Greece , Europe , what next ?

[Fourtyfive]

Financial crisis , riots ? Here ?

[DaveTN]

You bet! Unless we decide to change; it has to happen.

[Garufa]

Coming soon to a country near you....

There are often riots in this country, not of a financial nature, but they do happen. We are slowly coming back, depending on who you talk to, from a financial crisis that has lasted several years...only by the guvment spending trillions of dollars they do not have.

No kind of change is going to pay for the money this country owes.

It's just a matter of time. Please Lord, wait till I'm gone for the meltdown.

Edited June 8, 2012 by Garufa

[Guest 6.8 AR]

What do you think would happen? Somehow we can escape what the rest of the world is experiencing?

Greece will cause the rest of the Mediterranean countries to go right after them. Europe can't dig itself

out any better. From what I understand, Germany is the only "strong" country in the EU. It can't stay that

way bailing out everyone over there. I don't know much about Russia, but I doubt they are immune. China

will fail as soon as everyone else quits buying their trinkets. Left several out, but you should get the picture.

I doubt we can change it, DaveTN. I'd like to think we could. I don't know. Everyone is dependent on everyone

else, nowadays. Currencies are going to take huge hits.

We were warned.

[runco]

I have an acquaintance who drives a truck. He says his company is delivering 2,000+ of Humvee type vehicles with heavy armor to homeland security equipped with water cannons instead of 50 calibers. Why would homeland want that, hmmmmm.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

To give the sheep baths?

[Fourtyfive]

Be warned , even I , the optimist , can see the storm. I am about to pull my stock market investment at least for a month.

Edited June 9, 2012 by Threeeighty

[MacGyver]

A Greek default will trigger liquidity events in Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Italy immediately. The Greeks will back out of their promises because they believe that Merkel will cave - that somehow the financial downside of the EU blowing apart is worse than continually bailing it out now. Their problems are the same as ours. When you're not playing with your own money, what do you care about being responsible with it? I'm not sure the eu can be saved at this point. Unlike America's grand experiment, this European one looks doomed to fail. I guess the life expectancy of a Keynesian state is about 19 years...

The implosion of the EU will not be pretty. It's going to make 2008 look like it was a good year.

Pay attention. Our modern society is three days from killing one another once the toilet paper and cigarettes run out.

Edited June 9, 2012 by MacGyver

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Yep

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[runco]

What would happen if china suddenly cashed in their us bonds? The US dollar would virtually be worthless, would military, police and just the regular working man continue to labor for a worthless wage? How about the man that works at the local power plant? Do you reckon he will work for free? What would the medium of exchange be? Food, water, gold, ammo, drugs , alcohol, etc. I believe the gold exchange rage over the past few years has been a campaign to remove all real gold from the poor working man thus removing another medium of exchange from society. How many people even can grow a garden these days? I 100% agree the storm is coming soon. It will make April 27th 2011 storms feel like a mountain shower.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

The trouble with the China cashing in idea is the fact that if they kill our economy, it would kill theirs. You can say that about most

everyone's economic status. We're all sitting inside the house of cards. That's one reason why we shouldn't have little Timmy and

Fed chairman Bernanke playing with our money like they may be fixing to do again.

The US dollar is already virtually worthless. Just don't tell anyone.

[runco]

I know this is straying from the topic, what exactly is china's goal? A caring society for its people? You sat that by cashing in us treasuries it would destroy its economy, I would agree if it's a western style economy, but it is not, it a full fledged communist economy.

[Guest 270win]

In the short term the Europeans are putting their money in the USA. That is why 10 year bond interest rates are 1.5% range, making 30 yr mortgages in the 3.5-3.75 range. We are in a mess with high debt but the Europeans are in a real bad mess with default possibilities.

[Caster]

Something's coming. I dunno what and can't venture a guess without people trying to wrap aluminum foil around my head but something big is about happen.

Y'all be sure you can feed yourselves.

[RobertNashville]

Something's coming. I dunno what and can't venture a guess without people trying to wrap aluminum foil around my head but something big is about happen.

Y'all be sure you can feed yourselves.

I've been preparing for a while now and as far as essentials go I think I can whether a storm for a good while; although if it's a very long term situation; probably not. I too think "something is coming" but even if nothing societal there is always the occasional natural disaster to worry about! I do think we have some tough financial times ahead.

Debt is nothing more than a symptom of the disease of overspending and almost all governments (U.S, EU, etc) is drowning in it. No one, not a country or an individual, can continue to have more going out than coming in without repercussions. How severe those repercussions will be depends on how long you keep pushing out the inevitable. For an individual, the repercussions start happening when all the debt sources dry up; it often results in bankruptcy (usually on a reoccurring thing until/unless the person learns their lesson).

A country can push things off longer than a person because a country can print money. However, the repercussions are going to be magnified as well.

I truly don't know if we can still step back from the financial cliff we are standing on or not...I think we can but I'm not sure. I do know that stepping back is going to be painful...I also know that going over the cliff is going to be many times more painful.

I think Greece is a lost cause...it's over the cliff and only surviving because the EU is holding out a hand for it to hold onto but as has been mentioned, the EU in general is essentially ready to go over the cliff itself...Spain and then probably France and/or the UK will be next followed by a complete dissolution of the EU.

If the EU falls, it's going to hurt the U.S. for sure. It's also going to hurt every country that makes its living off our market (China, etc) because if we don't have money we can't buy their stuff and then their revenue dries up.

I think we can survive it but we would be looking at a world-wide depression unlike anything ever seen before and one that is going to take some true leadership to get us out of.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I know this is straying from the topic, what exactly is china's goal? A caring society for its people? You sat that by cashing in us treasuries it would destroy its economy, I would agree if it's a western style economy, but it is not, it a full fledged communist economy.

Well, it is a full fledged communist country. The powers that be control everything and the ones who run the businesses

in China have very tight connections with the control. The economic masters in the country are very fearful that they would implode.

It's happened there before. The only thing holding China together is fear, like Soviet Russia used to be. China's government is just

another government. One that dominates it's people by the doctrine of Marx.

How are they going to cash them in, if there's no money to back it up? We're still borrowing, aren't we?

[gjohnsoniv]

I guess this is where the banker owes the borrower because there is no guarantee for payment?

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I'm not really sure how to say it, but the chain of debt is so strung out and has ultimately been picked and picked

so that derivatives are everywhere trying to hold up the slack between countries. MacGyver, help!

[greyofk]

Something similar already happened to

Roman empire

Byzantine empire

Persian empire

Ottoman empire

Imperial China

Russian empire

Third Reich (Germany)

Soviet Union

Yugoslavia

Finances and market are secondary to production, because you can not eat money

When existent way of governing of production makes production unprofitable the way of governing changes. It literally means the change of government. It usually comes with fallout of an empire and elimination of central power which is expensive and inefficient. Small states are easy to manage. Small government has less room for corruption. The trouble is the people who hold the power never surrender it.

Good thing about XXI century: Information technology makes most of the branches of the government unnecessary

Bad thing about XXI century: Complexity of manufacturing makes world wide cooperation essential for prosperity

Industrial society can not live with barter economy. Attempt to do so will throw any country to the level of XVII - XVIII century

[Guest 6.8 AR]

that's one reason why governments are starting to control the internet. Part of that power they don't want to give up.