yeah nice im in new zealand

must say its great value buying rc parts from hong kong at the moment with the nzd being at all time high to usd

our economy is still sucking it at the moment with the global and our earthquakes and our stupid government that sucks up to china

australia seemed to barely take a hit on the last global downturn and recovered really fast

Prolly right, but I don't play that game.

Kicking myself for not taking more out when I knew I should have. Frak. Hate to sell after such a downtrend, hoping for a glimmer of a bottom, but man... its looking dark right now.

Let's see what stupid stuff the Europeans come up with wrt Italy and Spain this weekend.

So......Who bought A123's stock when it was at $20 something lol.

Global Financial Collapse happened a long time ago, but lets play the "Now Moment" as a lot of people think this is something new. Let me explain the now moment as it's only for the people who likes the now and I personally know a few of them. They like to keep themselves occupied with the now BS that they call politics, banks, media, gadgets and so forth. They forget what happened a while back, because they are in the now moment. They think paper money and the folks printing it will last forever. They forgot the Gov. works for the people and not the other way around.

Crap, I like being called old school since in the eyes of the now moment folks, if I don't have one of those fancy new cell phones, they immediately think I don't know jack. The one thing they can't put their little fried brains on is how I can tell them what's going to happen before it does. I remember telling everyone that I know who owns or owned a home to sell almost a year before the mortgage crisis came and all of them said I didn't know what I was talking about, so guess who's laughing now. I also told them and a few here to buy gold and/or silver, but they didn't and when they saw prices go up I just had a smile on my face lol. That Ben guy who runs the Fed. Reserve thinks gold isn't money, I just hope they give the Germans their gold reserve when they ask for it.

But all I wanted to say is, I'll be following this thread :lol:.

Kinda surprised that didn't happen last time when they bundled up some of the lowdoc loans and sold them as securities to somewhere Europe.

I here fresh water is going to be the new gold :oh::yes:

Things tend to never be as bad as the doomsday and naysayer types make out. Life will change however and adjustments will be made. Humans have adapted for thousands of years, no reason that should change now.

The thing is, many of the same people pissing and moaning about the US right now are the same who pushed and assisted us getting into this mess in the first place. You can't be part of the cheer squad then act like you don't know what happened when things go bad then summarily attempt to wash your hands of the deal.

EVERYONE has to take responsibility.

Each individual does carry some amount of responsibility, and they will be put in jail under the right circumstance. Not so with big business and Govt.

Water is one the most precious life giving source that nature provides along with other things needed to support life. Money is the ruler of all evil (Some say religion is too, but lets stick with money) and has been that way since humans stopped trading goods. Could us so called intelligent nature destroying humans go back to the simple ways?

bottled water is already more expensive than petrol milk or coke where i am

Are you talking about China? lol

I'm actually thinking the bottom may be about near. Things suck, but this is not 2008.

What funny is this year has practically been a repeat of 2010. Big run up in spring, peak in April. Doldrums in the summer, late summer panic, and Sept 1 marked off a huge bull run thru Q1 of the next year. Honestly, quite a bit of my retirement investment strategy is going off of last year and so far the timing has been brilliant. I wish my short-term investments were going so good, but I think the limitations on selling (must hold 30 days) has worked but better for me, as I've been to early to buy and sell, so I keep missing most of the swings... anyway..

10 yr US treasuries also tanked in last Aug. I refi'ed my house then and the 10yr was 2.6% IIRC and everyone was freaking out about the double dip. As said, turned out to be the coming of a big bull.

The dow has come off a historically bad run. If we're breaking records now, I'm guessing the end is close. Who knows how the yr will play, depends on a lot of idiots with too much power, but looking for a reversal soon coming into Sept.

Our market is one of the first to open tomorrow, so it will be very interesting to see what happens. Predictions are fairly gloomy here...

That may well be coming but not yet. We need to wait for more population growth and for the desalination plants to kill off some oceans.

Them among others.

It's like the parent constantly feeding the spoiled teenager, then when all hell breaks lose, trying to act tough and wash their hands the whole deal.

China has many issues most of the world is unaware of. Labor rates being probably one of the biggest factors. They have a compounding labor rate issue and their attempts at controls of many market factors are backfiring. You simply can't control a capitalist economy with communist governance.

I think more bad news will come, although I don't quite see the doom and gloom some are predicting.

The problem now is that we have to fix the issues and quit pointing fingers. It's irrelevant at this point for the most part.

I think in the US we need to have a constitutional convention and we as the public address these issues which our elected officials can't get hold of.

First off I believe we need to impose term limits along with making some solid rules and definitions of job responsibilities and powers. For people from isolated communities to hold the amount of power they do in congress is insane. We also have to push more responsibility and power back to the state level. No one can fully understand a communities needs better than that community. Being centralized is causing many of our issues today.

One major issue I would like addressed would be to restrict people from running for office while holding an elected office. No company would allow an employee to publicly seek other/better employment all the while giving them a full paycheck and allowing the to work less. All that while using company money and equipment to do it. I think one 6 year term is plenty for a Senator or Representative. If you want to run for another office you either resign or wait until your term is over. No pension other than what you put to your 401k or similar and you pay your own healthcare. They get a base allowance for travel, staff, and expenses and that is it. No government jets period. These costs will automatically be raised by 3% per year and anything over and beyond has to go to a public vote. I would allow the president to run for a second term only with a 2/3rds vote from Congress then it goes to the public vote. This means the Congressional vote only allows him/her to run again, it doesn't elect them.

I would also force a balanced budget amendment. It would hold a provisional clause for borrowing under emergency circumstances only with limits as to percentage of the annual budget and terms of interest and payments. I would also propose that all Foreign aid be the last part of any annual budget and that it not exceed 1% of the total annual budget. I would limit jobless benefits to 6 months and welfare to 1 year. All recipients of government moneys would be required to submit to prescreening random drug screening. I would also cut defense spending as to eliminate the many redundancies and add a reserve provision were a certain percentage of the annual budget is put in case of extra spending for military operations outside the general protection of the US and it's interests. This fund could be accessed under the direction of the President but any operations over a certain amount and scope would require Congressional approval.

Obviously much more is needed but those are my starting points.

Expectations
 

My expectations would be that we finally vote in a president that has some serious business sense who can show a track record for increased profits, and low over head expenses. If we as a nation took a couple of years off from trying to save the rest of the world we would probably see a balanced budget, and "0" debt problems. Most of that $4trillion debt is due to providing aide and military might to other countries. Our foreign agendas used to be for improving benefits from helping these nations. These days I just do not see it. Sure we are helping to calm things down, but to what end? We are losing lives, money and face helping people who want us out of their territories. Will any of this happen? I doubt if we will see any changes that will make a difference before our economy crashes and we are no longer a number one or even a top five economy.