The World in 2030

[boneyard bill]

Oh no. More predictions of how the dollar will collapse.

The people who have predicting this for the past 50+ years are not very good at predicting.

It almost happened in the 1970s. Volker managed to save the US from that fate. Unfortunately, Greenspan reversed a lot of Volker's policies.

Fifty years ago I was in college. There was no talk then about a collapse of the dollar, but there was talk about the collapse of the gold standard (especially by the gold bugs) which, in fact, happened ten years later.

 

[boneyard bill]

Is this the same crystal ball that said Ron Paul could be a king maker?

...tells me what the world will be like sixteen years from now, and it suggests some very big changes. Most prominent of these is the collapse of the dollar.

I'm stunned! <--- stunned face look

The emerging paradigm is that of "gold trade settlement." That is not a gold standard, however, if gold trade settlement turns out not to be viable, it could lead to a gold standard. Already China has currency swap agreements with nearly thirty countries and other countries that do not include China are also reaching such agreements. These agreements allow countries to settle their foreign exchange accounts with something other than dollars and ultimately, with gold.

The value of gold has been all over the fucking place. The value of the dollar over the same period of time... relatively static.

Meanwhile, the US finances are so bad that we will either have to default on our debts or create massive inflation to pay the debt in cheaper dollars. Either alternative would bring down the dollar if it doesn't fall even before that.

Or raise taxes.

Ron Paul could have ended up as king maker if Santorum hadn't dropped out.

Gold trade settlement means you settle in gold at the market rate. A gold standard sets a fixed price for gold. So your comments are irrelevant not to mention wrong. The dollar is about two-thirds of where it was on the dollar index in 2000. Gold is selling for about 4 times what it did in 2000. But physical gold is probably selling for quite a bit more than the Comex price. The Comex is a paper market. You're really buying and selling gold contracts, not physical gold. The is no physical gold market although one is being set up in Shanghai and another in Singapore. Asians are buying physical gold and they want to know what it is worth.

We cannot raise taxes enough to save the dollar. Tax increases that high would be self-defeating. It would require massive spending cuts, and no politician will do that until we are not longer able to borrow or print money.

 

[boneyard bill]

Actual predictions for 2030:

http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/organization/national-intelligence-council-global-trends
http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Interactive Le Menu.pdf

http://www.policy-network.net/pno_detail.aspx?ID=4713&title=Britain-and-the-world-in-2030

http://europa.eu/espas/pdf/espas-outreach-leaflet.pdf

I only checked out one of these, the policy-network article which is from Britain. I agreed with most of what he said. However, he fails to give serious consideration to the geo-political implications of what he says. If the dollar loses its reserve status, which he seems to expect since he sees approximate parity of the rmb to the dollar.

The problem is that much of the dollar's current value is based on its status as the reserve currency. If I weren't the reserve currency, it wouldn't be worth what it is worth at the present time. Half of US currency is overseas. Without the need for it as a reserve, most countries would cease to hold dollars in their reserves and its value would fall on international markets. This would produce the equivalent of a dollar devaluation in the US and that would lead to a dramatic decline in the US standard of living. Add to that our enormous debt and it should become apparent that we would no longer be able to maintain the level of defense spending or the costs of maintaining our troops overseas.

The fall of the dollar would mean the fall of the empire. So now you have to take into consideration a world where American overseas bases were few if any remained at all, and that would surely lead to very significant political re-alignments.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Is this the same crystal ball that said Ron Paul could be a king maker?
I'm stunned! <--- stunned face look

The emerging paradigm is that of "gold trade settlement." That is not a gold standard, however, if gold trade settlement turns out not to be viable, it could lead to a gold standard. Already China has currency swap agreements with nearly thirty countries and other countries that do not include China are also reaching such agreements. These agreements allow countries to settle their foreign exchange accounts with something other than dollars and ultimately, with gold.

The value of gold has been all over the fucking place. The value of the dollar over the same period of time... relatively static.

Meanwhile, the US finances are so bad that we will either have to default on our debts or create massive inflation to pay the debt in cheaper dollars. Either alternative would bring down the dollar if it doesn't fall even before that.

Or raise taxes.

Ron Paul could have ended up as king maker if Santorum hadn't dropped out.

Dude, you can't even accurately predict the recent past!

Gold trade settlement means you settle in gold at the market rate. A gold standard sets a fixed price for gold. So your comments are irrelevant not to mention wrong.

