Faber: Brace for a Global 'Reboot' and a War

[abelenkpe]

Faber: Brace for a Global 'Reboot' and a War

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44031717

Markets could rebound after Thursday's global market sell-off, but investors should see any bounce as a selling opportunity, as the world economy rolls towards total collapse, Mark Faber, editor and publisher of the Boom, Doom and Gloom Report, told CNBC Friday.

A mooted third round of quantitative easing (QE3) in the U.S. and more money printing elsewhere is merely deferring a crisis that will be bigger and could end in war, Faber said.


The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its worst losses in three years Thursday, shedding more than 500 points.

"My view is that the market has experienced everywhere huge technical damage," Faber said. "As of today, all markets are extremely oversold, so a rebound is going to happen (Friday) or on Monday, but the damage technically is so great that the rebound, no matter whether QE3 happens right here, it's unlikely to lift markets above the May 2 high of the (S&P 500)

(more at link)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I do not agree with this guy much of the time, but it does seem like there are a lot of gloomy forecasts out there for the global economy.

[ixion]

1. the sound of a train in the distance... the sound of inevitability

Get ready. It's going to be a rough ride.

[MADem]

2. Jesus, The Sky is Falling. If there's a war--a real war, not a major police action--there will be

full employment. No worries about where the rent check is coming from, it's Uncle Sam to the rescue. Too old or fat to fight? Off you go to the manufacturing sector! Work double shifts, and save for a rainy day!

Never worry about those government bonds, you may not live to spend them! And what goes down, must, too, bounce back up, unless, of course, we lose.

We haven't seen "real war"--war where the entire nation, not just a small segment, sacrifices on a daily basis--since WW2. That's not to say that some families didn't get the shit end of the stick in Korea, VN, Gulf 1 and 2, Iraq and Afghanistan, but this nation hasn't been on a war footing since the period between 1941 and 45.

I think this guy enjoys being a bit hyperbolic. We need to do the Great Depression routine first. Then we 'war' our way out of it, if it ever even comes to that. And we either win, or learn Chinese. Kiss your internet goodbye if we lose, though--those Chinese don't cotton to folks getting all political and revolutionary on the internet--they're the ones who call those shots!

[indurancevile]

14. we're already doing the great depression routine. 15% of the country on food stamps,

9.1% unemployment and the labor force participation rate continuing to decline.



United States Labor Force Participation Rate 1948-2010.

Labor Force Participation Hits New Low

The labor force participation rate, the share of Americans who are working or looking for jobs, declined to 63.9% in July from 64.1% a month earlier, the Labor Department said Friday. July’s numbers were a new low for the measure, which has dropped during the recession and slow recovery to its lowest percentage since the early 1980s.

The employment-population ratio, the share of the working-age population that is employed, showed a similar trend. It, ticked down to 58.1% from 58.2% in June, another new low for this downturn.

“July 1983–a time when American feminism was only halfway born–was the last time we saw an employment-to-population ratio this low,” Brad DeLong, a University of California, Berkeley, economist wrote Friday.

When participation falls it’s an indication that Americans have grown discouraged about their chances of finding jobs and have given up looking. That’s a particular concern during this downturn when long-term unemployment has been prevalent.

Falling labor force participation does make the official unemployment rate fall: With fewer Americans searching for jobs, the rate can fall even amid slow job creation. A broader measure of unemployment, which includes those who want to work but have given up looking, stood at 16.1% in July.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/08/05/labor-force-participation-hits-new-low/


and we're already doing the war thing -- on at least 5 fronts. that we're not on a "total war" footing is because the us economy is so many times more productive than it was in 1940.

too bad we're wasting all that productivity on killing people.

[MADem]

15. There is absolutely NO valid comparison between then and now.

There is no draft--if this nation was on a genuine "war" footing, every single person in America could not go a single day without being involved in the war in some fashion--through recycling, rationing, or their work. Every single American would know someone who was in uniform. Every single family would have someone involved in the defense industry, either as a worker, servicemember, or home guard.

9 percent unemployment is CHILD's play compared to the Great Depression. We'd need to get to 25 percent before you could start making comparisons.

