Loved this post by Ticker Forum member Photoguy...
"I am a "doomer" I make no apology for it. I am a man of reason and a very far sighted clear, out of the box, unencumbered thinker. I have spent my half century on this earth seeking my moral, spiritual, financial and philosophical "singularity" and while I always remain open to further enlightenment, I believe that I am on very solid ground with my pronouncement that indeed, it is Photoguy bad.
I went into a local coin shop today to sell the remains of my fathers jewelry collection. [snip] Oh...on the way out I asked him about gold prices and if he did a lot of bullion business...he told me that his last sale was for $1,000,000 of bullion to a local lady.
I'm trying to convey to you something that I have known for some time now. There is no fix for what ails us. It is a terminal disease that is entering its final stage. I know this because I am not clouded by a myopic view of the world, finance, economics, social behavior, politics etc. Too many of you are fixated on the trees to the exclusion of the forest. You prattle about politics or the market or bonds or the Fed as if they were all mutually exclusive entities...they are not. They are trees of the forest. A bug ridden, over harvested, tinder dry forest of many trees. An entire ecosystem where the study of one tree to the exclusion of the entire ecology yields you nothing of real insight.
We live under a totally flawed model of existence. Our financial system is an exploitative one where profit is the singular motive and indeed a morally justified and outright revered one. We exploit the planet, we exploit the weaknesses of others via planned and perceived obsolescence, we prey upon peoples compulsions, egos, insecurities, we have whole university programs on how to become good marketers so that sales can remain on an ever compounding growth path. All to the exclusion of the greater good or the health of the forest. We wage resource wars, religious wars, ethnic wars, wars on poverty, wars on drugs. We game the system and manipulate the data and kick the can endlessly down the road. We don't rage against the Orwellian phrases bandied about like "credit is the lifeblood of the economy" or "austerity is prosperity" instead we seek individual ways to steal our bone from the carcass. We are degenerate as a society with the highest obesity rate on the planet, the most personal debt, the highest rate of suicide and depression anywhere. The number one selling drug in the world is a Lipitor a fat reducing medication. What does that tell you?
We live under a completely unsustainable model by nearly every single measure. We depend on exponential "growth" as measured by gdp. We live under a credit based system of money (how can you even think that can work?) The largest industry on the planet now produces nothing!! Financial services just moves all this credit and money from one place to another manipulating it all along the way. We are a consumption based economy. WTF? Fill your pantry with a week of food and never add to it by production and see where that gets you. We alter the climate of the planet and I don't care if there are natural cycles or not...we add gigatons to the situation every year with heavy metals raining from the sky over the Pacific Northwest all the way from that far east miracle economy, China.
Worse...we live under an ever growing number of delusions. Fundamentalist religion, "hope and change", the salvation of technology, the inherent resilience of mankind, QE2. There are going to be 9 billion people on this planet shortly and 8,999,999,000 rose colored glasses that think just because we dealt with crisis in the past that we will deal with now. We will not. The arc of the pendulum swings wider and wider. Every crisis demands ever more delusion, money printing, credit expansion, consumption. You cannot mine and burn all the coal on earth. You cannot build millions of houses per year no matter how happy that makes "investors" There is a blank page in that coin shop book on "Non existent currencies" and our name is going to be written in it.
See the forest ticker people not the tree. There are limits to everything, not everything has a solution, even the Titanic stayed afloat for a time though every cabin from the ones by the boiler room in 3rd class to the marble finished ones for the elite all went to the bottom with enough water in the bilge."
I went into a local coin shop today to sell the remains of my fathers jewelry collection. [snip] Oh...on the way out I asked him about gold prices and if he did a lot of bullion business...he told me that his last sale was for $1,000,000 of bullion to a local lady.
I'm trying to convey to you something that I have known for some time now. There is no fix for what ails us. It is a terminal disease that is entering its final stage. I know this because I am not clouded by a myopic view of the world, finance, economics, social behavior, politics etc. Too many of you are fixated on the trees to the exclusion of the forest. You prattle about politics or the market or bonds or the Fed as if they were all mutually exclusive entities...they are not. They are trees of the forest. A bug ridden, over harvested, tinder dry forest of many trees. An entire ecosystem where the study of one tree to the exclusion of the entire ecology yields you nothing of real insight.
