Think not ! The government will be unable to rescue the financial markets as the bubble is far too big now. The junk bond market is literally falling apart right now and smart money knows this is the end of the expansion. The stock market will fall continually downward as money drys up. The FED has slammed on the brakes as money supply is dwindling.

Expect real estate to go up temporarly and then collapse by the lastest next year as the bubble bursts.

We should see a bottom in 2003 after our cities have been almost burned down to the ground with families left in the street.

The recovery will take at least 10 years to bring unemployment back up to reasonable levels of say 8 %. Full recovery is 12 to 20 years away.

It's all happened before through out history going back hundreds of years where speculation and assets classes got over inflated by several hundred percent. And it's about to happen again.

Sorry, but average folk are in deniel as if the credit binge will go on forever. It can't, it won't and it will not. I guarantee it.

Get out of debt and liquidate all assets that are being wasted. Example R.V. 's , extra autos, vacation homes and any luxuries while you can still sell them.

And hurry up because time is getting dear. I don't want to come back here and have to tell you I told you so.

-- I KNOW (i.know@more.than.you), April 30, 2000

Answers

Prithee, what is your expertise to make such pronouncements?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), April 30, 2000.

Just a few questions I Know,

Why should we pay attention to Yo?

What is your special skill?

For what scam do you shill?

Whats the number the Dow drops below?

-- Ra (tion@l.1), April 30, 2000.

Question: Do experts know the future

Answer : Of course not.

Look around you, what do you see.

Is there not a bubble in real estate values and buyers are not bidding prices up this very moment.

Stock market valuations are the highest in recorded history.

What do you thinks going to happen ????

Do alittle research on economic history of past ages. Believe me it won't hurt, might help you understand my concern. Any library can help you and enjoy the study because it is very interesting of how things can turn on a dime.

Good luck

-- I KNOW (i.know@more.than.you), April 30, 2000.

IKnow:

There certainly are problems out there. But what separates your guess from Ravi Batra's guess (he's been predicting a collapse for years)?

-- haha (haha@haha.com), April 30, 2000.

Hello, it's not rocket scientry. Real estate and stocks are now leveraged together. The banks and money will get destroyed with the current leverage in the market. It is slowly unraveling right now this very moment and there is nowhere to run except gold and silver because the dollar will be burned to it's final death. However, I don't know how it will play out exactly but we are going to have a major economic crisis that the world has never witnessed for several hundred years. Unemployment will skyrocket and 25% is an optimistic number in our current highly speculative economy built on a pile of credit that will never be repayed.

-- I KNOW (i.know@more.than.you), April 30, 2000.

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret.

The U.S treasury has a fund to manipulate markets called the E.S.F. ( economic stablization fund). Clinton is currently a the helm of this fund manipulating everything to soup to nuts incl. stock market and gold. He is only to use this fund to balance the markets but not take away free markets. The latter is what he is doing to fuel the current boom. This boom is skating on very thin ice due to his policies in breaking free markets. When this comes undone is not going to be a pretty sight. I assure you.

-- I KNOW (i.know@more.than.you), April 30, 2000.

I Know

I might give you crediance as a poster if you hadn't brought up metals. Gold and silver have no value. Read "Gumption Island" by a former Fed guy where bottle caps served quite well. It came out about 1965. Further, I have posted my bear concerns and the likelyhood of a collapse but I include data or links. You don't. You sound like a troll.

Todd

-- Todd Detzel (detzel@jps.net), April 30, 2000.

Hmm.... let's see if I can follow your logic. Stocks are overvalued and some of the overvaluation is based on debt... ergo, the U.S. economy is going to implode with unemployment equal to the worst of the Great Depression. Well, no one can accuse you of being long winded in your economic analysis... er, opinion.

There are profound differences between 2000 and 1929. Unfortunately, you will not learn this at your local (underfunded) public library. You really need a university library with a decent section in the economic history.

How about this... create an argument based on fact and economic theory. Cite your sources. Build a case for another Great Depression... and someone might take you seriously.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), April 30, 2000.

TODD

Why don't gold and silver have value ?

Answer: You have been trained to think that because they haven't gone up in over 20 years. So you look at past performance to make decisions on how to invest your money. Will that doesn't always work, especially when a trend starts to change.

Question to you ??

Then what will people trust if the system and banks start to fail. Where will people put their money and have easy access and being very liquid so they can use it to pay bills. PLEASE TAKE THE FLOOR !!!!!!! thank you

-- I KNOW (i.know@more.than.you), April 30, 2000.

