Comments on: WE’RE HERE TO TAKE

By: hmm

hmm — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:07:25 +0000

where have I heard that phrase before?

By: m8tix

m8tix — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:11:08 +0000

i got that off the simpsons lol.

By: m8tix

m8tix — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:10:20 +0000

Well I donno about you bit I don’t put much in a comment.

By: Laughing Lidia

Laughing Lidia — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:08:21 +0000

three trillion dollars gone and most people didn’t even notice. Now that’s skill meeting ignorance.

By: nathan

nathan — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:44:09 +0000

That’s Japanese dude.

By: paws4thot

paws4thot — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:18:23 +0000

Will you take brick?

By: linkkb

linkkb — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:38:53 +0000

OH SHI

By: Pandoro

Pandoro — Fri, 15 May 2009 01:15:16 +0000

It remainds me when Argentina declare itself in default. The IMF had warned for a long time:”if you don’t pay, it will be the armagedon”. It’s just too ironic ^^;;

By: Wyde

Wyde — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:50:18 +0000

“You pay later. Later!”
P.S. Didn’t the animated character Totally Look Like Mao Tse-tung?
OT: Was this PolitiLOL supposed to be funny, or just make puppies cry?

By: Grant McKenna

Grant McKenna — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:54:14 +0000

I have wool to trade for ore, anyone?

By: Brenda

Brenda — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:44:12 +0000

This is more true than any of us wish to think!

By: DeathWyrmNexus

DeathWyrmNexus — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:14:59 +0000

On this particular platform, we DO get into political debates and often. Trust me, we got the joke and then kept going like we always do.

By: penguinpilot

penguinpilot — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:09:14 +0000

What I think you all fail to see is that this is suppose to be a joke. Just a light non-serious joke. I mean it’s on a site where you caption funny pictures of stuff like cats. If you want a political talk go to a blog for it. I don’t mean to be offensive to all of you guys (because you probably know a lot more about this stuff than me) but this is a funny picture site. Not everything has a huge political and in-depth meaning. <(^.^<) (>^.^)>

By: Jifeng

Jifeng — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:15:13 +0000

And how much money does US owe the other countruies?

Trillions.

By: anniemcphee

anniemcphee — Thu, 07 May 2009 08:12:36 +0000

From what I’ve read we’re either batting around or actually considering (hope we haven’t done it yet) giving them some eminent domain (a lot of it) here on our soil for the debt. What could go wrong? :O

To the person above, I don’t think China is in all that much trouble anymore – they are moving towards more economic liberty and are on the upswing. Of course without a constitutional basis and individual liberty that can and will come crashing down at some point but it doesn’t *have* to if they play their cards right now. Europe will be in worse shape than China when we take our nosedive.

By: berniebird

berniebird — Thu, 07 May 2009 07:37:04 +0000

Agreed!

By: 1241241541

1241241541 — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:30:27 +0000

ASIAN INVASION

By: george

george — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:14:13 +0000

so your saying an older toyota, is not a good rig? (or of poor quality) i beg to differ. lets say a 80 land cruiser for instance

By: george

george — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:08:41 +0000

cuz we are the richest nation in the world, and the world market depends on the US. besides how much money do other countries owe the US? BILLIONS

By: :)

:) — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:49:38 +0000

Wooow, a conversation on the Internet that doesn’t end by crashing and burning. I may have some hope in humanity after all. xD

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:30:36 +0000

Oh, it does effect the global economy. And the sooner the global economy realizes that, the faster it can rid itself from the burden of the dollar. It is happening already.

But don’t get me wrong, I haven’t taken as a given that the US is going to collapse. Like I said earlier, the best currency is the one backed by gold. But like you’ve said, that is not the general rule in the world economy. So, instead of gold, there needs to be something else to sustain the value of this currency. Things like natural resources and high productivity. The US has neither of these things. Not nearly enough to sustain the rate of US consumption. Consumption is a privilege earned by production and export. This is where the massive debt comes from. And to repay this debt, a lot of dollars are printed. But injecting more paper into circulation will not save the economy. it will only eat away whatever value this paper still has. What the US needs to do is stop spending, especially abroad for all these “overseas contingency operations”, and start working and saving. For example, if the US can create a global standard for hydrogen cars along with infrastructure to support this production and export these cars to the world, this will attract real capital to the US and will restore the US economy. Or something like this. And I have no doubt that there is potential in the US to pull something like this off. You’ve done in it in the 50s and the 60s, it is possible now. But currently, that is not the direction the US economy is heading unfortunately.

