I believe we need a great depression

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by missf, Nov 25, 2008.

  1. missf

    missf Junior Member

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    After watching the cutting edges topic called heat about global warming I am adament we need a fuel shortage and a great depression because mankind is such a greedy arrogant bastard the only way to save the planet is by force, hence no money to spend and no fuel to burn.
    This will bring people back to basics and people will oncew again have to work as a team to survive and maybe it will give us an opportunity to look at rebuilding a better way.
    What say you?
     
  2. permasculptor

    permasculptor Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    I think you are correct missf. I have been quietly enjoying all the financial turmoil as Ive been watching capitalisim destroy the enviroment and with it quality of life for a long long time and been seemingly unable to do anything about it .now it is destroying its self.Sure life is going to become harder but it will clean the bugs out of the system , make us take personal responsability and reset our values.The down side is that those who are unable to care for them self will suffer,but then again they are yoused to suffering so maby they dont have anything left to loose.
     
  3. JoanVL

    JoanVL Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    Things are changing already, with the fuel crisis. I live in a suburb with an suburban railway station that is central to a lot of other suburbs. 5 years ago we used to have a small car park there, and a little bit of street parking. We now have 5 times the parking space, and far more street parking, but they are having to extend again. So many more people are commuting to work by train. We actually chose to live here because we could walk to the station - we always use the train for going into Brisbane, and have a small 3 cyclinder car for other use, whereas we used to have a 6 cylinder ancient Ford. We have managed without a car altogether in the past, but my husband has very bad knees these days, so walking and cycling are out for him, much to his sadness and dismay.

    This very tiny suburb also has a nice greengrocer, where the prices and quality are far better than the big concerns like Coles and Woolworths. For instance, I was able to grow a lovely choko vine from a choko bought there, but the Coles one didn't germinate. Many people here are car-less, using feet and trains. (the local buses are a disgrace, but that's another tale)

    A depression would be dreadful for many - we lost our home in the last recession 15 years ago: my husband lost his job, couldn't get another, and my clerical wage could not support two adults and two teenagers. So now we are in a government house. That recession really hurt us, so I wouldn't wish anything worse such as a real depression on other people.
     
  4. trishandpete

    trishandpete Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    I agree, those that would suffer most from a world 'great depression' are those already doing it tough. And especially those in the third world and developing nations, what is hard now would become unlivable. There is already a problem with our own poor and homeless, with aid organisations in Melbourne having already spent their financial year budget. Let's find another, kinder and more inclusive way to tone down our effects on the planet? I'm optimistic, if impatient!
     
  5. TheCrone

    TheCrone Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    I get so down when I see the greed and waste in the suburbs in Perth. I was picking up my child from school and it is the council pick up junk run this month. Nine BBQ's were on the verge in one street.

    I too want a huge shake up of society but you guys are right, it will be the people who can least afford it who will be hurt the most.

    My current bug bear is hearing people say that Peak Oil is a myth because the price of petrol is coming down.
     
  6. paradisi

    paradisi Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    I believe we are in a great depression.

    The sums certainly seem to point that way.

    And without a depression petrol would be $2-$3 a litre by Christmas. So your choice was - cheap petrol and a depression or expensive petrol and all is normal.

    congrats

    we have cheap petrol and a depression
     
  7. Ojo

    Ojo Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    Certainly no one literally believes middle-class people will live forever. But it is impossible to ignore the way most people behave as if money were equivalent to life itself.

    Bearing in mind the idea that capitalism is one way people try to cheat death, it is easy to understand why the 1990s are a time of widespread apocalyptic thinking. When the economy is unstable, suddenly it appears as if we are all going to die; that is , it seems as if were all going to join the underclass. In a nutshell, this is the problem with capitalism as an economic system. Economists on the left and right are well aware that capitalism is a system ruled by 'the economic crisis,' which can take the form of rocketing inflation, recession, widespread unemployment, overproduction, or any combination of these disturbances and others. To remain operative, capitalism must have periodic, recurring crises. Capitalism, in other words, is apocalypse economics.
    excerpted
    https://bad.eserver.org/issues/1994/15/newitz.html

    So what do we do? If we are to stop the financial drain on our families and communities we must change how we manage our own finances. Perhaps the way to begin is as permaculture teaches us – to listen and build out from natural systems which are, ultimately, the source of most of our wealth.
    excerpt
    https://solari.com/blog/?p=1443
     
  8. JoanVL

    JoanVL Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    All my life I have disliked rampant capitalism, and money has meant little to me, except as a necessity to function in society. I agree that money is an end in itself to many, and some might well have to question their values. Some, like George Bush, will never learn, of course.

