Re: Reposted, re the larger economic issues



On Sat, 25 May 2007, phil scott wrote:

On May 25, 10:39 am, Straydog <a...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 24 May 2007, phil scott wrote:
On May 24, 6:21 pm, Straydog <a...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 24 May 2007, phil scott wrote:


Fine. I still say 50%+/- in the next five years seems high to me. I might
be wrong. Skill or no skill is not my problem. All those brilliant
managers are going to have to worry about that.

as the mess goes south we will see re-unionization...



Its already going south and I'm not seeing any re-unionization.

that won't happen until its too late... the work has gone to china
along with the factories, then out of desperation the people will
awake.

The next big thing might be the China trade disputes now piling up. Since Paulson didn't get anywhere with China, trade retaliation bills in our congress might go forward. Also Europe is starting to suffer expanding trade deficits and they are filing big WTO complaints, too. going to take 2-3 years to see where that ends up. I see mostly a bad future.

managment... already, at age 66 Im coming back into demand...but not
at peak rates yet. maybe in a year or two if the administration
doesnt ruin things before then.

The illegals are under the axe, and the legals are still too poor to
really appreciate unions, and its just off the radar of the rest of the
population. I hate to say that, but unless some radical change in people's
sentiments, power is not going to spring from the low end of trickle-down.

correct.


inside or out.

the disinformation business is complex. it works because people do
not have the energy to disrupt their entire accumulated data bases to
align with disturbing new facts. so the disinformation sticks even in
the face of hard visible and pervasive facts to the contrary.

I think a lot of "disinformation" comes from people who, themselves, don't
know the truth but peddle their analyses as if it were the truth.

that is also pervasively comon... getting to the bottom of the nitty
gritty takes a lot of what it takes.... looking for the larger
patterns in history and underlying basics, such a birth rate
declines ...the drivers... helps sort it out.

And, for all the world's problems, I really don't have the resources to develop my own authoritative opinion.

as birth rate declines under various oppressions and other factors, a
nation ends its life by outsourcing its military and insourcing its
labor... end of ball game when those breed at 2 or 3x the native
population.


Well, that is a point, too.



And,
like I said, I don't have the resources to check either side.

none of us do... thats why I look for the underlying factors... the
drivers...and pay attention to the effects only as they trend over a
longer term... the short term blips are what most look at though..
that confuses them.

Well, where I start is to ask the question:"OK, who will make money on this (usually the rich), and who will lose money on this (usually the poor)?"

these dont see the long term drivers... the drivers once in gear put
the handwriting on the wall so to speak... then one reads the
handwriting.


Usualy older people understand this better than younger people.

We just don't know. But, even if the planet is a big oil drop 8,000 miles
in diameter, one can extrapolate when the planet will be converted to gas
exhaust. Not in my lifetime.

Then of course we will be moving to nuclear power and electric cars
(from nuclear) that will cut back on the use of focil fuels.

I think life will get very interesting just after I die.

The longer you live these days the more likely it is you will live
longer,

This depends on...

yes.. luck etc. also sentience.. a good researcher understands whats
up in river city, that de-stresses a person, and that is perhaps one
of the biggest factors in immune system health etc. your tendency to
be well read and research and hold off on making a priori judgements
will help you a lot in these regards...add in on going medical
advance. you might be around for a while.


Well, I did NOT pursue money in my life. I preferred the "high brow" pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. Sometimes I think I did the wrong thing (because nobody respects knowledge and wisdom), sometimes I think I did
the right thing (all the others, they are all chasing false gods).



the stats on average life span are misleading,

..you cannot use stats on a population to predict anything about MY
particular life except a probability.

correct.

However, I also fasten my seat belt in the car for reasons besides the one that they can ticket you if you don't.


factored into

that is infant morality etc... a healthy person at age 70 these days
is quite likely to reach 100 and beyond.

Here is a real piece of truth: I have lunch once a month with a bunch of
old farts among whom the youngest guy is my age and they go up to age 100,
and none of them are healthy, and we get a report every month or two about
a guy who just croaked, and suddenly.

natures revenge.

Tell me about it.

The whole oil scene is changing rapidly. And all this biodiesel and
gasohol is expanding rapidly now too. In my state, you can't get anything
but gasohol, anywhere.

gasahol is a bit of insanity...complete fraud. worth researching.
Nuclear isnt.

Nah, with nukes we're all going to glow in the dark for 20,000 years and
cause mutations in all life-forms. Would you have radioactive dump in your
back yard?

Nuclear is the only solution to date... fusion would be a completely
safe solution..its a few decades out.

Well, you and I disagree on that.

solar / wind etc are too disbursed to provide more than 15 or 20% of
our energy demand (mostly industrial)..homes are a different story.

