Originally posted by huckfinn


How can governments or central banks stop it from happening? Are they in the business of making specific dreams come true?

I think you are being too simplistic here. Firstly, govts can and do influence the flow of funds into particular assets classes through legislation and regulatory requirements. This has the effect of inflating certain classes to the detriment of others and hence creating bubbles that will correct in the future as investors realise that the prices arent being dirven by fundamentals.

Additionally fiscal and monetary policy also directly affects the underlying businesses and economies that those businesses are trading in. If a central bank is cutting its interest rates to stimulate economic growth and spending it directly affects the underlying businesses within the economy. It also has the effect of bringing forward earnings/spending that may have resulted in the future to a current period. That changes the investor's view of what the future is likely to provide (ie raises earnings expectations into the future, as recent data is always used as a guide and they dont relaise that the accelerated growth is almost always bringing forward furture income, and so reducing the income to come as the cycle busts).

I think thats enough of a demonstration of the ffects that can happen.

When this guy Schiff speaks he does so based on his vision of what the future looks like. His future involves a desolate US economy for some reason and he wants whoever hears his voice to position themselves to take advantage of his vision.

I agree with you here, this is Schiff's vision of the future. Unfortunately none of us can predict what will happen and so its just one possibility. Also, just because he was right about what is happening now doesnt mean he is right about what will happen tomorrow. Too much skill is attributed to those who get it right once when most others are wrong, while forgetting that they were wrong while others were correct. Far more randomness than is given credit for (and the views i put forward about the future are subject to the same thing; i only say what i think and could easily be very wrong. In fact i am almost certain to be wrong about a lot of things).

I am not buying gold at $850/ounce.

Neither am i, smells like another bubble brewing to me. Similar to oil a year ago. An old saying goes "when you see the stupid money coming in, get out".

I'm no expert, but it seems to me with the writing on the wall - the only wise thing to do is put your money into survival supplies, and gold/silver!

What good will your fortune be when it tanks and you didn't use it to buy necessities?

Originally posted by RetinoidReceptor
As things go on and on and Peter Schiff explains his positions more and more and I think his position is a fallacy somewhat. We will be getting massive inflation and the economy will continue to get worse but it will not be armageddon. The rest of the world is doing the SAME exact things. My economics teacher once was talking about treasuries and she said that they are safe as long as the U.S. government and economy is safe, if it isn;t, well, we are all screwed wherever you are anyway.

Honestly, how can he think foreign stocks of all things would be safe if the U.S. collapsed. It is crazy.

The hardest thing for Americans to realise is that they are not the end all and be all of the planet - you have only been a super power for 30 years, you ascended to this position as a result of taking advantage financially from the second world war by assisting europe militarily and financially through loans on very unfavourable terms.

beyond that you have spent the vast majority of your history being everyone biatch - seriously - nothing much. Since the collapse of the soviet union in has taken little more than ten years for America to fall into ruin and you will return to your STANDARD global position - right now your country is less than the EU, it is significantly less than the any asian union with your GDP not being much more than that of Japan.

Your overstimation of your ownself worth is a very typical american trait, one that has been deserved for an exceptionally dhort period of time and has already finished, amserica is perhaps the shortest living world power EVER.

The world will not collapse without america, all considered and respected thinkers on the issue would see it as a period of great flourishing of the planet since your success has implicitly relied on the subordination and oppression of all others, your initital success comes directly from the misry of others - so trust me when I say to you it would be the best thing that could happen to the world if america went balls up - not just logically and empricially but emotionaly - yes we ALL want you gone, from australia, europe, asia, africa and especially south america.

You are unaware of this as you are blinded by your ignorance, arrogance and overestimation of your own self worth.

I'd like to point out something about America, we have been the wealthiest nation on Earth for over 700 years. Before this was the United States, and before the 7 years war, this was France and Portugal. Louis, the King of the West was and is the richest man in the world, owning and controlling most of the Western Hemisphere of this planet. For most of the 700 years with the exception of far eastern Asia, the world knew nothing of this place. Because you weren't allowed to know, fool.

The past seven years and the current state of things was nothing more than an attempted robbery and attempted murder that went bad. And those poor saps that invested everything into that adventure and lost are having a difficult time coming to terms with the new reality.


Huckleberry Finn took all their money and left them with nothing.

Most people and I think Peter Schiff included, don't understand what is happening.

This is not something that is just a consequence of over-borrowing and spending, yes that is what has caused this current downturn, but this is an engineered plan, within an engineered plan...for the one world government to take control over the affairs of the world.

In other words, if they have control of critical infrastructure (banks,insurance,transportation, etc) through partial or full ownership through all the buyouts-bailouts, they can pretty much get you to jump through a hoop, or jump off a cliff if they so choose. Join the one world government or else!

That is the plan, it is happening now, and yes many do know about it. But you wont find the real "enlightened ones" standing on a soap box yelling all this conspiracy stuff through a megaphone.

We will discuss it here on ATS for sure, but many wont be demonstrating against it, as we were fore-warned, and it was inevitable.

We knew it was coming... it has been planned for thousands of years, we are fine with the outcome however painful it may be.

Originally posted by audas

The world will not collapse without america, all considered and respected thinkers on the issue would see it as a period of great flourishing of the planet since your success has implicitly relied on the subordination and oppression of all others, your initital success comes directly from the misry of others - so trust me when I say to you it would be the best thing that could happen to the world if america went balls up - not just logically and empricially but emotionaly - yes we ALL want you gone, from australia, europe, asia, africa and especially south america.

I am curious, since you seem to have such a handle on history, could you name me a European nation, (or any nation) that has had success that was not based on the subordination and oppression of others?

Originally posted by audas
You are unaware of this as you are blinded by your ignorance, arrogance and overestimation of your own self worth.

That is partially correct. You are right that there are Americans who are unaware of how our nation rose to a position (no matter how short lived) of power. However, your implication that America is somehow different in this is nothing short of hypocrisy.

I would lay out the facts for you, but my experience has told me that I only waste my own time doing so. If you want to believe the utter crap you are told by your media about your own nobility, then you will. I just find it rather "ignorant, arrogant and an overestimation of your own self worth" to sit in the holier than thou seat when all we are doing is the same thing every nations leaders everywhere have done when presented the opportunity. Especially as your use of language indicates some connection to Britain, and they are the last people on the planet that have any right at all to talk about building on oppression and misery as if they were exempt.

Do I personally think it is right? No, I dont, I think we should figure out a way to live, (all of us) that is NOT based on the benefiting from the misery of others. But dont act as though your nation is any different. All Americans arent stupid enough to take you at your word, some of us actually know some historical facts about other countries.



[edit on 10-1-2009 by Illusionsaregrander]