No one's suggesting that life is particularly good right now, but these bogus comparisons with what happened in the decade after 1939 are just not accurate. It's going to have to get one helluva lot worse before we can begin to see any kind of equivalency.

[MADem]

19. I meant 1929 in that last paragraph, but my old fingers failed me.... nt

[indurancevile]

20. There were only 4 Depression years when UE went over 20%.

1929: 3.2
1930: 8.9%
1931: 16.3%

1932: 24.1%
1933: 24.9%
1934: 21.7%
1935: 20.1%

1936: 16.9%
1937: 14.3%
1938: 19%
1939: 17.2%

http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html

July 2008: 5.8
July 2009: 9.4
July 2010: 9.5
July 2011: 9.2


http://www.ncsl.org/?tabid=13307


Add another 5-7% to that for discouraged workers & the fact that people on welfare or SSI disability are not counted as unemployed & we are well into Depression territory so far as unemployment goes.


As for war footing, as I said before, the economy is several-fold more productive than the economy of 1940, & technology has changed to enable war to be conducted with a lower percent of population (think of drone bombings).

[MADem]

22. And there were only a couple of years back then when it was under ten percent.

And you can't even count 1929--things were swell that year, until they weren't, and the crash happened in OCTOBER, fachrissake. I don't buy your figure fudging, either. The census reports were even less accurate then than they are now, and they weren't counting hobos living under bridges, uncles (even whole families) living in the back room without the landlord's knowledge because they had no place to go, or people who just stayed on the move, mooching from relative to relative (a very common practice). Back then, the "social programs" did not consist of welfare, or "unemployment insurance," or even "social security disability"--you moved in with your family, if you were lucky enough to have a relative that you could mooch off of. That was the place you went where they had to take you in. And women were NEVER listed as "unemployed." Their employment status was "At Home"--i.e., housekeeping--even if they had lost their jobs. And speaking of employment, FDR put an AWFUL lot of people to work--who were counted as "employed" -- in the WPA, CCC and the like. When you look at those numbers, and then consider the hoardes of people engaged in "make work" jobs, those numbers you cite were much worse.

Superb levels of productivity, even if we're engaged in global police actions around the world, do not in and of themselves produce a "war footing." Back in the dark ages, our productivity relative to ANYTHING--from making cars to ice cream--sucked, because we didn't have fancy assembly lines and robotics. We had to use slow, clumsy people for everything. Just because productivity is "better" does not invest the American people in any sort of "war front." When we're on a war footing, it means all our children who are not disabled are in uniform, we're working in the defense industry, we're sacrificing (foodstuffs, fuel, luxury products) in order that all resources go to support the war, and what happened in the war is the top headline in every news report.

You can note that USA spends the most on "police military action" around the globe, but your chart does NOT note that there are other nations that spend much, much more of their GDP on their own militaries than we do--and they aren't policing the world, either. We're right behind China and just ahead of Libya and Russia, at Number 24. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html

You can play with numbers all day, but the bottom line is this--the situation we find ourselves in now, while not a bed of roses, is absolutely NOTHING like the fresh hell of the Great Depression. It's just not on to pretend it is. Americans starved to death during that ugly decade, and died from simple, curable conditions. There were no emergency rooms you could go to and not pay; you called the local MD, he came to your house, and you paid him. If you couldn't pay, you didn't call.

It's not a valid comparison. I can't imagine why people claim it is, and some here even seem to WANT it to be so. That was a tough time in our nation's history, and things will have to get a LOT worse before there's any sense of equivalency.

[indurancevile]

23. duplicate

[indurancevile]

24. 1929 is considered the first year of the Depression.

I don't buy your figure fudging, either.

I fudged no numbers.

The census reports were even less accurate then than they are now,

The UE information we have for the depression came mainly from BLS extrapolations from samples of business establishments. There was no national yearly census collecting unemployment figures. The rest of your comments are therefore irrelevant.

http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/meltzer/maremp93.pdf


Back then, the "social programs" did not consist of welfare, or "unemployment insurance," or even "social security disability"--you moved in with your family,

I didn't claim they did. And moving in with family/friends still happens. What do you think those "discouraged workers" not counted as unemployed are doing? But since the primary method of estimating unemployment during the depression was surveys of business establishments, it doesn't matter.

