Three Sources Allude to Civil Strife in US

I have read after Marc Faber for a while now having always been intrigued with his ironic wit in his highly accurate economic forecasts.

In one of his latest newsletters...DoomBoomGloom...he has forecast a dire future for the United States of America.

Marc Faber on Armageddon

....

A vintage performance from the author of "The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report". This morning – living up to his reputation for bearishness - Marc Faber forecast a litany of unpleasant events ahead.

His key message is: buy real assets. He thinks it will take years for the global economy to recover, but when it does the effect of governments' printing money will ultimately reignite inflation.

"If you're in any field, you should own a farm because one day you will be grateful that you are able to grow your own agricultural produce."

Unless the system is cleaned out of losses, "the way communism collapsed, capitalism will collapse."

The Fed is destabilizing, it's creating "enormous volatility".

"I think we are living through a major transition in the world… the economic bloc of emerging countries will be more meaningful than before."

"I think that in Asia we have lots of sectors that are quite attractive. The banks, they don't have the toxic assets that we have in the rest of the world

Marc likes Asian currencies, and banks ex-Japan. He also thinks the real estate markets are improving. Both Russia and Turkey get a positive mention.

Isn't there anything in the US he likes?

With just the slightest hint of irony (check gun sales numbers!) – Marc points to gun and ammunition makers. Prison builders also face better prospects he says – after all where will they put all the politicians!

moneytalks.net...:lookout-capitalisms-dead-us-going-bankrupt-and-there-is-going-to-be-war&c atid=48:daily-updates&Itemid=88

Essay number two pointing to the decline of the United States of America

The Post-American Apocalypse
by J. R. Nyquist
Weekly Column Published: 05.15.2009

History is not a fairy tale. If some episode in history seems to end happily, don’t be deceived. Happiness in history is a precursor to unhappiness. Nations that achieve great victories – Rome over Carthage or Greece over Persia – experience an inward decline as they devolve into civil war. As it happens, the United States won a great victory in 1945 and achieved great prosperity. This happiness is the source of our present malaise, which must lead us to an unprecedented political crisis. Because America is a superpower an international crisis is also engendered. Sophisticated observers in Russia and China know what I’m referring to. The unraveling of a society, a nation or civilization is a periodic occurrence in history. It has happened before and will happen again. It has happened to others, and it will happen to us. As Oswald Spengler predicted, we are passing from capitalism to Caesarism. There is something natural in the logic of this passage. The reversion to the armed man as supreme arbiter is not preferable, but merely inevitable given that human nature becomes spoiled by too much success. We should be reminded that nations are born in blood and renewed in blood. We do not like this. We don’t want it. But everything we are doing plays to this tragic passage. This is not a nice thing to say, and not a pleasant thing to acknowledge, but it partakes of a more realistic sense of history than mildly embracing internationalism and vaguely suggesting a move in the direction of unilateral nuclear disarmament as Zakaria does when he suggests (on p. 241) that American “credibility” depends on such moves.

If we realize what we are against, we can mitigate the danger. If we go on dreaming of a bright future, we are going to be caught short.

www.financialsense.com...


The above essay is based on a number one selling book.

The Post-American World www.amazon.com...


Fareed-Zakaria/dp/039306235X



And finally we have...

May 18, 2009
Bad Collateral

Who knows what the point of this ludicrous exercise was? Observers in all corners of the media saw through it, and the public has only been made more cynical, and is now so furious over related stunts like AIG using taxpayer money to pay back swaps bets to Goldman Sachs that there is a whiff of revolution in the American air for the first time, really, since 1861. A lot of reasonable people see a good chance that our society will sink into disorder if these trends continue, and these fears could beat a path into radical politics, even the frightful prospect of coup d'etat -- not something that I advocate, by the way.
The president is playing with fire on all this. The old economy is not going to recover, and so far he has not used his rhetorical talents to articulate what the next economy is likely to be about. It is reasonable to wonder whether he even really has a clear sense of it -- and, based on the fatuous utterances of his economic mandarins like Larry Summers and Austan Goolsby, this team is really behind the curve.

www.kunstler.com...



