Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Global Economic Crisis...

Status
Not open for further replies.
David Battistella

David Battistella

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 30, 2007
Messages
10,003
Reaction score
6
Points
38
Anyone taking a good look at this or been following what is happening in the US and European markets this week?


Seems like August could be a very tenuous month.



David
 
Nothing good happening. Stock market down, housing prices still falling, plenty of foreclosures, unemployment is up, inflation is up with the cost of energy, groceries, etc., Arabs are still going crazy in the ME, Texas has a terrible drought, heat wave across the US South and MidWest, not much good news, and doesn't look like it's going to get better any time soon.

On the bright side, tough times usually breed good music and good movies.
 
salvation ;) gold and Swiss francs ;) or Brasil.
For now, Little Switzerland is a paradise .
Maybe some of you would be interesting to open a branch in the center of Europe.
 
Sam Taylor said:
So is Switzerland not showing any sign of recession yet?
Click to expand...

Well the economy is so strong and Europe so screwed that everybody wants to buy Swiss Francs. But instead of creating an economical tool to stop this money flow the Swiss National Bank buys Euro and Dollars, this means throwing the money of the citizen out of the window hoping it will encrease the Euro & Dollars value, wich is not and will never be the case. Just to give the industry the illusion they do something.

The right wing party (UDC) came up with a better idea : let's make every worker work harder and longer with the same salary to compensate the strong swiss franc.

The exportations and overall profit of the big ones are not falling but raising even with this strong swiss franc.

The pitty is that the economy is so stong, the worker works so hard that our value got too high -> so let's work harder to compensate our good economy... strange logic.

For sure a lot of rich (banks) are making a lot of profit!

Pat
 
You can't spend more than you take in.

This is simple math.

But the .gov doesn't use the same economics families use to balance their budget, so the pain will continue.

It will get a LOT worse before it gets better.
 
Matt Gottshalk said:
You can't spend more than you take in.

This is simple math.
Click to expand...

While that may be true in the long run, it is certainly not true in the short term. If it were, very few people would own a house. Or an Epic, for that matter.

Matt Gottshalk said:
But the .gov doesn't use the same economics families use to balance their budget, so the pain will continue.

It will get a LOT worse before it gets better.
Click to expand...

The government (of any country) is not a family, and should not conduct its economic policy like one. If the pain continues, it will be precisely because governments in the US and the EU are failing to realize the difference.
 
US credit rating just got downgraded by S&P to AA.
 
I'm just going to close my eyes, plug my ears and sing really loud until this all just blows over...
 
Patrick Tresch said:
Please buy Brasilian Real.

For the swiss paradise... The right wing will fix that soon.


Pat
Click to expand...

?! I come from the rich land buy property in Brazil and not the currency, because the RBL vs CHF last year lost a lot, but a property or land, if well positioned increases its value and is less subject to change.But it must be chosen with care.Type Porto Seguro;)

(UDC)! ... you are too right for my taste, no offense everyone has freedom of thought.

THE CHF is strong, in 8 months, the EPIC or ONE , the you can buy now with 30% less and are very pleased with this opportunity and we also charge VAT at 7.6% very low compared to other nations.

Luigi
 
Without debt, there wouldn't be a U.S. -- the colonies went into debt to fight the American Revolution and Lincoln went into debt to preserve the Union. Debt is an aspect of basic reality, of economics and business. People go into debt to create companies, upgrade equipment, etc. While I think everyone, privately and publicly, has taken the concept of "buy now, pay later" to ridiculous extremes, credit and debt have been a fundamental aspect of economies for thousands of years. When the U.S. was mainly agrarian, farmer owners were basically cash poor and did a lot of purchasing based on estimates of future profits from selling their harvest. And yes, some of them got into trouble doing that, for obvious reasons. But buying on credit per se is not intrinsically bad. And keep in mind that something like 60% of the deficit last year came from the recession and the dramatic drop in revenue, not from an increase in spending.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Without debt, there wouldn't be a U.S. -- the colonies went into debt to fight the American Revolution and Lincoln went into debt to preserve the Union. Debt is an aspect of basic reality, of economics and business. People go into debt to create companies, upgrade equipment, etc. While I think everyone, privately and publicly, has taken the concept of "buy now, pay later" to ridiculous extremes, credit and debt have been a fundamental aspect of economies for thousands of years. When the U.S. was mainly agrarian, farmer owners were basically cash poor and did a lot of purchasing based on estimates of future profits from selling their harvest. And yes, some of them got into trouble doing that, for obvious reasons. But buying on credit per se is not intrinsically bad. And keep in mind that something like 60% of the deficit last year came from the recession and the dramatic drop in revenue, not from an increase in spending.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this, David. My already great respect for you now expands into new areas.
 
Until our "leaders" in Washington realize that the US is going to have to bite the bullet and enact large-scale long term reforms to social security, medicare, and defense spending AND raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, this country is going to continue to tail spin. It can't be fixed with just one or the other.

We need to have a real discussion of "what is the future" because the economic path we're on right now is not going to work long term. Growth for growth's sake isn't going to work any more. Fundamentally, we need to decide if we're going to be a country that makes things (not necessarily consumer goods... infrastructure is woefully underfunded and artistry should always be valued) or a country of parasites. The financial industry has grown tremendously as a percentage of GDP, yet, much of what it does is really negative and essentially speculation. Investment of capital in companies, people, and real property are good. "Investment" in credit default swaps, ludicrous mortgage backed securities that aren't worth the paper they're drawn up on, oil futures and other commodity futures, etc., are all forms of parasitism and speculation that just don't do anyone any good except for the finance firms that make it up.

Are we going to invest in energy (carbon-based, alternative, and nuclear), schools, roads, the "information superhighway", the public environment? All things of value and that create jobs (not to mention an infrastructure upon which to grow an economy) or are we going to sit back and squabble over petty differences and continue down the road to a "finance" based economy that does less and less of value and funnels more and more of the wealth to the top?

I know what I want for the future. But, sadly, it seems that just about everyone in Washington D.C. is owned by Wall Street and is perfectly content to watch our downfall. It's not going to happen overnight, but until we find someone with both brains and balls to lead us, I don't have too positive of an outlook.
 
It's more a matter of watching a hyperpartisan congress risk bringing the USA to the brink of default to score political points rather than the USA actually being a bad place to put your money. And even if you don't agree with that, this is a really, really bad time to be pulling money out of a crashed stock market to invest in precious metals.

Sell low, buy high isn't an investment strategy I've ever hear anyone get rich off of.
 
Pawel Achtel said:
or, better still, buy the Epic :)
Click to expand...
I would rather have an Epic than cash. But with the uncertainty of the present, I'm not sure I would borrow to buy one, unless I was sure my business plan was sound. Stage 2 and Stage 3 are two different situations, though. Beg, borrow, or cut corners to exercise those options.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top