So like when that whole gold fixing scandal happened back in the second half of the 1800s, that means that gold is safe, being a speculative commodity and all?

The dollar is about two-thirds of where it was on the dollar index in 2000. Gold is selling for about 4 times what it did in 2000.

Deflation is a very ugly thing. And the value of the US dollar has been relatively stable since 2000.

We cannot raise taxes enough to save the dollar.

Sure you can.

Tax increases that high would be self-defeating.

Only if you wanted to keep spending $600 billion on the military.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

The value of gold has been all over the fucking place. The value of the dollar over the same period of time... relatively static.

The value of gold as measured in dollars has been all over the place, but the measure of dollars as measured in dollars has been static. The only response to the second half is "well DUH!"

As for the first half, I guess we should note that whenever you measure one measure in terms of another measure, movement could be by either. The problem is, even if it is the dollar fluctuating, when you measure gold in terms of dollars it will look like gold fluctuating.

 

[barbos]

Here is my prediction:
Crimea will still be integral part of Russia.
US will be doing fine and still #1 economy
Oil and gas will be going down as electric cars going up.
China will have some problems due to the global shift from manufacturing to services.
Robots will be doing everything what China does now.
3rd world countries will stay 3rd world.
ME will still be a mess.
EU will do fine
Russia, probably be OK too.

I disagree with no. 3. Number 4 is reversed. Electric cars will be going up because oil and gas will be going up. The others seem reasonable to me.

#3 Oil is one battery breakthrough away from crapper, but I don't really expect it happening that way.
Progress will be gradual but non-stoppable.
As for gas, I think it's ridiculous that gas is used for heating in Europe. Europe should start building houses which have better insulation.
#4 Robots will change world trade, because all manufacturing will move back to US and Europe. And overall economic share of manufacturing will drop even more. China and 3rd world countries will lose to robots. China seems to be able to adapt to that but without their manufacturing they lose most of their advantage over India or Russia.

 

[Metaphor]

It means they are all crap compared to commodities. Have look at any long term chart. It is self evident.

Why does the nominal price of commodities matter? Surely the only thing that matters is how much is produced and how much people can buy (and consume) in real terms.

So? Not much of a case for the USD if true though.

Income...in real terms? It must be line ball in the last decade. And consumption may be going up, but if it's funded by debt it is unsustainable I'd say.

Some of it might be funded by debt, but not all of it is. In fact, apart from a dip in 2008, Westerners as a whole are the wealthiest they've ever been.

 

[dystopian]

Wallons won't want to abandon their specific laws and customs to adopt the French ones, and I suppose the same is true for Flanders vs the Netherlands.
If European countries explode (Scotland, Flanders, Catalans, Basques, etc), I suspect the drive will be more towards a transforming EU into a "federation of regions" than re-uniting them with other countries.

Actually, there have been polls in the past suggesting that a narrow majority of Flemish people would support reunification with the Netherlands (though there have also been polls showing only a minority in favor). The problem would actually be more likely on our side, most likely, since when polled most of the Flemish would probably also support a federal model for the merger; which probably wouldn't be accepted here. And then there's the problem of what to do with Brussels.

If Flanders became independent instead of joining the Netherlands, there'd also be the hilarity of the EU capital not being in the EU; since just as would've been the case with Scotland, Flanders would not be a EU member.

 

[Bomb#20]

If Flanders became independent instead of joining the Netherlands, there'd also be the hilarity of the EU capital not being in the EU; since just as would've been the case with Scotland, Flanders would not be a EU member.

They can work around that. They just need to name their new country "Belgium" and have the referendum question be not "Should we secede?" but "Should we expel Wallonia?".

 

[dystopian]

dystopian:



What am I doing wrong?

In plenty of your posts, the quote tags are not properly wrapped around parts of the post you are replying to.

Natural gas in definitely dependent on geography. Without a pipeline, you cannot transport it cheaply. It has to be liquefied and that means you use up a whole lot of gas just keeping the rest liquid. That's why natural gas prices differ widely from region to region.

Which is irrelevant, since natural gas won't stay as important forever; especially not now Europe has ample reason to move towards energy independence.

What hostility has Russia shown to Europe's ambitions?

You're joking.

She hadn't imposed sanctions on Europe until Europe joined the US' sanctions regime.