    I'm pretty sure today's combination of world-wide circumstances will change many minds and change politics. I hope for wide-ranging change in attitudes and behaviour to a greener, gentler world. it is just a hope, not an expectation, but so many impossible things have happened in the past - the demise of the Berlin Wall, the fall of communism, the removal of SA apartheid, Mandela's release and leadership, and the recent election of Obama.
     
  9. missf

    missf Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    I was watching the american news yesterday the 26th november. one of the american politicians was saying that Obama was discussing to end all wars and change americas identity from being a bully nation , aparently putin had asked bush to make peace with them but bush had declined... so Obama will be doing so.Also one of Obama s chosen economic leaders is a specialist in knowledge of the great depression
    Anyway , I still think a depression would be good, I too am at risk of loosing property but if it means saving the planet it would be a small price to pay.
     
  10. JoanVL

    JoanVL Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    Here is a good article about Obama by Matt Frei:-

    https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/w ... 749748.stm

    ......Such is Mr Obama's steely-eyed determination and unsmiling sense of purpose that you actually believe him.
    As Mr Obama said, talking about his erstwhile colleagues on Capitol Hill: "Friendship doesn't come into this. That's part of the old way of doing things."
    You could hear someone, somewhere, gulping.
    I also heard him say something that I have not heard for a very long time. As he introduced the latest members of his cabinet, Mr Obama said that they were individuals who had shown "great intellect" as well as courage and commitment.
    Intellect?
    Sarah Palin and John McCain built their campaign on the tradition nurtured under George W Bush of ridiculing intellect and articulacy as subversive values that rub up against the wholesome grain of middle America.
    Mental agility was deemed less important than honesty, sacrifice and leadership. Perhaps.
    But why not demand all four of your president and those who serve him? It turned out that a country in peril yearned for leaders with brains.
    Because, and here is the funny thing, stupidity and incompetence tend to go hand in hand. So, darngonnit, why not forgive some high falootin' Harvard guy his best-selling memoirs and correct use of English, if he can get us out this mess?
    Sounds like a bargain to me.

    Perhaps there is hope for the world after all.
     
  11. Ojo

    Ojo Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    Reality had to raise its ugly head. Barack Obama was elected with overwhelming approval to inaugurate an era of change. And at his November 25 press conference, he said that his decisive victory gave him a mandate to change the direction in which America is moving. But his recent economic and foreign policy appointments make it clear that when he chose “change” as his campaign slogan, he was NOT referring to the financial, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sectors, nor to foreign policy. These are where the vested interests concentrate their wealth and power. And change already has been accelerating here. Unfortunately, its direction has been for the top 1% of America’s population to raise their share of in the returns to wealth from 37% ten years ago to 57% five years ago and an estimated nearly 70% today.

    The change that Mr. Obama is talking about is largely marginal to this wealth, not touching its economic substance – or its direction. No doubt he will bring about a welcome change in race relations, environmental regulations, and a more civil rule of law. And he probably will give wage earners an income-tax break (thereby enabling them to keep on paying their bank debts, incidentally). As for the rich, they prefer not to earn income in the first place. Taxes need to be paid on income, so they take their returns in the form of capital gains. And simply avoiding losses is the order of the day in the present meltdown.

    Where losses cannot be avoided, the government will bail out the rich on their financial investments, but not wage earners on their debts. On that Friday night last October when Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain held their final debate, Mr. Obama was fully on board with the bailouts. And this week’s appointment of the “Yeltsin” team who sponsored Russia’s privatization giveaways in the mid-1990s – Larry Summers and his protégés from the Clinton’s notorious Robert Rubin regime – shows that he knows his place when it comes to the proper relationship between a political candidate and his major backers. It is to protect the vested interests first of all, while focusing voters’ attention on policies whose main appeal is their ability to distract attention from the fact that no real change is being made at the economic core and its power relationships.