And women were NEVER listed as "unemployed."

They were if they had been working and lost their jobs, within the constraints of survey methods of the time. Most women didn't work in the paid workforce to begin with.

FDR put an AWFUL lot of people to work--who were counted as "employed" -- in the WPA, CCC and the like.

who were NOT counted as employed. Who were counted as UNEMPLOYED.

Michael Darby maintains that official figures vastly overstate unemployment between 1931 and 1942 because they improperly count millions of workers supported by federal work relief programs as unemployed. He argues that these jobs were substantially fulltime and paid competitive wages, so these workers should be counted as government employees.

Michael R. Darby, “Three-and-a-Half Million U.S. Employees Have Been Mislaid: Or, an Explanation of Unemployment, 1934-1941,” Journal of Political Economy 84, no. 1 (February 1976): 1-16.

http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/dah_08/dah_08_04314.html

The fact is that U-6 is much closer to the way unemployment was measured in the 1930s, & U-6 unemployment has been over 10% since 2008, and over 15% since 2009.

http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp


Furthermore, while wages still rose during the Depression, they are falling today.

http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/docs/meltzer/maremp93.pdf


Superb levels of productivity, even if we're engaged in global police actions around the world, do not in and of themselves produce a "war footing."

Increased productivity lets us maintain 200 bases around the world & fight a 5-front war & a "war on terror" without having to choose between guns & butter. You didn't understand the point.

Unless there's a resource crash, we will NEVER be on a war footing such as in WW2. So if you're waiting for that, you'll wait a long time. Nevertheless, we are currently engaged in world war.

there are other nations that spend much, much more of their GDP on their own militaries than we do--and they aren't policing the world, either.

1) Those numbers are from all different years & are not directly comparable to each other.

2) The number from the US is from 2005. Here are recent, directly comparable numbers from the world bank. China is 2%, the US is 4.7%.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS

3) The other outliers in the CIA factbook are mainly US allies like Saudi Arabia & Israel, whose militaries are directly subsidized by the US.

4) It's not surprising that small, poor countries spend a higher % of their GDP than the US. When we were a smaller, poorer country it cost us a higher percent of our GDP to fight wars too. That's why we were spending over 40% of GDP during WW2 while we are mounting a bigger effort today with a much smaller % of GDP & our spending = half the world's military spending.

That's where the productivity gains come in.

We will NEVER again be on a "war footing" such as occurred in WW2 -- when nearly HALF our GDP went to the war effort, unless there's a resource crash or complete economic breakdown.

You can play with numbers all day, but the bottom line is this--the situation we find ourselves in now, while not a bed of roses, is absolutely NOTHING like the fresh hell of the Great Depression.

In terms of unemployment & percent of the population on relief, it most certainly is.

I don't know where you live, but there is a homeless camp three blocks from my house, campers & tents parked in people's yards with people living in them, a noticeable number of foreclosed empty houses in my neighborhood, and soup lines at our local relief agencies. And this is a small town, and I have never seen anything like it in all the years I've lived here.

[MADem]

25. OK, the Federal FY starts in OCTOBER.

But whatever. The 1929 figure needs to be tossed. It doesn't suggest a "low" unemployment rate during the Depression. It is a garbage figure, because it documents the year BEFORE the crash.

The census DID collect "work" information during the Depression. They asked some very salient questions about work, and even started collecting decent information on female employment starting with the 1940 census. Previous to that, on many census collections, women who were not working (even as a consequence of losing their job) were characterized as "at home" and kids who didn't have jobs were "at school."

What do bases have to do with this discussion? We've closed more bases in Germany alone over the last thirty years than we've fired up in Afghanistan. We haven't had to choose between guns and butter since WW2. Our military strategy is based upon power projection and has been since TR came up with the Big Stick concept. Bases have been part of the infrastructure for a long, LONG time--they aren't new. In fact, our bases now are way more 'portable' than the behemoths we used to build.