To Walmart's credit, they are putting in lots of solar.
A house with solar roof would be all it takes to get the house off the grid (I've made the simple calculations). The problme is that it adds about $50K to the price of the house.


we have already insured the mutation of life forms via Monsanto
chemical and othe means , depleated uranium etc..and coal fired plants
that dump hundreds of tons of high level radio active waste into the
air annually...a billion times more than the waste nuc plants
generate...btw the latest reprocess thier waste into new fuel, the low
level waste goes harmless in a few decades more or less.

Well, this has to stop someday.

the rest is melted into glass and poured into stainless steel
cylinders (I did some forensic engineering for one of those plants in
West valley NY)... thats safe, it cant leak even if a cylinder is
crushed, only trace levels from the edges of the broken glass can
leak...the odds of a crushed cylinder approach zero.

Yeah, I read about that, too. The real question is unanswerable: how does this work over 20,000 years?




Go solar, wind, geothermal, tides. No radioactivity, no waste, renewable.

Its too diffuse to be accessed for more than a small percentage of the
worlds energy needs.

But, there is serious movement in those directions. I can cite details.

The green's pushing for no nucs, have pushed coal plants (paid by the
coal lobby)...coal burning is nasty as hell...co2 by the Billions of
tons annually each plant and there are thousands, china plans 2,000
more... cars etc produce about as much contamination as just one of
those plants..

Not going to disagree with you on that. It will take decades to get the word out.

correct. but then as china rises we will see some tough times before
10 years is up... your situation will likely stretch that 20 or 30
years...the lower classes with no assets are seeing tough times
already.

I know. Others see this. And, there is no consensus as to what to do. And,
its useless --totally useless-- to try to stimulate a consensus on the
internet. And, for partly understandable reasons: i) almost everyone
thinks they know all that they need to know, ii) everyone favors their OWN
biases (I guess I'm in that category, too), and iii) very few people have
the resources to really understand the objective knowledge, anyway, and
iv) some idiot politician who knows nothing will make the final decision
which will have a high probability of making things worse (eg. read
history) based on a stupid means of coming to a decision (eg. bribery,
favoritism, etc. [eg. Cheney, Haliburton, lobbyists, selfish-greed]).

Pretty depressing, eh?


yes, depressing unless you can see the larger picture of the life
cycles of cultures and ones part in that, etc..own life cycle etc...in
those cases one can relax and enjoy the show to a greater extent....
while staging to avoid the train wrecks as much as possible...

Well, if you and I live to 100 (like you said) we can watch the world addapt or suffer, and if I die in the next 5-10 years, then I won't have to watch the world suffer (and I won't have to worry about you, either, heh, heh, hen).

(pardon my cynicism)


Your chances for getting struck by lightning are independent of your age.

Yes, but lesser shocks will not harm a healthy person, but will kill
an older one...

Up to a point. Also, depends on circumstances.

my point is the background issue, in this case age, is

senior to the incidental assaults by and large.

Older people have had, usually, some prior experience with stress-disaster
and that gives them some advantage. First experiences with disaster or
personal tragedy are the hardest to deal with. Also, for people who are
accustomed to "everything going right all the time" a personal tragedy can
be traumatic. Most of what I've read indicate that when people are
overconfident, the tragedy is more serious. Age is a great teacher.

thats all correct....

Thank you.




I said to a guy once "Smoking that cigarete is bad for you" he said
"Sonny, I'm 90 years old and smoke a pack a day, now what the hell are you
talking about?" and I had to rethink my understanding of what science is
about.

there are many exceptions...the bullet proof rule though is that age
is fatal

Well, the point I was trying to make is that "cigarettes kill" but only if
you look at populations. There is no doctor or scientist that can stick
probes into you and read on a meter "remaining life: X years, Y days, and
Z hours-mins." Only when they detect something like terminal cancer which
is very malignant and very high speed, can they say "OK you have 2-6
months." My father got this, and he lasted about 3-4 months. Your other
accurate target is fatal heart attack that can last from seconds to hours
and end with you going cold. tsk, tsk?

Yeah, something is going to _get_ all of us, sooner or later. I almost got
killed in a truck accident back in March. Had my eyes been looking
somewhere else, I would not have had those 300 milliseconds to decide to
steer my car one lane to the left (which took about 3/4+ of another second
to do) to avoid a 18-wheeler that was tipping over because of a
mis-judgement by its driver.


I hit a big tin of whatever on my motorcycle today at about 60 mph...
it was full of something, hit my foot solidly but nothing broken.

You're supposed to look for those things and steer AROUND them, not ask for trouble.

one of my business buddies got off of his harley two years ago after
hitting a rock, at about 120 mph, landed astraddle a barbed wire fence
and was gutted head to toe...in the hospital for months..one hell of a
gutzy guy... he's back now with his stomach still an open wound... got
back on his harley a month or so ago. :) tony S.

I don't do that stuff. 8-|

I think you have to come up with examples here, not generalizations.

I dont need to, I will rely on your own observatons...those
suffice...our failed educational system, and corporate corruption have
grossly negative background effects.

