TLDR - It's Starfighter time.

I get that whole analogy and what not and I know what the government is doing in regards to this... however my main question is what happens when this plane smashes into the ground? Besides everyone blaming the Lolwaffles.

A massive mass-expropriation by hyperfinflation.

Breakdown of even the basic communal and social security systems.

Rich nations having been wise to disconnect from the dollar early using the opportunity to claim dominant key positions in the rubble that was and will be again the American economy. Massive shifting of property rights for this economy from America to foreign nations, namely Chinba, and maybe even rich oil Arab nations, Brasil, India.

Repeation of what has been seen in Argentinia, and in euriope in the past centuries. Practically all dominant european nations have gone bancrupt at least once in their past 500 years of history. It resultet always in loss of military dominance, and always was caused ba overstretched military biudgets and war budgets.

A m iulitary, an empire that tries to expand faster than it naturally grows, and spends more than it can produce in wealth by itself, and lives and militarily spends beyond what it can afford, is build on sand. Or it lives as long as there is still some rich new land to conquer and plunder, like a virus consumes an organism. But once the organism is consumed up and dies, so does the virus.

Mass unemployment, exploding poverty, more poorer people, fewer richer people. Cuts in education spending, health, culture. Loss sof global dominant status.

A tremendous immediate power transfer to the Chinese.

A struggling Europe.

A desintegration of transatlantic ties as a result.

Block-building in Asia. And I mean very strong block-building, dominated by the new superpower, China. Europe will financially collapse, and thenm the Union, or the carricature of a union that it is, will desintegrate. I do not rule out new wars and national civil wars in Europe. Not in the next future, but the medium and long term. I expect these European wars not to be fought on the latest hightech level, at least not generally - because nations probabaly will not be able to maintain huge hightech armies for international wars, and civil wars will see at least on of the two sides not having wide access to the nation's hightech armouries.

Many of these single symptoms already have started. It is hard to line out a single linear, causal reaction chain between them. Instead, much happens simultaneously.

Much of it also is a vicious circle that feeds back on its self-dynamic. From one point on, there is no more safe return. And I think that point already has been passed.

It's like a helicopter in a vortex. The more cyclic you apply, the faster you go down.

Certain is just one thing: the rich elites will have better chances to deal with the blow, than the middle class and the poor class. The latter will get caught by the lion's share of the blow.

I also see chance for an alternative scenario which I like even less. And that is that the US turns into a totalitarian and/or military dictatorship. Such a regime most likely will be an extremely isolationistic one, with closed gates in its city walls, and maintaining many hostilities with the world's nation around.

All in all I think we already are beyond Europe's climax. From now on, by trend things will go down - sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Europe's future will be decided - not in Europe. America's fall will hurt it tremendously, and the future reign will be negotiated between the Chinese and the Muslim sphere of power - the one acting with economics, the other with ideology.

Two uncertainties difficult top be assessed here, are these: the consequences and reaction to of the Chinese one-child-policy which is leading to an overaging population there, too, and the success or failure of the Arab states to compensate for the loss of oil reserves by annecting major positions of influence in European industry and hightech corporations. On the first, we have no influence, on the latter we must realise that having Arab inverstors in our key economic companies and big corprorations, is not in our longterm interests, but leaves us defenceless in the future to come.

I hope I'm not being an ******* by saying this, but:


Give the government any kind of money and they will spend it on *cigarettes and beer. To hell with paying the power bill for the month.


* Some countries can still afford to pay for their weapons (and other assorted worthless bull**** items). Other countries have to reign it in a bit to keep their workforce from starving to death.

Nothing ever really changes in human history. :-?

The bigger problem, just how much value did we get for all that debt.
Many studies show right at 40% of what's spent in some way lined the pockets of a very few. Another said studies and committees figuring out how to spend it wasted another 10%...Simply, bunch of lawyers became millionaires, war profit. As long as we have mostly lawyers running government, were screwed.

No doubt this nation will fall as a leading power in the next 20 years, if not less. Most agree another crisis could tumble down in a matter of years, creating levels of poverty that many would be back living like people did in the 1800's, without power and gardening for food.

Sense of urgency is needed to deal with this. Can't possibly expect economic growth to solve this.

I had a chat with as steam friend who claimed to be living in Texas but with altogether different timezone than Texas and a distinctly Singaporean accent though he claimed to be American Thai. Weird thing for an American he was pretty anti American. He said he was glad US dominance is over or going to be over soon.

I know US is not a saint but I'd prefer it much than China dominance.
I really hope this debt crisis can be dealt with. Reduced US influence is inevitable it seems but I don't think you can really ignore it still in the future provided US is well run.