Don't start talking bases and trying to deflect the conversation from that "war footing" we are NOT on. When the Chinese lob a few missiles over the horizon, and a draft is reinstituted, THEN we'll be on that "war footing" but not before.

Did you actually read that link you provided? It bears out everything that I told you previously about employment figures, the census and so on. Wages went up because the Alphabet Soup programs paid a fine wage, relatively speaking. People (my relatives included) went off to build dams or cut down trees and their wages, save a stipend, got sent home to their parents, so they could get by.


And the second link you provided is an apples and oranges listing, and it ALSO proves my point--didn't you read the notes? How much "peacekeeping" does China or any other nation do? Not as much as WE do, I can tell you that. We pay most of the bills when it comes to that kind of thing, it's called paying the cost to be the boss (to quote BBKing). How big is their space program relative to ours? How about their Foreign Military Sales/Training? They're WAY behind the curve on that relative to us. And they sure as hell aren't footing the bills for multinational engagements and agencies to the pace we are, either. They are using the NATO standard (we throw a load of money at those guys) to arrive at their figures, but the bulk of their categories have diddly to do with making war. Most of them are "presence" positions, not warfighting (which includes policing and peacekeeping, which generally happen to prevent wars or after wars--not before), AND MILAID--training and FMS, which we do much more of than any other nation, and of course, the space program, which takes up a huge chunk of change:

Military expenditures data from SIPRI are derived from the NATO definition, which includes all current and capital expenditures on the armed forces, including peacekeeping forces; defense ministries and other government agencies engaged in defense projects; paramilitary forces, if these are judged to be trained and equipped for military operations; and military space activities. Such expenditures include military and civil personnel, including retirement pensions of military personnel and social services for personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; military research and development; and military aid (in the military expenditures of the donor country).

Nato calls their annual spring carnival a "military exercise," so you can't really use their definitions with any reliability or authority. And it is in SIPRI's interest (they had a hand in creating these figures) to try to make everything and anything a "military" expenditure, even when the connection is lame (the PI in SIPRI stands for "Peace Institute" so we're not talking unbiased figures, here). I'm sure they're even including IMPACT AID funding to school districts in their figures (which compensate school districts near military bases for added dependent attendance, because the people on base aren't paying property taxes). They're including everything from military pensions to pap smears for dependent wives in their figures, so why not that as well?

As I have said before, NO ONE is saying that times are not rough right now, but hyperbolic comparisons to the Great Depression are just horribly inaccurate, disrespectful to the actual history of the US, and they demonstrate a lack of knowledge as to the real depth and pain of that era. We have a LONG way to go before we are mired into anything as deep and pervasive as the decade before WW2. And thank heavens for that.

[indurancevile]

26. i think we'll have to agree to disagree.

The fact is, U-6 unemployment is at 16%, four years after the recession started. And it's been at over 15% for two years, and over 10% for 4 years. Those are depression-era numbers.

[MADem]

27. I did not "ignore" your links. You may want to reread them because they support my thesis.

Also, your GDP data, aside from being "catch-all" is strictly open source. I think, despite the bias from the opposite POV, I find the CIA data more viable, or at least closer to reality.

You're the one who needs to actually read the sources you cite, not me. You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

But have a nice day.

[indurancevile]

28. U-6 has been over 10% for 4 years & is currently at 16%.

Those are depression-era numbers.

Sorry you don't get it.

1. The GDP data is from the World Bank, not "open source" whatever you may mean by that.

2. Workers in FDRs work relief programs were counted as UNEMPLOYED, not employed, thereby overstating unemployment in that regard. As opposed to your contention.

3. There was a decennial census (10-year) only. There was no yearly national census, nor any yearly census of unemployment, nor were there regular state censuses in most states.

Which is why I stated: There was no national yearly census collecting unemployment figures.