Well, I think we can discuss a lot of factors. I read a lot of history
these days. Wars happen. Trends change countries. Idiots get into
positions of power and get "bright" ideas. And, most of the time its the
underlings that suffer, become impoverished, bleed, and die, or some
combination thereof.

ezzacty...and that is driven by the larger cycles ..birth, viability,
decay, death etc..at the end we elect complete idiots of course, no
brains left.


And, so, my present, tentative, strategic plan is.....CYA.

Latest snot out of the media is that Paulson failed to get China's
cooperation on trade issues. Bad news in my book. Next big snot is: our
military is now getting very worried about China's military build up
(atomic subs, ICBMs) and we're back to the Taiwan card.

Our own CIA in a rare fit of truthfullness produced its 5, 10. 15 year
projections declaring china to be the worlds next super power... and
its true no doubt...

Ever hear of Nicolo Machiavelli?

its also true that it will last about one
generation...then enter its own decay cycle.

All empires in the past have come and gone. Sooner or later.

Right now I'm reading the book "The Course of Empire" by John Glubb. Focused on the Arab Empire (700-1000 AD, at the time, the largest empire in the world).




I'm glad I live 40 miles from the nearest ground zero. And, D.C. is 120
miles west of me.

Bermuda?

Southern Delaware (some call it: Delawhere?)

that would be safe.

Wifey and I were there ten years ago: in a musemu there, they said it was sinking into the ocean. In 200 years it will be gon. Not my problem. :-)

I am currently in SF calif. we will be partying as calif breaks off
into the pacific ocean.

Um.... how about this: get the *** to the east of the fault line....at least couple hundred miles. My free advice. Might save your life. Or, do you like to live dangerously?




Phil Scott




the actual cause a base of broad spectrum decay of which loopy
education is only a part at that.

Over the centuries though doomsayers are generally wrong...
especially in the mid phase in a national life cycle... at the end
cycle the doomsayers may be half or totally right... in Russia many
suffered recently, probably half did OK, and 10% did well.

Underlings almost always suffer. And, they are in the majority. Old story.

it will not be even that bad for the USA imho...just a bit nassty for
the old folk dependent on minimal fixed incomes...for yourself with a
wife, and both with dual retirements and a paid off home... you should
do more than fine.

We have a modest lifestyle and our resources cover our costs. Our only new
purchase items are our cars and we don't get new cars until the old ones
wear out. Practically everything else we buy is used except for food. We
know people who are better off, and some that are worse off. I am
thankful.

On the issue of used food :) you in particular will get a big kick
out of a movie called 'the yes men'.. a true story, much of the film
from actual presentations to business and govt etc...

it involves the use research showing that a hamburger once eaten and
passed still has recoverable protein... this got serious consideration
for a large group of fast food companies as the seminar leader
(spoofing) presented the notion seriously to the most ludicrous
levels.

a real eye opener.

it is no doubt on CD for rent.
www.yesmen.commaybe the relevant web site. or could be .org etc.

Phil Scott

Currently however we are fortunate that US corporations due to
downsizing and outsourcing have run thier net profits up by 400% or so
in many cases, and the tax on that has funded a good part of govt.....
not sufficiently though to prevent us from going into even *deeper
debt.

Well, we could send letters to Bush and suggest that he execute an
executive order to privatize the USA and then let all the top executives
loot the whole damned country. Especially since you can find in all the
criminology books reference to more crookery among the executives than the
general public AND more tax evasion among the rich.

We are being hosed to the max now...most of it not known, insider
trading mostly to the tune of trillions in fraud, and the derivitives
mess to near limitlessness.

I am (also) bothered by the widespread manipulation, plunder,
exploitation, tax evasion, fraud, dishonesty, and general shenanigans
carried out by people mostly in the upper 1% layer of our socio-economic
spectrum. I just call them (including CEOs) a bunch of crooks.

is currently hitting the wall also.

there is a limit to how much one can viably value a pile of lumber,
nails and paint, regardless its location... in Calif over 400,000 are
on the auction block..with urgent legislation on the table to forstall
forclosures while home 'owners' arrange refinancing... however many
will be unable to do that with a falling real estate market and middle
class jobs fast evaporating.

I'm not going to disagree with this one. The question is how much
spillover it will cause the rest of society. The polls are still out on
this.

the lower middle class will get nailed, over worked...the former
middle class will join them in spots...others will escape the
carnage..the upper classes will mostly coast..along with most of
govt... the tax base will collapse, the ability of the USA to dominate
the world militarily will fade fast, especially as china develops its
satelite imobilization technology.

I mostly agree.

that spins in.

Govt will try to prevent that.
Meantime the chinese are funding a good share of the cheap mortgage
offers you hear about on the radio... loans to keep the owners in the
property, but 100% title goes to the lender if he defaults ...and of
course with US manufacturing going overseas fast, and mid range talent
being imported from mexico and china...many of those post middle class
folks will be woiking for a lot less...and will default regardless..

Each stage of default causes the banks to loose equity,



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