The differences between 1929 and Today

[lehighguy]

Someone elses words, but good.

MattTheSkywalker
Member Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: NY / Palm Beach
Posts: 5,303



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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Diabolical Biz Markie
FWIW,

We've been through this before, with people predicting gloom and doom for the US economy. The "Great Reckoning" which sounds like it might be MTS's favorite book, was written in the early 90s (maybe before...but I remember reading it in the early 90s).

never read it. Empire of Debt, that's a good book.



Quote:
Japan was going to own all the US, and we were all going to be broke.

If you think this is the same, you misunderstood conditions then and now.

Japan in the late 80s was even dumber than we were. Deflation at home killed them and they sold their trophy US assets at fire sale prices. Do you imagine the oil kingdoms experiencing deflation? Is world demand for oil ebbing? I wish....but no, it's not. So these people will still certainly invest in the US just not in the government debt, which is what we've counted on for so long.

The two largest shareholders in our largest bank are Arabs. Nothing to see here? maybe not. But when the board was ushering CEO Chuck Prince out, they had to brief Riyadh. At best, this is unusual. A sign? I don't know.

Two bailouts in less than 20 years tells me that something stinks. The US never went to the Japanese for a bailout. The Japanese were over-reaching, proud of their re-ascent, and they paid for their hubris. Arabs are not the late 80s Japanese, and oil wasn't $90+a barrel then either.

Nor was the dollar at its lowest ever value in the late 80s. Nor was a productive segment of our society retiring en masse. And our debt loads were a few trillion lighter.

Otherwise, it was exactly the same.