Here's a cite which makes the point more clearly:

August 1940, Review of Economic Statistics, Estimates of Unemployment in the United States

No continuous register of unemployment exists; monthly & yearly censuses are not available, and those which we do have are invariably incomplete in coverage; no comprehensive unemployment figures are available; direct accurate measurements of population by age & sex do not exist for intercensal periods.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.2307/1926605?mlt=true


Females WERE counted as unemployed, contra your contention. Here's the 1930 DECENNIAL census showing females counted as unemployed:

http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/03453339v2ch4.pdf


The next census was in 1940; DECENNIAL census, get it? There were a couple of "special" unemployment censuses, but as I said before, THERE WAS NO YEARLY CENSUS OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

Unemployment figures for the period in-between came from a variety of sources, the main one being the BLS survey of business establishments -- NOT HOUSE-TO-HOUSE CENSUS asking "are you employed"? Get it?

[MADem]

29. No, you're not entitled to your own facts. Have a nice day. NT

[indurancevile]

30. anyone can see that it's you insisting on your own facts.

Those are depression-era numbers.

Sorry you don't get it.

1. The GDP data is from the World Bank, not "open source" whatever you may mean by that.

2. Workers in FDRs work relief programs were counted as UNEMPLOYED, not employed, thereby overstating unemployment in that regard. As opposed to your contention that unemployment numbers would have been even higher if not for those programs.

3. There was a decennial census (10-year) only. There was no yearly national census, nor any yearly census of unemployment, nor were there regular state censuses in most states.

Which is why I stated: THERE WAS NO NATIONAL YEARLY CENSUS COLLECTING UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1672682&mesg_id=1682032

You saw a mention of the 1940 decennial census & a massachussets state census in my first link. To you, that "proves" census workers were out asking questions about unemployment every year, and that ue figures came from the census. it's false.

Here's a cite which makes the point more clearly:

August 1940, Review of Economic Statistics, Estimates of Unemployment in the United States

No continuous register of unemployment exists; monthly & yearly censuses are not available, and those which we do have are invariably incomplete in coverage; no comprehensive unemployment figures are available; direct accurate measurements of population by age & sex do not exist for intercensal periods.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.2307/1926605?mlt=true


4) Females WERE counted as unemployed, contra your contention. Here's the 1930 DECENNIAL census showing females counted as unemployed:

http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/03453339v2ch4.pdf


The next census was in 1940; DECENNIAL census, get it? There were a couple of "special" unemployment censuses, but as I said before, THERE WAS NO YEARLY CENSUS OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

Unemployment figures for the period in-between came from a variety of sources, the main one being the BLS survey of business establishments -- NOT HOUSE-TO-HOUSE CENSUS asking "are you employed"? Get it?


That makes 4 items in which you are insisting on your own facts.

You also insist on your own statistical methods; claiming there's validity in comparing country a's spending in 2003 with country b's spending in 2010, and that that is "better" than comparing spending in the same year.

You've got some nerve. You must work in politics, because you're spinning like a fucking top.

I repeat: U-6 unemployment is the measure closest to the definition of unemployment during the great depression. It's been over 10% for 4 years & over 15% for two years.

Spin away, that's the facts.

And we will never be on a war footing such as we were during ww2 short of a global economic breakdown or a collapse of resources. Because our economy is multiple times more productive & in fact has about 30% unused capacity.

You don't get it. And more than that, you don't want to get it. The only thing propping this mess up is unemployment insurance, social security, welfare, food stamps, & supplemental security income. and prisons.

If not for those things, this would be WORSE than the great depression. and when the rest of the austerity programming hits, with more cuts to government jobs, running out of UE extensions, early parole because prisons are strapped, denials of state-level benefits -- IT WILL BE.

[MADem]

31. You keep trying to compare then and now--there is no comparison. And your data is bad.

The open source data IS the GDP data, which was obtained by the World Bank using the "NATO" standard from the Stockholm Peace Institute people, which...if you pull the string, you will find IS indeed OPEN SOURCE data. Check the Peace Institute--they say so right on their website. Now, if you think that governments put all their defense accounting on the table for you or the Stockholm Peace Institute to dig through, I have a bridge for sale cheap.


No one said there was a yearly employment census on a national level, but many cities and states did census collections in the off-years.

I do know this--I have female relatives who lost jobs after the crash, and they were listed as "AT HOME" in the 1930 census--not unemployed.