We live under a totally flawed model of existence. Our financial system is an exploitative one where profit is the singular motive and indeed a morally justified and outright revered one. We exploit the planet, we exploit the weaknesses of others via planned and perceived obsolescence, we prey upon peoples compulsions, egos, insecurities, we have whole university programs on how to become good marketers so that sales can remain on an ever compounding growth path. All to the exclusion of the greater good or the health of the forest. We wage resource wars, religious wars, ethnic wars, wars on poverty, wars on drugs. We game the system and manipulate the data and kick the can endlessly down the road. We don't rage against the Orwellian phrases bandied about like "credit is the lifeblood of the economy" or "austerity is prosperity" instead we seek individual ways to steal our bone from the carcass. We are degenerate as a society with the highest obesity rate on the planet, the most personal debt, the highest rate of suicide and depression anywhere. The number one selling drug in the world is a Lipitor a fat reducing medication. What does that tell you?
We live under a completely unsustainable model by nearly every single measure. We depend on exponential "growth" as measured by gdp. We live under a credit based system of money (how can you even think that can work?) The largest industry on the planet now produces nothing!! Financial services just moves all this credit and money from one place to another manipulating it all along the way. We are a consumption based economy. WTF? Fill your pantry with a week of food and never add to it by production and see where that gets you. We alter the climate of the planet and I don't care if there are natural cycles or not...we add gigatons to the situation every year with heavy metals raining from the sky over the Pacific Northwest all the way from that far east miracle economy, China.
Worse...we live under an ever growing number of delusions. Fundamentalist religion, "hope and change", the salvation of technology, the inherent resilience of mankind, QE2. There are going to be 9 billion people on this planet shortly and 8,999,999,000 rose colored glasses that think just because we dealt with crisis in the past that we will deal with now. We will not. The arc of the pendulum swings wider and wider. Every crisis demands ever more delusion, money printing, credit expansion, consumption. You cannot mine and burn all the coal on earth. You cannot build millions of houses per year no matter how happy that makes "investors" There is a blank page in that coin shop book on "Non existent currencies" and our name is going to be written in it.
See the forest ticker people not the tree. There are limits to everything, not everything has a solution, even the Titanic stayed afloat for a time though every cabin from the ones by the boiler room in 3rd class to the marble finished ones for the elite all went to the bottom with enough water in the bilge."
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I LOVED it, gloriously doomy, I felt vindicated and like someone else "gets" it. And still, I wanted to help him see the bright side, so my response....
This is life, ever changing. One thing our history shows us is that every now and then, TWAWKI ends, and something new begins. I think what you see is true but you miss the potential beauty of what might be made after. So many will suffer, starve, miss their playstations... so what? Life goes on, those of our species that survive will be stronger, that is a good thing. I am generally not very tolerant of stupid people, I can't stand them and they are everywhere. If it comes to what you think will happen it will wipe the planet of those who are not clever enough to survive. C'est la vie.
Holy smokes man, if this is the bright side, I need to start makin' some fun fast! No really, I love the beauty of it but the experience of it might just blow...
I LOVED it, gloriously doomy, I felt vindicated and like someone else "gets" it. And still, I wanted to help him see the bright side, so my response....
This is life, ever changing. One thing our history shows us is that every now and then, TWAWKI ends, and something new begins. I think what you see is true but you miss the potential beauty of what might be made after. So many will suffer, starve, miss their playstations... so what? Life goes on, those of our species that survive will be stronger, that is a good thing. I am generally not very tolerant of stupid people, I can't stand them and they are everywhere. If it comes to what you think will happen it will wipe the planet of those who are not clever enough to survive. C'est la vie.
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Holy smokes man, if this is the bright side, I need to start makin' some fun fast! No really, I love the beauty of it but the experience of it might just blow...