    This is not what most people hoped for. But their hopes were so strong that it was easier to indulge in happy dreams and put one’s faith in a prince than to look at the systemic problems that need to be restructured in order for real change to occur. Individuals do not determine who owes what to whom, who is employed by whom or what laws govern their work and investment. Institutional economic and political structures are the key. And somehow the focus has been on the politics of personalities, not on the economic forces at work.
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=11170

    The Levy Economics Institute economists state, ‘It is probable that many and perhaps most financial institutions are insolvent today -- with a black hole of negative net worth that would swallow Paulson's entire $700 billion in one gulp.’

    That reality is the real reason Paulson was forced to abandon his original ‘crony bailout’ TARP plan and opt to use some of his money to buy equity shares in the nine largest banks.

    That scheme as well is ‘dead on arrival’ as the latest Citigroup nationalization scheme underscores. The dilemma Paulson has created with his inept handling of the crisis is simple: If the US Government paid the true value for these nearly worthless assets, the banks would have to write down huge losses, and, as Levy economists put it, ‘announce to the world that they are insolvent.’ On the other hand, if Paulson raised the toxic waste purchase price high enough to protect the banks from losses, $700 billion ‘will buy only a tiny fraction of the 'troubled' assets.’ That is what the latest nationalization of Citigroup is about.
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... &aid=11117

    The article is called “Cheney’s betting on bad news” and provides an account of where Cheney has socked away more than $25 million. While the figures may be estimates, the investments are not. According to Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach Post, Cheney has invested heavily in “a fund that specializes in short-term municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation protected securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with inflation. The third is protected against inflation.”

    Cheney has dumped another (estimated) $10 to $25 million in a European bond fund which tells us that he is counting on a steadily weakening dollar. So, while working class Americans are loosing ground to inflation and rising energy costs, Darth Cheney will be enhancing his wealth in “Old Europe”. As Blackburn sagely notes, “Not all ‘bad news’ is bad for everybody.”

    This should put to rest once and for all the foolish notion that the “Bush Economic Plan” is anything more than a scam aimed at looting the public till. The whole deal is intended to shift the nation's wealth from one class to another. It’s also clear that Bush-Cheney couldn’t have carried this off without the tacit approval of the thieves at the Federal Reserve who engineered the low-interest rate boondoggle to put the American people to sleep while they picked their pockets.
    https://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... e13851.htm

    The people who are going to pay for it are the American taxpayers. One of the major economic correspondents, Martin Wolf, who is a good economist, writes for the Financial Times and is a believer in markets, had a pretty strong column condemning it. He said, yes, it has to be done because of the disaster we're in, but it's outrageous. First the public is compelled to assume the risks of mortgage lending, then it's required to pay the costs when the whole system implodes. So probably there isn't any choice right now, given the nature of the disaster, but the whole system is an outrage. Why should the public have assumed the risks for financial managers, who are basically unregulated? Part of the dominant ideology of the last couple of decades is that you should dismantle government regulation. Fine. So you dismantle government regulation, you have catastrophe after catastrophe. Now the public is called in to pay the costs of that ideology.

    Remember, the first of them, I think it was Fannie Mae, was established in the New Deal and it was a public entity, I think, until 1968. It was part of the government. It was regulated within the government. Then the other one, Freddie Mac, was set up and it became essentially privatized, but with a government guarantee, which simply tells the managers and investors and so on that they can play whatever game we want. The government is going to come in and save us, meaning the taxpayer will. That's pretty much what happened. That's Milton Friedman-style economics. It's called free market economics, with the nanny state there to make sure that the public takes the risks and pays the costs.
    https://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/19337

    [​IMG]
     
  12. Ojo

    Ojo Junior Member

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  13. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    This is how a bail-out works!
    I cant attribute this 'cos it is blogged across the Net - sounds about right though.

    :munky2: :munky2:

    cheers,

    ho-hum
     
  14. springtide

    springtide Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    Look on the semi bright side - the bail outs are going to be a waste of time in the long run but they give us another 2 years of artificial happiness before things get interesting (TSHTF?)
    - petrol prices back up, high inflation, higher food costs, higher social unrest and electrical brown outs from plug in hybrids.
    Happy Days! :drinkers:
    Yeah i need the 2 years for family.... Don't get too pissed off with this society of looneys - the TV taught them all too well.
     