By: Dhoti

Dhoti — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:19:19 +0000

It seems like you’ve already taken as a given that the US is going to collapse, and it looks like you’re working backwards from that. (For example, fiat paper and fractional reserve banking — those are both universal in global finance. How do they affect the US any differently than any other country?) But I’m not taking that as a given, so convince me — how does this stuff lead to a dollar bubble, and how does that affect the US without also affecting the global economy?

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:18:21 +0000

In the past 5 years I’ve been to Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. There plenty of Tatas and GWM cars on the roads there. And early Japanese cars were total sh#t, compared to the US cars at that time. And look at the GWM cars. They don’t do them from scratch. They borrow technology from Japanese all the time. They are already much better that several years ago. Just like the Korean cars, they get better, not worse.

I’m not saying I 100% certain of the US economy collapse. I’m just saying that US bankruptcy has a high probability of occurring. But there is no guaranty that it will happen. But the fact is, that the world, as it is, is very unbalanced, and market forces started to work, to reclaim this balance. This has happened many times in history.

But again, I may be completely wrong about this who thing. I hope, I’m wrong, as I live in the US currently and love it. If it goes down, I will need to go through the trouble of moving to China:)

By: Dhoti

Dhoti — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:05:30 +0000

Where have you seen this? I recall more old trucks and pre-SUVs of primarily Japanese origin: Land Cruisers, the Hilux, with the occasional Land Rover. I always assumed it was because they were (a) tough and (b) easy to maintain. Chinese and Indian cars (especially Chinese cars) may be cheap, but that’s it. They certainly don’t look tough, but I don’t know how easy they might be to maintain. I don’t predict major market penetration beyond maybe some metro areas until they get their collective acts together.

You seem to be taking the collapse of the US economy as a given. I think that’s too vague and too far-reaching to really be taken as first principles in this kind of argument (for example, what do you mean? Consumer spending? Industrial spending? The international financiers? Collapse of the equity markets? Debt markets?) There are a lot of moving parts, most of which touch the rest of the world pretty deeply.

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:03:47 +0000

Fiat paper + trillions in debt + undermined US production + fractional reserve banking + issuing trillions in credit and printing by the Fed + low interest rates again by the Fed + massive government spending and intervention in private sector = dollar bubble = dollar inflation soon!

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:57:42 +0000

Oh, come on! The stuff/sh#t imported to the US from China is not nearly as sh#tty as the sh#t exported by China to other places like Russia. At least, in the US there some laws and regulations, which ensure the quality of imported goods. In Russia, it is all about making profit:)

By: Eric-in-STL

Eric-in-STL — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:53:49 +0000

*snicker*

By: Eric-in-STL

Eric-in-STL — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:53:05 +0000

I don’t like to buy shit. I like to buy stuff. Unfortunately my stuff is shit.

By: Dhoti

Dhoti — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:52:40 +0000

Define “dollar bubble”.

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:52:06 +0000

That is the point. Everyone likes to buy sh#t, but only US has the ability to create capital out of thin air to pay for this sh#t.

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:50:56 +0000

And in China there are 1.2 billion of people, who are desperate to consume the stuff they produce themselves. There are two things that currently prevent that. Communist government and US consumer market. Both of these things are deteriorating fast.

By: DeathWyrmNexus

DeathWyrmNexus — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:50:27 +0000

Fair enough and thank you for your grace.

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:48:21 +0000

But that it the whole point of this debate. When US is out of the picture as consumer, it will create vacuum, which will be filled by others. I’ve been to Africa on many occasions. They are all driving Chinese and Indian cars over there. Not US cars. Believe me, it might take some time, but eventually, the world will fill the void left by the US consumer deficit.

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:44:51 +0000

No Need to apologize. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I may be wrong as well, in my beliefs:)

By: Kinseth

Kinseth — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:44:07 +0000

That’s because we like to buy shit!

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:43:37 +0000

Japan, like China, has a highly productive economy. They still export stuff, other countries want to buy, unlike the US. And also, unlike US, Japan had and has huge capital reserves. US, on the other hand, is the biggest debtor in the world. No! US isn’t going to get off nearly as easily as Japan did after its lost decade.

By: DeathWyrmNexus

DeathWyrmNexus — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:43:28 +0000

I also have to withdraw my comment based on looking through some data and comparing to what the price of gold would be per ounce to get a volume and realized that I shouldn’t discuss economics while boredom is eating my brain like candy.