I also know that the people working the alphabet soup jobs at forty bucks a month were supporting a lot of people for that amount of money in many cases. Those jobs were prized because not only did money go back home from them, it also removed a mouth to feed from the family dinner table. And there was no unemployment or welfare, so that was IT if you were lucky enough to have a kid or two in the program. If not, you had to throw yourself on the mercy of the St. Vincent de Paul Society or some other religious organization....or STARVE.

You're the one who doesn't get it. You seem to want to believe, for some odd, perhaps romanticized reason, that the degree of hardship is the same now as it was back then--it's NOT. Not even close. If you lost your job and didn't have family or friends to take you in back then, you were SCREWED. There was no unemployment, welfare, transitional assistance, or public housing back then--it's why there were so many hobos and people who lived on the road and children suffering from rickets and genuine starvation--they had no other choice. Now, there are state agencies, local agencies, and federal agencies that will provide assistance to people in need. It may not be much, it may not be enough, but it's better than nothing.

Your efforts at comparing the two situations are just NOT taken. Sorry. I don't agree with you. One more time, have a nice day.

[indurancevile]

32. U-6 has been over 15% for two years. That's good data, which you chose to ignore.

You insist on your own facts, and now you're talking about "suffering", shifting the grounds because you've been proven wrong on 4 points.

I said we are in depression era conditions and specifically cited unemployment & percent on relief. Those are facts. "suffering" is not quantifiable. UNEMPLOYMENT & PERCENT ON RELIEF ARE, AND WE'RE IN DEPRESSION TERRITORY.

you have a nerve. you were wrong about 1) females not being counted as unemployed; 2) workers in jobs programs being counted as employed; 3) census data being the basis for unemployment figures; 4) gdp

and you just can't admit it.

& now 5) open source.

Open source doesn't mean anyone can go in & change the data. it means:

"The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

It means they show the basis for their calculations so anyone can check their numbers and assumptions. Unlike the cia calculations.

The Foreign Policy Think Tank Index ranked SIPRI as the #3 non-U.S. think tank in the world in 2009.<1>

Research is conducted at SIPRI by an international staff of about 40 researchers and research assistants.

Within these fields of study, workshops, conferences, seminars and lectures are organized in order to bring together a broad spectrum of expertise and to exchange views on subjects studied at the Institute. SIPRI research projects maintain large databases on military expenditure, arms-producing industries, arms transfers, chemical and biological warfare, national and international export controls, arms control agreements, annual chronologies of major arms control events, military manoeuvres and nuclear explosions. SIPRI hosts the FIRST (Facts on International Relations and Security Trends) online database of security-relevant information at http://first.sipri.org.
Publications and Information

SIPRI’s publications and information material are distributed to a wide range of policy makers, researchers, journalists, organizations and the interested public. The results of the research are disseminated through the publication of books and reports by SIPRI and commissioned authors as well as through symposia and seminars. The Institute has forged its profile by concentrating on present-day realities, providing unbiased facts to states and individuals. SIPRI’s main publication, the SIPRI Yearbook, was first published on 12 November 1969. The Yearbook serves as a single authoritative and independent source to which politicians, diplomats and journalists can turn for an account of what has happened during the past year in armaments and arms control, armed conflicts and conflict resolution, security arrangements and disarmament. It is translated into a number of other languages, notably Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese and Arabic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_International_Peace_Research_Institute

[MADem]

33. Look, this is going nowhere. I don't agree with your figures, I do not

agree with your arguments, and your efforts at comparing then and now are rife with inaccurate assumptions.

One more time--have a nice day. Have the last word if you'd like, but I don't agree with your numbers. Life is not peachy. That said, we're not in a Depression yet, never mind a "Great" one (where that 'suffering' you dismiss was a big part of the whole experience, like it, or not)--no matter how much you seem to want that to be so.

[indurancevile]

34. lol. wrong about open source, wrong about everything, think personal anecdotes

trump THE ACTUAL DATA.

it's just laughable, amazing.

They're not MY figures. They're Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.

Just amazing. Unbelievable.

It's going nowhere because you can't admit you're wrong. Your lack of agreement doesn't change the facts. and i'm the only one who's presented any, with citations.