You're joking, again. Are you not aware of how Russia is constantly placing temporary product sanctions on European countries whenever those countries don't do exactly what Russia wants? Generally we just ignore it. Oh, Dutch politicians makes an unfortunate comment about Russia? We're pulling Dutch cheese off the accepted import list for a while on suspicions of improper handling for export. No no, this has nothing to do whatsoever with those comments even though this happens right after and the idea of improper handling has zero basis for it. No no, this is not at all part of an established pattern of behavior for us. Yes, I know there's a pattern of COINCIDENCES where we ban products right after country x does or says something we don't like, but it's all coincidence we assure you!

You can't leave the nuclear threat out of it.

Yes I can, because Europe is a nuclear power too; and not even the Russians are insane enough to start a nuclear fight with someone who also has more than enough nukes to destroy the planet.

But they do not have the preparedness at this point in terms of ground troops.

Which is irrelevant since even if the EU had no ground troops at all, Russia would not be able to occupy enough of Europe in the time required for the EU to get its shit together.

The US has attacked or invaded way more countries than the Russia has even thought of attacking

Are you sure about that? Because the list of wars where Russia invades and annexes countries is far higher than that of the US.
And as a matter of fact, during the 20th century the United States was involved in 15 wars, versus 37 for Russia.

Russia has invaded exactly one country - Georgia,

Ahaha. No.

First of all, Russia is a successor state to the Soviet Union; which means that all of the SU's invasions are also those of Russia. And those are a LOT. Secondly, since the end of the Soviet Union, Russia has most definitely invaded more than just Georgia: Moldavia (1992), Ossetia (1992), Tajikistan (1992-97), Georgia (1993), Chechnya (1994-96), Chechnya (1999-2009), Georgia (2008), Ukraine (2014).

and she only did that after Georgia attacked and killed Russian peace-keepers in South Ossetia.

Why am I not surprised you are just as eager to fall for Russian propaganda here? Russia did very much the same in Georgia as it did in Ukraine; this is plain for everyone to see. Russia shot down Georgian aircraft, and the 'peacekeepers' they sent were actually engaged in fighting. Ossetian separatists specifically targeted civilian population centers with artillery. By the time Georgia attacked Tskhinvali and those 10 (claimed) Russian peacekeepers were killed; as collateral damage, I might add; it was already clear that Russia was waiting for an excuse to invade. Having the 58th army move in the *exact* same day as those peacekeepers were killed shows that they had no intention of restricting themselves to peacekeeping.

You should really know better by now, than to spread Russian propaganda as if it were fact; there's too much information available on the internet for us to just swallow it.

Then Russia went in and occupied Tblisi, but she didn't annex Georgia and Putin didn't even set up a puppet government.

Nobody believes South-Ossetia is anything other than a Russian puppet state.

She did not attack Crimea. She was permitted to have 25,000 troops there under their treaty for Sevastopol.

We've been over this. Under no possible interpretation of said treaty was Russia allowed to use said troops to occupy airfields, government bases, lay fucking mines on roads, and lay siege to military bases. It does NOT matter if those troops were there from the start or if they crossed the border later; such actions constitute an *invasion*. Period.

Meanwhile, despite our promise not to expand NATO eastward, the US has admitted nearly all of the Warsaw Pact nations into NATO and established missile bases there while openly admitting that we want to include Ukraine and Georgia as well.

No such promise has ever been made in black and white. At no point prior to all this has there been talk of including Ukraine, and Georgia was only talked about after Russia started interfering with its territorial integrity.

And then there's the coup d'état that we sponsored in Ukraine where we overthrew a democratically elected government.

I have explained to you many times now that it was not a coup; that Yanukovych was in fact removed from power in accordance with Ukraine democratic law. And there is zero evidence other than vague conspiracy theories that the west sponsored anything.

Free trade is something to be negotiated. A sovereign country is free to impose tariffs whenever if feels like it.

Just as we're free to tell Russia to fuck off when they don't play nice. We can survive perfectly fine without their economy; but they can't survive without us.

Russian behavior is a function of US and European behavior and, as I have noted, the US continues to block most favored nation status.

I wasn't aware the US was obligated to give Russia 'favored nation' status. That WOULD be ironic.

It is the US that is blocking European trade with Russia.

