The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

Says this article in the globe and mail.

Being a main stream Canadian news site they even mention Canada. Therefore this isn't just a transparent attempt to spam the Canada forum with my line of tin foil hat bearishness. Honestly.

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

Yup.

Have you seen the pbs doc on the 1929 crash & depression? I watched it about 2 months ago. Eerily similar to now, and just like now, there was the first crash, then a lag of some months/years, then the second.

I need to adjust my tinfoil.

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

Thanks for posting. Interesting, sobering, and if I were more knowledgeable, probably terrifying.

Aside from electing responsible government (:lol:), what can we, as individuals, do to lessen this seemingly inevitable meltdown?

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

“When, in the absence of fiscal actions, will investors start demanding a much higher compensation for the risk of holding the increasingly large amounts of public debt that [these countries] are going to issue to finance their extravagant ways?” the BIS economists ask. “The question is when will markets start putting pressure on governments, not if,” they respond.

Who are the investors? Banks? China?

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

People forget that the 1929 crash had a 60% recovery about a year later before plummeting over the next few years (with several mini recoveries on the way). The initial crash in 1929 was dwarfed by the falls over the next few years.

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

I don't know who's buying these bonds. I assume it's banks and probably other governments. The fed publishes this data but they hide the actual buyers in groups such as 'household sector' (whatever that means)

I really wish I knew. Deflation is what we *should* get. i.e. credit is priced properly and gets more and more expensive to the point where it's hard for even good risks to borrow money until some of the debt is repaid. However, governments hate this as it makes the GDP number look bad - so they print money and have practically 0% interest rates.

The question really is - how much do you trust the government (any of them) not to destroy the currency in it's attempt to stimulate the economy into recovery?

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

I never knew this in the first place.

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/fiv...2aa4f9d94.html

But then an increase in interest rate could "evict millions", flooding the property market with more houses, bringing a massive house price crash. Then there'll be the inevitable negative equity, people being unable to raise cash through equity release, unable to afford the increased cost of debt, until ultimately, we're all living in caves again.... albeit caves with plasma TV's.:rofl:

I'm just kinda glad that my TWP status means I've been unable to get saddled with debt while we've been in Canada. Whilst it's definitely been frustrating at times, I dont have to worry as much as most about what the future holds...

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

Hmm, saddled with debt. Tis a funny thing debt and one's credit rating. We have no debt, no mortgage, no loans,we pay off our credit cards each month nowt owed to nobody. We have savings for a rainy day, it's drizzling now so we are being frugal. What we don't have is a good credit rating to get a better credit card.

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

What is a better credit card for you? You don't pay interest and I don't imagine that the availability of "points" is dependent upon credit rating. It may be, I don't chase them.

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

That's cos it's not really a credit rating. It's more like a profitability rating.

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

Is the end of the power of the trans-national neo liberal economic interests? Is it ****. These so called financial crises are a way of rationalizing what is essentially irrational. We only have to look at Greece, state power and the IMF are only there to protect their banks and impose their so-called 'austerity measures' with effectively just screws the people. Neo-liberal capitalism secures financial institutions at all costs. Twats.
Let the whole sordid mess collapse and lets get back to some form of sustainable agrarian and localized democratic community.

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

B*ll*cks

Waste of time..

the people will only go and select a leader to get them through hard times, who in reality will screw them over, set up rules to protect his interest,s and perpetuate his own rule for himself and his siblings.
Eventually he’ll get a group together who agree with his ideals and call it a name and use this ‘so called’ consensus to shut out any ideas that really do deliver equality and fairness as unsuited for the society as a whole…

Or “Democracy” when all the people agree that the smart guy ripping them off, is entitled to do so because they voted him in!!!

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

I broadly agree (apart from the last sentence - we aren't all going back to being farmers any time soon). Although the problem isn't liberal capitalism - it's political capitalism. Liberal capitalism is an unattainable ideal that capitalists subscribe to in the good times until they screw up and then want everyone else to pay for it.

Re: The Western world keeps spending its way to disaster
 

It must be desperate...........

Chancellor George Osborne will tomorrow launch a spending review heralding a 'once in a generation' reassessment of the role of the state.
The Treasury is looking to Canada - which successfully slashed its 9.1 per cent budget deficit to zero over three years in the 1990s - for inspiration.
Sources say Mr Osborne will follow Canada's example by creating a 'star chamber' of senior ministers and officials, to which each member of the Cabinet will have to justify spending plans.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0qCb8DdJp