It seems we have a lot of voices calling or forecasting a dire future for America.

I have read certain posts that seem to be pointing in that way but now some in the Economic World are all but sure that the US is heading for a downturn.

Next week or so Prime Minister Harper is going to China to secure better trade relationships and a lot of weight is being placed on that trip.

This little thing with Prime Minsiter Harper is another sign that many expect dire economic developments in the US as Canada is out shopping for another trading partner with the view that the US may be out of the game for a while.

From reading some of the posted investment advice it seems that the Asian markets may be a Bullish move.

The fear is the Caspian basin....at peace at the moment but if tensions rise between Russia and the US then all bets are off. I spoke to a gentlemen last week who was bumped by Air Canada who works in the oilfields in Khasakhstan

His comments were " they use old techniques and old gear.....the Chinese are buying up everything..."

China and Russia are buying up Euro's as I type this while slowly trying to dump the US dollar.

Car sales are up in China as GM finishes its new factories looking for a leg up in the emerging Asian markets.

So it looks as though the Robert Anton Wilson saying concerning the Westward move of Capital may prove true as Capital continues to move from Wall Street toward Hong Kong.





[edit on 19-5-2009 by whiteraven]

Nice thread! S&F

If we realize what we are [up] against, we can mitigate the danger. If we go on dreaming of a bright future, we are going to be caught short.

This is the most important line of them all....what I've been harping on to those friends and family that I hold dear...

reply to post by RolandBrichter



I for one want a good future as I have a personal interest in it. lol

Nevertheless I do not see a easy road ahead. Reading this article below puts our bailout into some perspective if looked at from a Capitalist point of view.

I am a Capitalist....but it seems that that is now a dirty word.

My how the times have changed. lol

05/15/09 Tampa Bay, Florida If you are one of the people who write to me and question my consistent advice to buy gold, silver and oil (“Dear Mogambo, You’re an idiot, which means that you are probably wrong about gold, silver and oil, too! (signed) A guy who can recognize idiots from a mile away”), and who must think that oil will remain low forever, think again: Bloomberg.com reports that “China’s passenger-vehicle sales rose 37% last month, the most in three years, as government subsidies spurred demand for minivans and small cars.”

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, as I was thinking, “Only a bunch of commie morons would pass out free money so that people could buy cars!”

Well, it turns out that the Chinese can’t hold a candle to us American idiots, as Congress has not only legislated a commie-think $8,000 tax credit (also known as “actual cash back at tax time!”) to “first-time home buyers” but also a tax credit as a rebate for a portion of the price of a new, more fuel-efficient car!

In this regard, Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Jim B. sent a collection of witticisms by Ronald Reagan, one of which goes “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” This is the subsidize part! Hahaha!

In China, the incentives were a success, as total vehicle sales in China, including buses and trucks, “rose 25% to 1.15 million.”

Well, I don’t really know about China, but if people in America are going to afford cars, they are going to need government assistance, too, as the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that “Personal income decreased $34.4 billion” in March.

dailyreckoning.com...

Originally posted by whiteraven
reply to post by RolandBrichter

 

I am a Capitalist....but it seems that that is now a dirty word.

My how the times have changed. lol

That's the sad part...what we're witnessing is not capitalism, at least not in any form that Adam Smith would recognize.....yup the road to hell sure is paved with good intentions...

We'll survive all this and rebuild from scratch!

Originally posted by RolandBrichter

Originally posted by whiteraven
reply to post by RolandBrichter

 

I am a Capitalist....but it seems that that is now a dirty word.

My how the times have changed. lol

That's the sad part...what we're witnessing is not capitalism, at least not in any form that Adam Smith would recognize.....yup the road to hell sure is paved with good intentions...

We'll survive all this and rebuild from scratch!

Adam Smith had a bottom line. The bottom line was

To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.
Adam Smith

Seems that some banker capitalists forgot this part of the equation.