It's not. The US took the lead initially on sanctions because they could afford them. Now that Russia isn't backing down, the EU has been taking the lead on tougher sanctions; because the EU recognizes that Russia is a far greater threat to us than it is to the US. But thanks for trying to make us believe we're just a puppet state of the US... thank you sir, may I have another?

I think you have it backward. Of course your food is cheaper because Russia isn't buying it. You may like the cheaper prices, but they are a tremendous burden on European farmers who cannot sell the produce.

By tremendous burden you mean, a burden. The governments are guaranteeing many of those losses.

Meanwhile, Russia is buying these things in Latin America which could lead to a permanent loss of business for Europe.

And of course, the real problem for Russia isn't that it can't buy European food anymore (although it's REALLY not the case that they can just easily switch to Latin American markets); it's the flight of FDI. Russian economic growth has already stalled, and foreign investments in Russia are dropping like flies. The effects of this won't be felt immediately, but if this continues then Russia will not be able to recover for a very long time.

Then China will just have to take it outright. Without US backing, Taiwan cannot remain independent.

Nice to see you finally admitting you support big countries invading and annexing their smaller neighbors outright.

That's going to take a little research that I don't have time for at the moment. I'll have to get back to you on that.

Pretty sure you won't.

But I should add that calling this a pedophilia scandal is actually an understatement. It is more like child trafficking rings. Children are being abducted and sold for many reasons, not just sex. It may be for their organs, for use in snuff pornography or even Satanic sacrifices.

Well, there goes whatever credibility you had left.

The bodies of 800 children were recently found in Ireland. They had been beheaded and dismembered which suggests that they were victims of Satanic rituals.

Conveniently leaving out the fact that A) those are not recent, B) having nothing whatsoever to do with the UK (Ireland is not in the in the UK) or its royal family, C) were not dismembered and beheaded, D) being dismembered and beheaded does NOT suggest "satanic rituals", and E) actually died of disease and malnutrition.

Do some fucking research on the insane claims you make, will you?

The other important point is that authorities are covering up these crimes.

Riight, which is why it made the news. And why the Irish parliament openly discussed what the hell to do about it. Yes, when I cover something up, the first thing I usually do is go to the press before discussing the matter in public.

but there are a lot of fingers pointing at the royal family.

No there aren't.

I'm not too familiar with Britain,

Obviously.

but in the US much of this is revealed in a book called The Franklin Cover-Up by John DeCamp. It is available on-line.

The book is actually called: The Franklin Cover-up: Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder in Nebraska.

How exactly a book about Child Abuse, Satanism, and Murder IN FUCKING NEBRASKA tells you anything about Europe is beyond me. Incidentally, the allegations in the book have been refuted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_child_prostitution_ring_allegations

Of course, not that sane people would believe a blatant hoax involving child sex rings among senators dashed with a thick layer of SATANISM in the first place.

Certainly, there's evidence of Child trafficking rings in the Netherlands.

So fucking what, those are everywhere.

Whether there is hard evidence pointing to the royal family, I'm not sure.

You're not sure; but sure enough that you previously stated it as fact. For the record, no, there is no hard evidence for it. In fact, there isn't even any soft evidence either.

Certainly, many accusations have been directed at Prince Bernhard, but he is dead now.

There are many accusations against Prince Bernhard, yes.

None of them, however, have anything whatsofucking ever to do with pedophilia

The media will not report on it until they have official information from the police or some other authoritative source. It's called CYA - cover your ass.

I'll be sure to tell that to our media who seem to constantly report on things before having official information.

 

[barbos]

Yet another thread fell victim to the resident Russia hater

 

[dystopian]

Yet another thread fell victim to the resident Russia hater

Refuting the bullshit posted by Russia lovers does not a Russia hater make.

 

[KeepTalking]

Yet another thread fell victim to the resident Russia hater

No, this thread fell victim to its own inanity.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

It almost happened in the 1970s. Volker managed to save the US from that fate. Unfortunately, Greenspan reversed a lot of Volker's policies.

Fifty years ago I was in college. There was no talk then about a collapse of the dollar, but there was talk about the collapse of the gold standard (especially by the gold bugs) which, in fact, happened ten years later.

Although it wasn't talked about at the time, a compelling argument can be made by those who combine economics with history.

Was Stagflation in ‘79 Really Hyperinflation?

