Global economic meltdown..
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Topic: Global economic meltdown..
Posted By: Blacksword
Subject: Global economic meltdown..
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 05:36
| With governments bailing out banks, share prices falling through the floor, property markets collapsing, unemployment rocketting, are we witnessing just another global economic storm, from which we'll recover in the usual cyclical way? Or, are we witnessing the total collapse of a political/economic system, whereby our greed has come back to bite us on the ass, in an irreprable way? |
Replies:
Posted By: Syzygy
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 05:46
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I don't think we're witnessing the death of capitalism per se, but I think that unregulated free market capitalism is going to die a slightly overdue death in the near future. Free market fundamentalism will be as obsolete as Soviet socialism and the world will be a slighlty saner place. We could see a return to the Keyneseian 'third way', with utilities and essential services in public ownership but with industry remaining in the hands of private enterprise.
Maybe I'm over optimistic, but I think it will be a while before the idiotic mantras 'markets work' and 'you can't interfere with the market' will be uttered as though they are inarguable facts again.
------------- 'Like so many of you I've got my doubts about how much to contribute to the already rich among us...' Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom |
Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 06:22
| Chris, the scenario you describe is prety much how it should be in my opinion. I imagine this view is shared by many. It's just a shame we have to drag the whole world into what could be the worst recession in a century just so that we could return to where we were before; arguably a inevitable outcome to the crisis. |
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 06:27
| What's the problem, really? If the government needs more money, they can always print some. It people need more money, they can ask for the government to print them some (or, if they have a decent printer, print some themselves). |
Posted By: Jared
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 06:48
|
Weren't 'Global Economic Meltdown' a Punk band from Bracknell in the late '70s??....
That is what I am sincerely hoping for...what we used to term 'Social Reformism'.
As we have discussed in here before though, how is this to be done? During the Thatcher years, we started to live the good life, benefitting from artificially low taxation, while the government was awash with cash receipts, firstly from the sale of its housing stock, then its private utiliites (if you see Sid, tell him...
) and then from selling off or asset stripping its heavy industry base (British Steel/ Coal etc).This continued apace through the Major and Blair years, where institutions were sold off, which even Thatcher herself wouldn't have touched, such as prisons, psychiatric services, transport, healthcare etc. Not only aren't we in a position to buy any of it back, but Brown has racked up a phenominal amount of debt on the 'tick' through funding new PFI hospitals, schools and council buildings, which won't be paid off for another 30 plus years....
Why has no-one really said anything about this?? Because the UK public has been living on a 25 year illusion of affluence (started by Thatcher making credit accessible to all, in order to fuel and enable owner-occupiers), where an increasingly high percentage of our eceonomy has been serviced entirely by rising personal debt and irresponsible lending....
Now for the first time in over 20 years are we hearing the government talk about investing in our manufacturing base...
 well, I wonder whether its actually too late for this...as the far east and India are now also capable of making much of the specialised, high yield equipment market, which Europe has previously monopolised...I'm sorry Andy, this hasn't answered your question, and has turned into a bit of a rant, for which I apologise...
 ...but everyone could see the edge of the cliff on the horizon, but those with the power had too many vested interests... so, we're buggered....  ------------- Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson |
Syzygy wrote:Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 06:48
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I don't believe in a recession at all. some banks collapsed, yes. so what? banks only deal with money, which has no value in itself. the factories are all still there. the manpower also is all still there. so this is nothing that can't be overcome. it would be different if there had been some big natural catastrophe. but the crash of a bank only is a pseudo-catastrophe. mark that I am not saying it won't affect us at all. but please put it into perspective -------------  A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: Jared
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 06:52
do the following terms: currency devaluation - hyperinflation - Weimar Republic - Zimbabwe - Wheelbarrow full of banknotes for a loaf of bread...mean anything?? ------------- Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 07:51
Speaking as employee of a bank with 50,000 odd employees around the world, the crash of a bank is a bit more than a pseudo-catastrophe.