Europe is not exactly in pretty picture as well and Japan may be facing its biggest crisis thanks to the latest Earthquake and nuclear crisis.
The only thing that still looks good is China. It;s worrisome to me. You can't expect pretty things from a government who persecutes their own citizens without second thoughts. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against China people but people in China don't run their government and have no say in it whatsoever. Govt with access to resources draws the kind of people they want or prefer so it becomes a skewed representative or distorted face of the Chinese people in general.

Japan is the biggest in the world. I believe that Germany is the biggest in Europe.

I hear here in Australia that they are worried about the level of debt Australia has accrued, but as a % it's still one of the smallest around in the developed world and is managed reasonably well.

Guess we are lucky to a degree. Many retailers are screaming that people aren't buying from them any more, instead shopping on line or going overseas on trips to buy goods. But the reserve bank doesn't care, people are saving again, credit card growth has almost halted and people are living within their means. Even with low unemployment and good wage growth, people are paying off debts and avoiding accruing new ones.

Yes, this seems to be the sad truth.
I think governments in general will be just as abusive, corrupt, and arrogant as they are allowed to be.

I consider the problem to be even worse than this. If one pays too much for a house or a tractor you may suffer a economic setback, but this will be temporary. And you do benefit from what you have worked for. If you spend a large sum of money gambling and using heroin, you not only have nothing positive to show for it, but have undermined your well being in the long-term.

The U.S. has actually spent huge sums (and incurred enormous debts), in making a shockingly large segment of our population dependant on gov't largess. Now we can neither continue these programs nor readily dismantle them. The worst part of this is that all of it was self-inflicted and completely unnecessary.

That's our government. One only need to study history, government would rather throw crumbs through social programs than solve problems when they arise. Also, many of these programs control people, their lives and vote.

Not to pick on a race, but take what we did to black people, for years racism in one form or the other kept them in poverty. There was a time for real education, legal rights, etc., that would've been a better change. I'm talking in the 30's. These rights were ignored. Those in power thought it better to throw crumbs than give them any power or wealth. Even today only a few percent of black have any generational wealth as whites have passed on for hundreds of years. Instead of the tools and fair laws that were needed, many social programs were created. These often trap people, but if you're starving, you'll take the crumbs.

We did the same thing with health care. We turned it into a system of mass profits for corporations and basically let big insurance create closet
monopolies. Between insurance and pharma, Doctor's now have to treat totally different than what they once did. So, the government provides medicaid/care, etc..if you qualify, but it can't keep up and unsubstainable and in the next 20 years millions of americans will suffer and die due to illness, many do today.

Government will never do the right thing at the right time. They sell out. Even when things crumble, they sell out.

The GOP is creating a two class system under the guise of capitalism, it's sending this nation into wholesale poverty. The Dems being more liberal towards those in poverty want the rich to pay for the basic needs. I'd say they have the higher moral ground, but both routes will doom this nation.

First off I feel the alarm bells have been ringing for sometime. Its like the fire alarm going off in your burning house but you hitting the snooze button on your alarm clock cause your just to comfortable to get up and deal with the impending doom.

One scenario that could happen is a page out of uncle Adolph's playbook.

Switching the US monetary system away from gold and silver to production and introducing a new currency worth nothing outside of our own borders. And just like Adolph watch the world go nuts! Sure America would instantly find itself on a war footing but it stave's off our immediate collapse and if we win the next big one we might be in a whole new position.

Just a thought.

No such thing. As long as we produce goods for export or buy imported goods, there will be a market for American currency.

Say you're a French wine importer. You sell your French wine to American consumers. Since you're in France, you need to be paid in Euros. The American importer sells his dollars for Euros and pays you.

You're an American pharmaceutical manufacturer. You sell your drugs to Thailand. The Thais sell their Baht and buy dollars to settle their accounts with you.

As you can see, any sort of international trade is going to require currency exchange. To shut down all foreign trade would cripple American business, and you'd see a mass exodus from this country. The idea just doesn't work.

QFT. Our economy is worth nothing without interchangeable global currency as a medium. Your idea is like trying to set gas prices with keepsakes that have nothing but sentimental value. We're a powerful economy, to be sure, even a commanding one, but we can't arbitrarily change the currency system on everyone and expect them to oblige us. It just doesn't work that way.

There must always be a perceived equal exchange for economics to work. You can't just arbitrarily change the perception.

too much and you can't blame one party over the other as both are guilty a politician is like a lawyer or a insurance company you know you going get a screwing anyway you go.just like us bailing out the auto's out and wall street when it comes to the auto's they basic price theirselfs out 50k to 60k for a regular pickup,then when the mortage going on wallstreet people said people should pay theirs bills and they wouldnt be losing their homes really who you think just bail your worthless asses out.