the verge of complete and total collapse.

I know the economy seems bad, and I do see quite a few empty businesses around, but maybe it's not as bad as we're thinking it will be. Is this just wishful thinking?

Thanks for all the speedy replies while i was out guys. Was good to come back on and see some replies to a general question.

Originally posted by traderjack
The OP here is one of three things:

1. A paid agent of someone.

Uhhhh LMAO I love that response to a general question there buddy. Did I say that a collapse was not going to happen? uhhh no. If im a disinfo agent then I'm pretty bad one. Grow Up.

2. A Troll

Again LMAO, I may not post here much but I sure as hell don't come on here just to troll certain things. I make commenst and start threads when I feel I have something to add to the topic at hand. Something you clearly have no intention of doing. And you call me a troll....

3. Or a cockeyed optimistic proverbial ostrich.

Once again I never said a collapse was not going to happen. I have said that things are bad right now. I was merley offering my opinion on things from a different point of view. If you can't handle someone thinking things may get better and that we are doom no matter what happens, I suggest you look in the mirror about having your head in the sand so to speak.

And I have a remedy for all three scenarios.

1. Ignore him and he will either go away or try a new angle.

2. See solution 1

3. Cook up the big turkey and feed some hungry folks.

I can offer the same to you, but I had to reply to you obvious troll response to an honest question.

My point is this, people are naturally optimistic and this often prevents them from making preparations or seeing things for what they really are. If you don't have the commonsense to get out of the way of a speeding train when you see it a mile down the track then why should I risk my neck to push you out of the way at the last second.

Are you assuming that I have not made preparations? Cause I dont think I ever actually said that I didn't. Your taking an honest question here and spinning it like im some free loving idiot running around telling everyone that things are just fine. I never actually said that.

Hopefully, the economy will turn around, but the reality is that it is highly unlikely. We are in truly uncharted territory. And I hope some of the overly optimistic types have enough sense to at least make some basic preparations!

I agree with you here that even though I may believe there is a possibility that things will be fine, I'm not stupid to the fact of preparing for the worst. Once again my thread was meant to ask the simple question. Could we possibley be hoping for this so much that we may be reading to much into it and things could turn around in the end?

To the rest of your post, it was rude, stupid and had no place for an honest question. Once again, you refer to me as a troll, perhaps you should look at your post and reconsider your definition of troll my friend.