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To: Andrew G. who wrote (71218)	2/23/2001 5:31:55 PM
From: Shack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

there is no apparent limit on how much debt consumers and companies can carry as long as they can meet their monthly or quarterly payments Ah ha! Now you're getting it!

To: Andrew G. who wrote (71218)	2/23/2001 5:41:36 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

of course there's no deadline...but you are wrong if you believe the debt can continue to expand at the pace we have seen in recent years. it is not possible, because it has ALREADY become impossible to serve the existing debt without resorting to Ponzi finance, i.e. incurring new debt to simply service the old...the signs are everywhere - the cash flows to service the debt aren't forthcoming. example: DCX( Daimler-Chrysler) had 7 billion in cash at the end of qu3...three months later, ZERO cash left. LU had to THREATEN its banks to get the 6,5 billion it needed to continue operating...the Cali utilities have now defaulted on some 2 billion in commercial paper, with more to come...i could go on and on... and the important thing to understand about credit bubbles (every single one in history has collapsed btw,there's NO EXCEPTION) is that they must continue to expand at ACCELERATING rates. the current one required 33 cents in new debt in 1950 for every dollar in GDP growth, and required $4,55 in new debt per dollar of (now overstated) GDP growth in 2000...and guess what, the GDP growth part is now GONE. once the credit bubble stops expanding, it collapses. for a modern day example of a burst credit bubble look at Japan...and they even have SAVINGS, something that doesn't exist in the US private sector. there you have an example for what happens when the ceiling is reached which you keep claiming doesn't exist. btw, i don't expect a rally NOW...i expect the really playable rally to begin later in March. that will be the big wave 4 retracement in the NAZ imo. you should know by now that the market isn't driven by logic...it's driven by emotion and liquidity. the bear market of 1929 to 1932 also saw several multi week rallies...usually right after rate cuts. needless to say, they all gave way to even lower prices, until a complete wipe-out was achieved. the bubble of the 90's was in every single respect several orders of magnitude bigger than that of the 1920's. i'm not saying we should expect the same outcome - but we should expect a secular supercycle bear, with all that implies.