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Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 07:58
Ahh, so it was you who voted 'buggered' I must admit I was thinking along the same lines, although as with any poll if you'd asked me on Sunday I may have gone for 'shafted' 
Seriously, Jared do you really think a punk band in Bracknell in the late 70's, would have been educated enough to have called themselves 'Global Economic Meltdown' ?? Sounds more like a prog fusion outfit from Sunningdale!  I believe Bracknells premier punk band at the turn of the decade was The Screws..so that gives you some idea..
Anyway, with regard to your very insightful rant, I have to say I agree with much of what you say. There has long been a fear that the illusion of wealth can not be sustained. The situation is very serious in my opinion, and while I'm sure it wont be the end of the world, or capitilism for that matter, the global economic landscape will be very different when we come out of the other end of this. I have long been saying that gradually, over the course of the 21st century we will swop economies with the Far East, because of the low labour costs, and the ever increasing amount of highly qualified people being turned oput of their universities. Throwing money at our current problems over here, is not going to change the fact that any compnay with an expensive manufacturing and R'n'D base will be able to operate at a fraction of their current costs if they move to India, for example. Western economies can not be sustained by financial services and coffee shop franchises alone. |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 08:08
|
Andy
Having seen our share price plummet yesterday, I think you forgot the "completely f*cked" option.
|
Posted By: Jared
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 08:09
on a lighter note...do you remember the sit com 'Shelley'?
he and his mate were down the pub (in about 1980) talking about whether the average man in the street was affected by the thought of the possibility of the pressing of the button and the end of the world...
so he stops a punk and says 'Excuse me, do you ever think about 'Global Nuclear Destruction'?
and the punk replies...yeah...great band...  ------------- Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson |
Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 08:25
I often feel that the true extent of any major crisis is somewhat played down by government. In the case of this current crisis, we see Gordon Broooon, and his idiot friends calling, what appears to be emergency meetings, to discuss 'ongoing banking issues' It seems the Minister of Euphemisms has been working late into the night.....again.. Has anything been said to RBS employees regarding their job security?? Your office must be a rumour mill at present.
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Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 08:27
 I do remember Shelly. I think the actor who played him has since turned up as a villain in a multitude of soaps including The Bill and Eastenders.
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Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 08:31
Nothing specific Andy. The rumour this morning was that our CEO Sir Fred Goodwin had gone.
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Posted By: Jared
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 09:05
I would like, for a moment to put a positive spin on all this....
the impending crisis within our respective economies will only be worse if people, fearing redundancy, hold on tightly to their savings...thereby unwittingly creating a downward spiral of self fulfilling prophecy...
 I would therefore strongly advocate that everyone on this site helps the wheels of commerce turn once more, through a hearty injection of liquid capital...
 ergo, everyone please SPEND MORE ON PROG CDS than you usually do...the world economy needs you...  ------------- Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 09:15
|
You said "liquid capital" so I'm going to buy more beer and whisky.
and prog CDs.
|
Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 09:25
it is a personal catastrophe for you, and I feel really sad for you and certainly don't want to make light of it. however, something like that was to be expected, and we (Friede and I) have been waiting for it for years. we knew this bubble would burst sooner or later. it is actually amazing it did not burst earlier. nevertheless, one should not confuse this with a real catastrophe. the real values still exist. but when dealing with symbols of symbols of symbols of symbols, as it happens in the stock market, people lose touch of reality. a share is a piece of paper, nothing more. this would not have happened had the responsible people kept that in mind. but it is a fact that human beings can't deal with too many layers of abstraction, as is the case when dealing with the stock market (there are at least 5 layers of abstraction involved when dealing with it). I sincerely hope you will get out of your personal trouble very soon and keep my fingers crossed for you ------------- A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 10:36
| Thanks. It's not a catastrophe yet, with the action plan of this morning in place we'll hopefully be okay. |
Posted By: Visitor13
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 10:44
|
I'm not going to pretend I know the first thing about economics, but money is also 'a piece of paper' with only a symbolic value... but the last time money effectively didn't exist was in the early middle ages. A fantastic time - to read about... a lot has changed since then, and probably largely due to existence of money. Oh, and Baldjean - yes, the real values still exist. In China. |
Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:03
Well, I sympathise with the philosophy of what you're saying, but the fact is money is the only viable currency that holds our culture together. People will not provide services for nothing - aprt from charities of course, and most charities only achieve a fraction of what they would like because they dont have enough money! Western culture is based around the acquisition of wealth, and not much else. While this ideal is cleary flawed, replacing this ideal with a new and non materialistic philosophy for all, is simply not going to happen. Only ahuge global environmental tragedy or a nuclear war will see food, water, medicine and expertise for free, replace money as currency, and I hardly think the aftermath of that is the hippy utopia we are dreaming of. That said, yes, it's only a recession, but I think the concerns this time round are based on the idea that we may have created conditions that may be irreversable. |
Posted By: Visitor13
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:11
|
^ I'm confident people in the '30s believed the same thing, and it turned out the depression was reversible after all. Never mind that it effectively took a world war to reverse it... |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:12
Well, there's a cheery thought. 