  15. maimai

    maimai Guest

    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    I agree with your idea.From now I think every one need to keep our air.Sky blue or dark it's most depend on us.Let's together keep this sky always blue and fresh air :D
     
  16. Essay

    Essay Guest

    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    Wow! A bunch of folks who "get it."

    I visit on conservative fora, and am enjoying a good laugh imagining how they would be responding to all this subversive talk.

    Right on! This Depression will make the value of permaculture so much more obvious....

    ~ 8)
     
  17. Michaelangelica

    Michaelangelica Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression


    Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.

    ~Orson Scott
     
  18. marsa

    marsa Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    Gor this great link from a friend. Comprehensive explanation about economics, revealing the reasons why the economy is going nuts everywhere.

    https://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcour ... ee-beliefs

    well worth the while it takes to see all of it.
     
  19. PRAWN

    PRAWN Junior Member

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    Re: I believe we need a great depression

    Us Permies are in a unique position. We are educated, we are motivated and we are really really lovely people. You must understand firstly, that the majority of the population hasn't seen such a crisis before...we have. We have seen ecological situations that on a relative scale match up to what the human race is experiencing today. Food shortages, over population, and lack of resources (etc). And what does nature do in response...it scales down, repairs and rebuilds.

    We have the knowledge to lead the revolution...we have the understanding to forecast (to a degree) the future using previous models. And we have the motivation to get things done. Sure, the worlds in a pretty sick state but what is broke can be fixed (or something like that). Of course its a lot of work to reverse these things. But everythings clearly has to go down before it can rise again. This includes global populations and food production, but when the state of the environment does begin to shift, it will with an exponential growth pattern. It has to be, because that is reflective of previous case studies.

    Become a Permaculture activist like me...talk about it, practise it, teach it, broadcast it, yell it in the middle of your tennis match, write it on the ground (in chalk) at your local arcade, construct a letter to the prime minister, donate money to the Tassie forests... I don't care how its done as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. Just focus on getting the word out there whatever way you can. I do. Its my life. Its what I do. Its who I am. Its what I love...
     
  20. aslanded

    aslanded Junior Member

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    Not so sure any more

    Well I've been doing all the right things, bought the land and got subversive by getting into subsistance agriculture, about to build a small house and hopefully manage to do all this without any debt. I've got to the point where I could live off the land, at least until winter, but I'm still a wage slave until the wheels fall off and theres no more wealth to be gained from the system, or its reduced to a point where its not worth my time.

    So all very well and good. Its what we are all aiming for right? My fear, and it seams I am a constant worry monger because this is something I clearly cant do anything about, is that we blew it in the west. We borrowed to our eyeballs and gave it all to the Chinese.

    Our little utopias are only utopias while we are encompassed in the protective strength of our nation, which is only safe while it is encompassed in the protective strength of the US and the UK. Since both these nations are about to really fall in it, and most of this debt will be to the Chinese, I'm thinking that there will be a real shift of power soon. Its been real nice to be the ones on the right side of the TV screen watching all the bad stuff happen to other people while we dictate the terms of the world. What makes me worry is the thought of all those great western milestones in our history we value so much being swept aside when the new king takes the throne. My prediction is that this new debt that the Ruddy Rudster has clocked up will be used as leverage against us. First we will loose our mining companies, then a large piece of antarctica, which will then be mined for oil.

    See a financial meltdown is only a good thing if we all go through it. For the people who have the wealth to ride it out it actually makes them way more powerful, and China is filthy rich. We made them that way, they are soooo clever and long sighted, and our democratic short sighted, inefficient beauracracy, moral high ground ways are about to be swept aside by a new more efficient, harder working, more ruthless nest of ants. The corporations know it. Thats why they are jumping ship and trying to get into these new markets.

    Susbsistance farming with a few crops for cash is the way the native inhabitants prefer to live, so the tax collecting elite have to change this situation. Its much better for them to have the land gathered up into the hands of the wealthy and have the people work for a taxed wage. This is what has been happening, aided by the mass migration to the urban centers. We know it damages the land and destroys local ecosystems. What we are doing is what most people in the world would prefer to do. Personally I cant wait to live the good life full time, I'm just concerned about the warlords.

    I know this skips around a lot. I'm at work and cant follow the ideas through properly, but theres some food for thought there. I dont have anything against the Chinese. I respect them enormously, but I also wouldn't like to live like them.

    Cheers
     

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