HAHAHAH their plan that the economy recovers and QE ends? Their plan is not working, it hasn't worked and will NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER WORK. These world economies are in such a mess now that the next collapse I believe will cause extreme stress on every world market around the world leading to a crisis bigger than the world has ever witnessed!!!!
You've been wrong about everything for 6 years. If the US collapses like you think it will, here's an eye opener for you. Your job is history, and you'll be putting those special hamburger making skills of yours to use soon.
The US economy was in brutal shape in 2008/2009 and we saw exactly what kind of impact it had on Canada. It ended up being larger psychologically then real. We took measures expecting worst and had to roll back some of them when the obvious was realized. Canadian real estate isn't a bubble; high demand areas are expensive and have appreciated slowly but constantly for 25 years. Would the US going into a deep recession hurt us ? Sure, but not nearly as much as people thought it would. And the US isn't even in a recession right now, Canada is in a borderline recession but it's mainly isolated to Alberta and the Oil economy. The main US issues are political in nature. They need to pay for their stuff, many tax payers have entitlement issues. The rich are basically stealing from everyone else, the rules have to change. Eventually, the need will be so obvious that things will happen, just like Canada had to deal with things in the 1980s. Looking at Canada in the 1980s, on the surface, things looked awful. Huge government debt, huge interest rates, and high personal tax rates. If the internet existed back then, posters on a site like this would have had a heyday with the situation. Yet Canada found a way to get back to a stable situation and actually entered the most recent US created crisis in 2008 in far better shape then pretty much anybody in the world. My point is there is an example of how the macro economic environment for a country can look terrible yet behind the scenes they found a way to get through it and it was relatively painless ( tax payers like me paid a price, just like Americans have to pay a higher price now ). It is foolish for posters to look at things through superficial sources like the press and doubt every number they see and expect an unprecedented collapse. Yet this is exactly what people are doing and you and others jump on anyone who dares to suggest otherwise. As I said before, if the US is indeed incapable this time to manage their own finances, well, so be it. That would fly in the face of 80+ years of recent US history. There remains incredible wealth among American citizens, at some point that wealth has to be shared better or the ideal of living in the US is pointless anyways. Canada has a lot less wealth but Canadians tend to share more easily and take care of it's people better. We nip crisis in the bud faster then Americans because we try to fix the problem rather then argue over the ideology of who should pay or whose fault it is.
Nine_Ender, Canada never got its house in order in the 80's, debt was run up significantly into the late 90's. What really happened was a multi-decade commodity cycle, nothing more. During the commodity cycle many commodity exporters lowered their debt such as Australia, Norway, Brazil, Chile - all of these countries also had property bubbles just like Canada; quite the coincidence huh? Thinking your special, or that it was great government management that brought this wealth is serious denial; as the commodity cycle winds down your government has already found itself in deficit, now that didn't take long did it?
I agree. America and NATO have a penchant of backing and protecting attack dogs they are later 'forced' to put down (Saddam/Osama/Gahdaffi). America is literally protecting ISIS right now. Our business is war. China was built with American jobs. List goes on and on. I really enjoyed your journal, btw. Thanks for that.
A pandemic virus is just a matter of time, every single virologist says we are way overdue. The 1918 Spanish Flu killed around 40 million, with today's population levels that would be equal to 160 million dead. Can you imagine a major pandemic in today's America? The place would be like New Orleans post Katrina.
What has a major virus got to do with our financial situation? Either you are implying the economic crisis is going to lead to a virus outbreak..how? Or you are implying that will clean out the system.. how will that solve things? World wealth/GDP/production has been increasing in lockstep with population growth? Killing 10% the world will lead to huge excess capacity/decreased demand surely?
It's the broken window fallacy. WW2 leveled much of Europe and Asia which needed to be rebuilt. This creates big demand for exports and material, but does nothing to improve living standards. Just gets us back to where we started.....