|
Posted By: Visitor13
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:17
Nah, the cheery thought is that gas prices seem to be back to sane levels - at least in the US. |
Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:24
I don't know what "sane levels" are, and the prices have dropped, but are still far above where they were last year - right now about $3.60/gallon* average across the nation (there are significant variations locally). *UK residents can proceed with their obligatory sneer about how low that price really is |
Posted By: Visitor13
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:31
| Ugh! OK, the cheery thought is that Andy Latimer's health has radically improved. |
Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:50
I don't plan to replace it at all. money is a necessary evil. but how long do you think it will take until the assets of those firms that went bankrupt will be taken over by others? and these overtaking firms will need employees again. so while of course many people will be in a tight spot right now, in the long run they won't. that's what I mean with "the real values still exist". a natural catastrophe would have destroyed many of the resources that are now still available. and a human life can't be replaced at all. that's what real catastrophes are about ------------- A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:53
"Sneeeerrr" 
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 11:54
Not only UK, but us Germans too. That price means roughly $0.95 per liter, and we currently pay €1,37 ... wait, actually it's "they", because I currently don't have a car. Instead of paying for a car, driving it every day (commute) and then spend additional money on work outs / gym, I simply use a bicycle.  ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to: 
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Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 12:37
Yes, at least it's nice in most towns in Europe to be able to have options. I was staying in Wiesbaden about 14-15 years ago and we never had to drive anywhere - we could take buses anywhere we wanted to go. The only driving we did was a long drive to Munich, where I was treated to 200 km/h speeds on the autobahn. |
Posted By: GoldenSpiral
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 13:00
|
<cynic>
We're not so much witnessing the end of capitalism, so much as the beginning of an era of global corporatism, in which the government exists for the purpose of redistributing money from the masses straight to the top of the economic ladder. A sort of reverse-socialism.
We're like the poor parents of a spoiled child who keeps breaking his expensive toys, but we keep buying him new ones everyday.
</cynic>
Well, maybe we'll learn our lesson and it won't be so bad afterall... ------------- http://www.myspace.com/altaic" rel="nofollow - http://www.myspace.com/altaic ALTAIC "Oceans Down You'll Lie" coming soon |
Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 14:18
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I went with other as I couldnt choose screwed, shafted, buggered, knackerd and scuppered all at once.
------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005 
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Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 14:28
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Me = almost 20, college, philosophy major, modern life disdainer In a way, I want a global economic meltdown, though it would be nice to know exactly what that would entail. I have no idea what the future holds for me, I'm not content with my path in life as I see it now, I hate how people today have no real values except for the odd person here or there, I hate how boring and routine life has become, I hate the drudgery of the day, and I think human beings are largely keeping themselves in cages because of modern life. Mixing this life up a bit would be good. I'd rather have a shorter life where I can live more freely and fully than have a longer, typical, and "soma"-ified life. And I haven't even read Brave New World. If, however, I was middle-aged, married, with kids, I'd probably have pissed my pants multiple times by now in worry. But I'm not, so nyah nyah ------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 14:29
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Also, "buttered?" If only.... ------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: Visitor13
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 15:14
| Oh, my choice was 'other' - it's simply too early to tell, something has definitely ended, but it's too early to tell just how big that something is. |
Posted By: aapatsos
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 17:42
Indeed |
Posted By: The Doctor
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 17:47
In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. In 100 trillion years, the universe will be nothing but a dead, cold, black place anyway. Now there's a cheery thought. 
