Funny, but you only help proving my point. Take away the trading ability for vital life sustaining goods from one nation that it cannot produce b and they will panic as the "intellectual" services become worth sh*t. Traditional war has been the answer for centuries, but now it's mostly financial war. That the real world at the moment. Country A still holds self substinence, while Country B is helpless & starving, with all its "suits" finding their skill sets worthless. So Country B can either find a new trading partner they can exploit or use force. Of course they can always try to build a vital good economy from scratch but who the hell wants to do any real production now, we just reach into the other guy's pocket. Someone as smart as yourself should be able to look up how financial war is waged on third world nations which while unsophisticated in the eyes of the first world, possess a base of self substinent natural resources and vital consumer goods. You should also understand the concept of self-substinence. That kinda involves the idea of REAL WORK, which I can easily tell you have never done a day of in your life.
Moronic. First off average household income is almost 50% higher than your stated figure (perhaps you meant to quote the mean). Also average net worth per household is almost 400k (about 5x greater than the mean). You do the math.
try re-reading my post perhaps... real world: where need be, country B uses force, covert or not, be it financial (bribes, currency attack etc...), economical (embargoes etc), political or physical problem solved wake up on a count of 3... 1...... 2...... 3...... {snap} u ok?
I have always believed that the amount of money in an economy is a representation of the stored energy of the workforce. As more countries around the world liberate their populations from opression, like China Russia Poland East Germany etc, the worlds' energy store [potential energy] of educated hard working people goes up. That stored energy with freely moving people between economies is uncontainable, and that [stored] energy has been converted into kinetic energy the last twenty years. This is a kind of "economic nuclear detonation" that has occurred probably just thrice in world history: once when humans domesticated animals, once a little over 150 years ago during the industrial revolution, and "today". What happens then is a surge of economic growth that must be met by central bankers flushing markets with liquidity in order to drive both the demand that these people create, and the work-energy they have just released and continue to release. We are now in the fallout of the nuclear economic detonation imo. The central bankers are responding by removing some of the liquidity from markets. It is interesting to note that the early 1900s were the industrial revolutions "fallout", culminating in WWI, the 1930s depression, and WWII. But they didn't have central bankers and FEDs. This is all looking backwards. This "analysis" is the macro-macro view. How what happens next trickles down to the micro is what will make the new rich that get it right. FWIW, imo no one on this thread has even come close to seeing the coming non-linear complexities in store for world economies, including Kotlikoff. nitro
Excellent Commentary All ....................................................................................... The real question here is what constitutes wealth...and what is its value... Take FORD for example.....Unless its assets are fruitfully employed...what is it worth? What would it cost to replace its plants ? Then again if the assets are not employed...what is the value ? ................................................................................. Take apartments for example... The appraised value of one of the 100 apartments in a complex is solely dependent on the last sales price.... If the last sales price was 40% below the last sale...then the total wealth drops for the whole complex...100X .................................................................................. Take stocks for example.... What is the expected PE for the Oil Co, group when oil is $100....and when oil is $20..... What if most holders thought the PE was 10X....15X....40X ? ................................................................................... Value is something that banks discount and contract.... .................................................................................... Value is indeed is a very sensitive and tricky number.....
ahhh, value... there's a word for it in mexico i hear http://books.google.com/books?id=RL...+beholder+mexico&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1
I won't pretend to know if US will go bankrupt for sure, but I did go already through process of being citizen of country that went bankrupt and I can tell you gents, the only way to prepare is to own property, lots of property and land. gold too, but only if you can safely keep it. but bottom line is, extra money you have convert to property. and don't laugh about it, countries really do go bankrupt
FutTrd wrote: I won't pretend to know if US will go bankrupt for sure, but I did go already through process of being citizen of country that went bankrupt and I can tell you gents, the only way to prepare is to own property, lots of property and land. gold too, but only if you can safely keep it. but bottom line is, extra money you have convert to property. and don't laugh about it, countries really do go bankrupt ................................................................................................... Good points... At some price hard assets work out... When there is no debt on your real property ...and the countrys government does not lay claim to it....such as farmland in Venezuela and Bolivia....You can have the confidence that at some price ...you have something of value... Ford could compete with Toyota if it had the right president with the right intelligence....F is a lot like New Orleans...The children are living off their older family history while the remaining assets deteriorate.... The US has a lot of hard assets...and yeah ..at some price it works... Hard or easy economics is all about prices and legal agreements.... But the building will still be there tomorrow no matter what the price is...what its name is....