I withdraw with apologies.

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:40:42 +0000

I don’t know, but probably not. But they do have a highly productive economy and a very nice infrastructure. This is a huge asset in itself. Gold is not the only real asset.

By: eddiepscetti

eddiepscetti — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:40:03 +0000

No, there has been several instances in the past when other countries tried the same thing. I’m thinking of Japan in the 80′s. Look where that got them.

By: eddiepscetti

eddiepscetti — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:38:18 +0000

They can’t use their own ‘dirt’ because they need a consumer base to support it. For starts, you need to have a work force that is able to buy the goods you either manufacture or import. One of the problems with the current GFC is that the consumers in the U.S. are unable to purchase a lot of the things they used to. This then effects the exporting countries economic base. To think that people in Africa, South America, or any other country with a lower standard of living is going to be able to support China’s exports is ridiculous.

By: DeathWyrmNexus

DeathWyrmNexus — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:37:13 +0000

So you think that China has trillions in physical gold…

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:32:00 +0000

And that is exactly when the Dollar bubble, which is now bursting, started to form. It took more than 30 years. Amazing.

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:31:04 +0000

Oh, about the consumer base. That is true that US is the largest consumer base in the world. But that is only a good thing, when you are an equally large producer, which the US is not. Imagine if you grow food and sell it to your neighbor, but what you get back from you neighbor is a promise of payment in the future. So this neighbor eats all your food and when you ask for something in return, he tells you “oh wait a sec, let me go get some dirt out of my basement, I can pay you with this dirt for the food you’ve given me”. Naturally, your question is, how is this dirt going to be useful to me?”. And he tells you “I don’t know. You can trade it to your other neighbor for something that he produces in his back yard”. You say, “Sure, I’ll give it a try”. And all neighborhood is using dirt to trade goods. But the condition is that the dirt can only come from the first neighbors basement. And only that dirt is used in transactions. This works for a while, but naturally, all neighbors will start asking questions like “Why can’t I use dirt from my basement to trade for goods?” or “Can I really go back to the dirt producing neighbor and trade dirt which I got from him for some stuff he is producing?”. No, you can’t, because that first neighbor doesn’t doesn’t produce goods in quantity and quality which can be efficiently traded for this same dirt.

Well, may be too simplistic, but you get the point.

By: eddiepscetti

eddiepscetti — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:23:56 +0000

News flash, the dollar hasn’t been backed by gold for quite a long time now. In fact, the U.S. went off the gold standard in ’71.

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:16:32 +0000

The dollar was accepted as a world reserve currency only due to the fact that it was backed by real asset, which was gold. Just google “reserve currency” and click on the first link to a wikipedia page. Now the Dollar is not backed by anything. It is just paper. Not even paper, promises of paper. The US economy produces way less than the US society consumes. Therefore there is nothing to support the Dollar monetary system. Countries like China, Japan and Russia are starting to understand that and they are diversifying out of dollar even as we speak. Fed is printing dollars out of thin air by trillions, which undermines the Dollar value even further.

By: eddiepscetti

eddiepscetti — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:54:08 +0000

You may have a point, but why do the other countries use the U.S. dollar as a baseline for the value of their own currency? Sure, they also use the GBP and euro, but whenever I see the news here in Australia, the U.S. dollar is always first (even at the currency exchange counters). So while you can say that China can always go to the other countries to sell their exports, the truth is, the U.S. probably has the largest consumer base compared to most other countries.

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:50:14 +0000

Right on target! Apparently people like “The Truth” here think that instead of Americans paying for Chinese goods, it is China should should deliver goods to the US and pay Americans so they will agree to consume these goods:)

By: фдуч_шяь

фдуч_шяь — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:41:34 +0000

That’s what your politicians and media are desperately trying to convince you of. But in fact, having no customer is still better that a customer, who takes the goods, doesn’t pay for them and only promises to pay in the future with green worthless paper, and not even capable of delivering on this promise. Sorry guys, but you are in much deeper sh*t than China. They can consume the products they make themselves and population wise the US is about 5% of the world. Do you think China will not find whom to sell their stuff among the remaining 95%? Why do people think if US goes down, so will the rest of the world is beyond me.

By: Dhoti

Dhoti — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:36:28 +0000

And how does a Chinese tariff on imports affect their exports to us?

By: Dhoti

Dhoti — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:35:33 +0000

What war debt? The Marshall Plan wasn’t a loan. (Well, except to Germany, I guess, but they paid it off in the 70s.)