------------- I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you? |
Posted By: tszirmay
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 18:41
|
What goes up ,must come down, communism was greedy and inherently stupidly managed , capitalism was greedy and , guess what ? they managed to screw that up also (there is no such thing as a "Free" economy) . Proof again that humans are irresitibly self-imploding whenever put into any kind of social format . (Ah, the days of Pot-head pixies from Planet Gong.......)
Again, JJ Rousseau comes to mind "The more I analyze the human race, the more I love my dog" .
Only humor will save the world from itself .
By the way, the most precise calendar ever (Mayan) ends on Dec 21 2012 , with no explanation at all, not ahint. We have any thoughts on that? ------------- I never post anything anywhere without doing more than basic research, often in depth. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 19:30
Yeah, Don't Panic and you'd better know where your towel is. Now where did I put that sub-etha radio? From Thismodernworld.com:
"Greg Saunders: http://thismodernworld.com/4500 - -->Simple
Answers
Stealing a trick from http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_10_05_archive.html#1361316350441704280 - Atrios
and replying to him at the same time : Why do people talk about “the market” as if it’s an hysterical irrational child, forever in need of “calming”? Because http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investor_psychology - it is . http://thismodernworld.com/category/uncategorized/ - Uncategorized | --> posted by http://www.thetalentshow.org/ - Greg Saunders at 2:26 PM http://thismodernworld.com/4500 - | link" ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: tszirmay
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 20:46
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Panic? With all those prog records in need of a final listen? Couple of bottles of Pomerol (febus' fave) and some prime female company, a case of Red Bull, a dozen Cialis/Viagra pills and let the funeral begin! ------------- I never post anything anywhere without doing more than basic research, often in depth. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: October 08 2008 at 21:08
Cheers, mate....
Anywhoo - Crisis? What crisis? If it's global then at least we're all in it together - and that's encouraging in someway, but I just haven't figured out how just yet...
And maybe, just maybe, after all this, those clowns in the City who amass fortunes by trading bits of symbolic paper to other clowns who are also out to amass huge fortunes like it's some kind of global game of Monopoly, (the kind of people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing), will finally learn the lesson that at the arse end of those 5 levels of abstraction Jean mentioned earlier are real people who are simply trying to earn enough pieces of symbolic paper to just get by in life. But I fear that will not happen and once the economomonony bounces back (or whatever it's supposed to do in these situations) they'll be back to their old ways.
And the real kicker is that the Fat Cats who pay themselves obscene salaries and bonuses will award themselves even bigger bonuses once the economy has recovered as a reward for the hardships they had to endure during the recession...
------------- What? |
I know, it sounds unbelievable right, but I checked inside the fuel-filler and it's a liquid... yep, a gas that's a liquid at room temperature... damn clever if you ask me and you wanna know something else... it smelt just like petroleum. I kid you not - goddam bloody petroleum. You should keep quiet about that, because if Bush and his oil baron buddies realise they are selling you petroleum and gas prices then they're gonna wanna put the price up by a factor of 4 at least.Posted By: Syzygy
Date Posted: October 09 2008 at 05:08
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And now it looks like the bail out won't be enough: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20081009/tuk-city-fears-bail-out-figure-falls-sho-dba1618.html - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20081009/tuk-city-fears-bail-out-figure-falls-sho-dba1618.html What we need is a Bankers in Need telethon presented by Ant and Dec - 'Just £250,000 will save this banker's Dordogne holiday home'.------------- 'Like so many of you I've got my doubts about how much to contribute to the already rich among us...' Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom |
Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: October 09 2008 at 06:02
that was to be expected. Brecht was absolutely right when he wrote your signature quote (though a better translation would be "breaking into a bank" instead of "robbing", the difference being that one is done at night, the other implies daylight robbery with people present) ------------- A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |