TJ, we are in agreement there. Which is frightening. As you have said, all will lose, some will lose all. A few will fluke their way through - which will be luck, and maybe even gain, as in a war, somebody might dodge a dozen bullets, a fusillade of bombs, find abandoned "biscuits" in a burrow by a body, make it back to Blighty and consider war a jolly good thing. The rest of humanity will think, on surveying Hiroshima, Tokyo, Nanking, London, Rotterdam, Dresden and graveyards from horizon to horizon and many names who have simply disappeared, that there was a net-net loss. Financial Armageddon, even without the bodies, doesn't leave a lot of net-net gains.
Losing least is a very good thing.
Heading for home and the hills is a normal thing to do when push comes to shove, the going gets tough, cover is required and safety is desirable. Saddam headed [as I had guessed] to the banks of his childhood Tigris and that's exactly where he was found.
Foreigners become evil-doers and it is tempting to confiscate their assets [for the public good of course]. Nationalists become jingoistic, patriots become xenophobic, marching in rows and singing fervid songs seems a lot better than the alternatives.
But even home looks dodgy. In NZ, there is debt stacked on hope, with political confiscation and bludging the prevailing psychology, even in good times.
Another financial institution went down the gurgler in NZ yesterday. They are dropping like flies and the going hasn't even got tough.
I wish to head for the hills, but am unsure where they are. The US$ is a partial place at the moment, but with my plans for its demise, it seems silly to set too much store by that. QCOM seems steady enough but is still subject to electorate MADness and political prognosis.
As in 1999, the balloon was obviously going to be deflated. It is now well into deflation mode. We are now mid Y2K equivalent in the Biotelecosmictechdot.com bust. The top is in and the question is how low we can go. As then, my guess is that we don't go into a cascading implosion into a financial relativity theory black hole with an event horizon outside all. There has been 2 years of market clearing already. The US$ is already well-pummelled. But as then, it's more a case of fingers crossed than sanguine optimism. I was surprised how low things did go after Y2K. I might be surprised again.
Mqurice |