I’ve been writing about the possibility of hyperinflation, if there is ever a run on Treasury bonds. My argument has been, Treasuries are the New & Improved Toxic Assets, a termite-riddled house waiting to collapse. If and when there is a run on them, money will flow to a safe haven, which I am predicting will be commodities. As a byproduct of this sell off in Treasuries and buy up of commodities, consumer prices will rise catastrophically in a hyperinflationary event—and the dollar will be left dead on the highway like roadkill.

This scenario got me thinking about the last time there was a panicked run-up in commodities: The stagflation of the 1970’s in the United States, specifically the period 1979–1983. Oil nearly doubled in price, gold and silver went hyperbolic. Gas shortages were rampant—the situation almost got to the point where the government considered rationing gasoline. In fact, ration cards were printed—that’s how bad things got.

Because of the Oil Shock, the inflation index rose to a peak of 15%—yet unemployment also exploded, reaching almost 11%. This combination of unemployment and inflation was what gave the period its name—stagflation: “Stagnant inflation”.

Thinking about this period, I asked myself a simple question: Could the ‘79 Oil Shock, and subsequent bout of stagflation, be better understood as a period of incipient hyperinflation? And if so, what lessons could it teach us about today?

 

[boneyard bill]

Jimmy Higgins writes:

So like when that whole gold fixing scandal happened back in the second half of the 1800s, that means that gold is safe, being a speculative commodity and all?

I have no idea how you inferred that from my comments and fail to see the relevance at all. It seems like you didn't read my post at all and certainly didn't understand it.

Deflation is a very ugly thing. And the value of the US dollar has been relatively stable since 2000.

Simply not true. I'm talking about he value of the dollar relative to other currencies, not about the specific inflation rate in this country. So this seems to be another area that you don't understand. But even in terms of domestic inflation the dollar has lost considerable value since 2000.

We cannot raise taxes enough to save the dollar

.

Sure you can.

Very roughly in current years we've been spending about $4 billion dollars and taking in about $3 billion dollar on average. That means you would have to raise every single source of government revenue, income taxes, corp income taxes, gasoline taxes, national park admission fees, excise taxes, passport fees, you name it, by about 1/3. That would produce a serious economic downturn which would still fail to balance the budget because of the decline in economic activity. But the budgetary situation is slated to get even worse because the retirement of the baby boomers will send social security costs and medicare costs much higher.

Only if you wanted to keep spending $600 billion on the military.

Last I checked, military spending was a spending item not a revenue source. Yes, we will have to cut military spending but we will also have to cut other areas as well. If you eliminated military spending all together, you still wouldn't be able to balance the budget very often.

But I have already said that we will have to cut military spending so what is your point? I have said we won't be able to maintain our overseas military bases and that will have a profound effect on the political alignments all across the globe.

 

[thief of fire]

Yet another thread fell victim to the resident Russia hater

Don't worry about the Russia haters. Russia has had a very tough century, but it has made it's people tougher, and more principled.
People who have been coddled in safe European countries imagine that it is something great that they have done, or that they themselves are somehow the reason their country did not endure what Russia had to endure.
But the tough times Russia had to endure will work well for them, despite the delusions of some.

 

[thief of fire]

You're joking, again. Are you not aware of how Russia is constantly placing temporary product sanctions on European countries whenever those countries don't do exactly what Russia wants?.

Constantly?
Unsurprisingly you provide no evidence.

Russia has been doing this lately, but only in response to European countries bending under pressure from their masters in the USA to sanction Russia.

 

[thief of fire]

Yet another thread fell victim to the resident Russia hater

Refuting the bullshit posted by Russia lovers does not a Russia hater make.

I'm not a "Russia lover" , but I respect them. Does anyone seriously respect Holland or your masters in the USA these days?

 

[Metaphor]

Refuting the bullshit posted by Russia lovers does not a Russia hater make.

I'm not a "Russia lover" , but I respect them. Does anyone seriously respect Holland or your masters in the USA these days?

Two things to respect about the Netherlands over Russia is The Netherland's half-way to not-insane drug policy and its not treating homosexuals like diseased animals.

 

[barbos]

I'm not a "Russia lover" , but I respect them. Does anyone seriously respect Holland or your masters in the USA these days?

Two things to respect about the Netherlands over Russia is The Netherland's half-way to not-insane drug policy and its not treating homosexuals like diseased animals.

True, but Russia saved their sorry homosexual asses from Hitler, don't forget that.
And what do you know about russian drug policy?