15% of the population on food stamps. 1/3 of the state of alabama on food stamps. 63% labor participation rate, 16% U-6 unemployment.

more cuts in government jobs coming. cuts in the safety net coming. corporate layoffs continuing.

you don't get it, and your snide remarks about my supposed "bad data" are bullshit, as are your snide comments about suffering.

You have been wrong in 5/5 claims.

[MADem]

35. Good night. nt

[fascisthunter]

42. well done!

[Selatius]

37. This isn't the 1930s. The US no longer possesses the industrial capacity to fight WW2 again.

Most of the factories outside of true heavy industries like steel mills and ore processing centers and car manufacturing plants were outsourced to countries like China decades ago. We lack the infrastructure to mobilize for such a massive war in a quick amount of time, and it would take several years to build that stuff from scratch. At least in 1941, the US had massive industrial capacity on hand to be used the day after Pearl Harbor. Hell, we can't even manufacture consumer electronics beyond a trivial amount without relying on China or some other third world dictatorship, and we're somehow expecting the US to mass-produce military-grade electronics on a scale not seen since World War 2?

[hifiguy]

3. If there is a war

let's make sure that the greedheads that sent us to hell in this handbasket are the first to reap the whirlwinds:

[dissidentboomer]

12. Yep. I'll help.

:evilgrin:

[indurancevile]

36. there are 7 wars: iraq, afghanistan, somalia, libya, yemen, war on terror &

war on the american people.

[saveferris]

4. I believe 'Reboot', but...

War?

Who whom? The rich? China? Burkina Faso? Who are we going to war with?

What the hell exactly is he talking about...war?

[abelenkpe]

5. Good question.

He is known as mr gloom and doom.

:shrug:

[Pab Sungenis]

6. I think we're already on the brink of another civil war.

I consider the last several years to have been the Civil Cold War. And if Sharron Angle gets her Second Amendment Remedies, it's going to become a hot war.

Right now I just don't know whether it's going to be along political or class lines, but I expect an outright civil war could very well come in the next few years.

[abelenkpe]

7. YIkes

I hope not. :(

But things definitely are bubbling up dangerously.

[dissidentboomer]

13. It could start as a political 'war' but, if it starts, it WILL become a class war.

}(

[socialist_n_TN]

18. I agree and I'm planning on doing my part

to turn it that way. They'd better be careful what they wish for. I'm currently reading Trotsky's "The History of the Russian Revolution" and one thing stands out. WWOne was a HUGE factor in radicalizing the citizens of Russia against the Tsar and FOR the Bolsheviks.

[dissidentboomer]

38. Yep. War would turn folks red faster than a depression.

[MADem]

16. Naaaah, not even close. nt

[roamer65]

8. I agree with Faber.

I can't explain it, but this must be the feeling people had in 1937 and 1938. One relative told me you could just "feel" a war was coming back then, but the only question was when and where it would start.

[Lorien]

9. Maybe we should be worried about December 2012?

The sick part about it all is that NONE of it had to happen. Regulation and responsibility from the wealthiest, along with ending wars of choice could have kept the global economy chugging along...but no, greed always wins.

[Sirveri]

10. What if they started a war and no one showed up?

I'm done, I ain't gonna play anymore.

[socialist_n_TN]

17. I agree. Of course I'm old now, so there wouldn't be

any active fighting for me in an imperialistic war, but if it's a civil war, I'm probably on the front lines. The RW doesn't like commies. But to your point, we should all just NOT play.

[DocMac]

11. I sense it too.

The easy things seem hard. Hate is surrounding us. It should have been stopped earlier.

I'm not religious but that has to be the peaceful way. The leaders of faith have to do better than Congress.

Sadly, (for me) religion is the common thread in this fabric.

[krabigirl]

21. More war? I am sure the elites will be happy about that.

[dissidentboomer]

39. They shouldn't be but they are now too greedy and ignorant to know better.

[Skip Intro]

40. Well, I hadn't thought about it, but war does seem like a likely event if economic meltdown does

occur.

Who will fight who? What will be the pretext? Not sure.

[MilesColtrane]

41. Brace for a War

Hmm

That's kind of....vague.

I'll bet he owns a lot of gold.