The Future?

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Good article. Thanks, Paul: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

According to the geniuses who "manage" our economies (like "The Maestro", Alan Greenspan), we don't have very much inflation today. Greenspan says the smart central bankers have created fiat currencies that work "just like gold."

But since Iraq was invaded in 2003, we commonly hear people talking in terms of billions of dollars and even trillions of dollars. A million dollars is just not that much any more. The Italian Lira is gone, gone, gone, replaced by the Euro. At the time it was abandoned (2004) the exchange rate was 1500 Lire to one U.S. dollar [1]. So a million dollars was 1,500,000,000 or one and a half billion Lire. Prices people see are the real indication of inflation, not what the central banks and national governments tell us.

For example, we have condos with price tags that would have been unheard of only a few years ago even for the most expensive houses in Regina. They have been priced by comparing what is for sale to what people have been paying. People here in Regina think the rising prices are an indication that we have hit big time prosperity here in Saskatchewan. We have resources to sell, dontchuknow? I think the rising prices and the ability to pay them is due to something less sanguine. We already have MONEY TO BURN. No money? No credit? No problem! Sign here: drive it off the lot, or move right in.

I watched luxury homes for sale in Las Vegas, recently. You get much much more luxury in Las Vegas today (where the subprime mortgage crisis has hit) than you do in Regina — for less money.

The U.S. economy (as it was) is in big trouble: a report from Long Beach, the Port of Los Angeles, says that imports from China have slowed down significantly. Why? Because Americans are buying less. They are even buying less low-priced stuff from China. They stopped buying high-priced American stuff long ago. American workers have asked how will they buy anything if no one buys what they are making. Good question. Canadian workers in Ontario are already waking up. Canadian government workers are still living in a dream world.

Someone I know just got a government job that pays more than $12,000, A MONTH — plus generous benefits.

Globalization will mean a general levelling at a much lower price level with greater abundance for everyone. Big Oil is already a big bust. Oil, the strategic resource upon which the 20th century economies were based, will be replaced with something else soon. In the near term: coal to liquid fuel, algal fuel, hydrogen/solar converters that make and store electricity. Centralization with its concomitant power in a few hands may disappear (I hope.) The Yankee Colossus is going the way of Rome. U.S. official world supremacy lasted from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, but things have actually been going downhill since 1945 when the United States was at the zenith of its power.

"He who is first, soon will be last." Maybe everyone will be crossing the finish line, not too far apart.

- Morley

[1] http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/fedny/day-fxit2us

On Oct 4, 2008, at 11:20 AM, Paul Geddes wrote:

I agree. This is the article about the bailout that I've been sending to those who've asked. In case you haven't seen it yet:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Paul