Chile Forum

Another good one floating these days: privatize profits, socialize losses.

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
If you haven't looked at this, you might consider it. I put it under the "state of the states" and it got buried. Rune's graphs bring to mind the initial graphics, striking.

Is a mess out there, and I work in the financial securities sector.

Every day when I get to work the first thing that I do is turn the TV to CNBC and listening to the gloom and doom of the so called experts, and all the economist predicting scenarios from the rear view mirror, even Greenspan or as we called here the “one eye chairman”, who could see inflation everywhere yet is partly responsible for the housing mess that we are in it by leaving interest rates to low for to long.

He talks a lot more know that before, trying to rescue his legacy.

The way I see it, we have gone through a period of tremendous prosperity, excesses, and corporate greed and we are finally "paying the piper" as they said.

My personal opinion is that in order to put these crisis behind us we need to purge the system and let the markets take care of the rest. Lot of companies are going to go under but they are the ones who put themselves on that position.

As far as Chile,

A few years back Chile has a couple of economic problems with the US, economic restrictions were leveled against the Pinochet Government at the time. Later some grapes were found laced with poison as part of a fruit shipment to the US, as result fruit exports come to an screeching halt for a while.

The silver lining of all of these was that Chilean companies who pretty much considered the US a major economic partner decided to start looking somewhere else for trading partners, primarely in Europe, and Asia.

So I think that the Chilean economy stand a good chance of weathering the current economic crisis.

As for the deposit in USD, is probably in T-Bills, earning interest and backed by the U.S. Goverment

MikieO wrote:http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
If you haven't looked at this, you might consider it. . . .

Thanks to you, Mikie, and to Chuck, I watched all parts accessible. Even though I disagreed with some reasoning, I've found what's available of the series to be well worth the time spent watching it.

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:QUOTE OF THE DAY
Chavez nationalizes winners.
The US nationalizes losers.

Grimly amusing (I write as one who's taxed to benefit those who made the losers).

Hi El P, as I sit up in bed listening to the surf here in El Tabo it's tough to know what to do, so in a sense I agree with you. The most unfortunate part of all this is that soon I must return to LA to make money to pay for this. For this week, I've got pretty much everything covered, including a big 2l bottle of "live" chicha.
I picked up a Chilean flag yesterday too so I am almost set. Crisis? Party line? The only party line I hear is "tiki tiki ti"

yea, just look at the hammering the neighbors are taking to get a reading on the bullet Chile seems to be dodging. I am interested to see how AIG Argentina fairs.

i look at the recent commitments that the Fed has made...100 billion to fannie, 100 billion to freddie, now 85 billion to AIG, and i think i remember something about a huge federal deficit BEFORE all of this....so now we're in the hole for...what...1.5 trillion? wtf?

there are so many aspects to this that grate against me, but the worst, for me, is knowing that the crooks who created this are skating away with millions while the typical working class guy, who had nothing to do with any of it, has more trouble paying his bills every month. it's obscene.

on the other, there were 50 million americans who voted for bush not just once, but TWICE! what can anyone say to any of those unconscious voters when they get sucked down into the whirlpool of debt caused by the iraq war, the irresponsible government, the high fuel prices....except....PAY ATTENTION!

the GDP of the US is somewhere around 12 trillion, so a 1.5 trillion debt is about 6 weeks of our output. i suppose this is why so many people still see the US as a safe place for their accumulated wealth. they know that we can get out of this mess if we can get some responsible government policies in place.

the trouble is, greed is built into the system and i see i declining sense of personal honor and social responsibility. it's a big ship going in the wrong direction and i'm not convinced that anything will change that. this is one of the main reasons i am taking the steps to get out. i hope i'm not acting too late. if the crash will just wait five years, i'll be grateful.

actually, there is a force powerful enough to change the direction of the US...a massive change in social consciousness. but i've been waiting for that for about 40 years now.....i'm not counting on it at this point in my life.

Russia halted trading after 17% one day collapse...The fact remains that the emerging markets charade was built on a debt pyramid and it is all falling apart now...Gold and Silver are soaring today, but oil and other commods less so. Main point..USD is level right now which continues to demonstrate that other currencies are falling...CLP=546.40....The credit excess perpetuated by the Federal Reserve and utilized by the world banking system has collapsed...The illusion and deception has met its master....

cali_chile48 wrote:he crooks who created this are skating away with millions while the typical working class guy, who had nothing to do with any of it, has more trouble paying his bills every month. it's obscene.

What's obscene is when business was good (2003-2005), employees of Wall St. banks were receiving bonuses equal to 3x their annual salary. They were creating these new, exotic investment vehicles which are now plaguing the financial sector. Those same vehicles made it easier to get money into the mortgage market (no clear ownership of the responsibility for making bad loans).

Back then it was "just a free market." "Why would you want government to regulate the size of someone's bonus?" But, today, society is on the hook (unless you want to see a *real* meltdown).

Like someone else said: "privatize profits, socialize gains." That's the problem with the US's socialized capitalism. When times are good, we emphasize capitalism (ignoring how it's socialized). We chant slogans about "free markets" and "self-made profits" and "personal responsibility." When times are bad, reality sets in and we socialize markets (because it's the lessor of two evils). We're unable to maintain a moderate, balanced position. When times are good, we (as a society) can't see more than 6 months out. When times are bad, we say in the most indignant voice: "Who let that happen?"

There's never any middle ground for moderate oversight and regulation. Always the extremes of bonuses that are 3x the size of someone's annual salary, and huge government bailouts. Never moderate regulation (which might impinge on bonuses, to spare society the cost of a huge bailout).

Mark

Mark

there are crashes and then there are CRASHES. it looks like a lot of people, myself included, have portfolios that are losing value now. anyone who owns real estate is losing equity. whoever has stocks or annuities is losing several percentage points per week, and it's gonna get worse before it gets better. this is a crash. we are in it now. i've accepted that i'm gonna lose 25%, maybe more.

i find some comfort choosing to see my losses as relative. i am losing along with everyone else, so my "purchasing power" is fairly stable, especially since i have almost no personal debt. even so, inflation may do me in....

but is this a CRASH? is it the beginning of a total collapse of the global finance system? are we going to need wheelbarrows full of dollars to buy a loaf of bread in 2009? are we going to have food riots in LA and New York? i don't think so....not yet....i can see that in 2030 or 2040....but now? nah. but....who the hell knows?