I Know:

"We should see a bottom in 2003 after our cities have been almost burned down to the ground with families left in the street."

"It's all happened before through out history going back hundreds of years..."

Want to tell me when in our history our cities have almost burned to the ground and when our families were in the street as a result?

This is the same tired prediciton that's been made since the late 60's when the Dow was completely overvalued at.....gasp!....600! Why is it more overvalued now? What else is happening the could possibly bring about the apocalypse? Well, except for your fervent hope of gold and silver finally going up again so you can unload it in exchange for the awful Federal Reserve notes you detest.

How many market downturns have you lived through? Was every one the beginning of the end of the world?

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), May 01, 2000.

Jim Cooke

Where is your thinking cap. Our cities have never before ever been paved in total concrete with no farms around to feed the people in a 1929 melt down where the speculation is higher now than then. Knock knock are you there Jim. In a severe crisis the cities could burn with no food, as in 1929 we still had farms surrounding and imbedded in our inner cities. This is a crisis waiting to happen, but if this speculation unravels like I think it's a high possibility in large cities. L.A. , NEW YORK ETC.

-- i know (i .know@more.than.you), May 01, 2000.

Todd,

I don't know about I Know's predictions, but metals "have no value"?

Please.

Since you don't believe that the fiat money system we have could ever collapse, answer a hypothetical question for me, if you would.
In the event of a currency crisis in the U.S., what would serve as money?

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), May 01, 2000.

Todd,

There is no, "Gumption Island" listed when I run a Google search on that title.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), May 01, 2000.

I KNOW With the CHEAP money inflating home prices, would you take out a loan on a house thats paid off? At a fixed rate of course. PS- this goes out to anyone else that cares to respond. I mean if my house is worth $75,000 and the bubble bursts its going to be worth what? $40.000? AND hard to sell. But if I take out a loan for say $30.000 I'd be way ahead right? Considering I'd have cash onhand for bargins.

-- (Please be wrong @ . net), May 01, 2000.

I know:

Rather than answer my questions, you now state that the problems are that there's too much concrete and that, in 1929, we had farms embedded in the city? Knock, knock, are YOU there? What does this have to do with the possibility of economic collapse and the cities burning?

You are really pathetic.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), May 01, 2000.

Jim

"Want to tell me when in our history our cities have almost burned to the ground and when our families were in the street as a result?"

War of 1812, Civil War, Shermans march through Georgia. Just a few that pop to mind in the little time I have to answer before work.

-- (...@...), May 01, 2000.

-- I KNOW = Gold Bug = Andy = Another Doomer Stooge

-- Savage (blah@blah.com), May 01, 2000.

Gold: $800/oz.

DOW 30: 34,000

NASDAQ: 20,000

Short Term Interest Rates: 14%

All within the next 5 years, but not at the same time.

-- Just (Guessin@Now.com), May 01, 2000.

"the fate of the world economy is now totally dependent on the U.S. economy, which is dependent on the stock market, whose growth is dependent on about 50 stocks, half of which have never reported any earnings."

-- Paul Volker (said@th.at), May 01, 2000.

"Want to tell me when in our history our cities have almost burned to the ground and when our families were in the street as a result?"

How about Watts in the 60's and South Central LA a few years back??

And, don't forget about Mrs. O'Leary's cow!

-- Fireman (fireman@flames.out), May 01, 2000.

Jim,

You are finally getting a taste of the old TB 2000... only the average thread there had dozens of economic illiterates arguing the same point. The sane refer to hard data on gold (which has lost value since the early 80s, particularly when one considers inflation). The insane say we have been "trained" to think gold has lost value. (chuckle) The same idiots argue that gold can be used in casual transactions... as if you could stop by the Jiffy Mart and buy a tank of gas and some donuts for a one ounce Canadian Maple Leaf.

Oh, and I loved the exchange on farming. Every doomer sees a quick and easy jump from a market downturn to anarchy and rioting. Oh, and all because we are "different" now than we used to be. You correctly assess this argument for what it is... horse fritters. Of course, we have our pal "a" who confuses the Civil War with a stock market correction. If I recall, Sherman did not march to the sea over a margin call. Mrs. O'Leary's cow was not angry about rising beef prices.

Economic downturns do not automatically result in civil unrest.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 01, 2000.

"Economic downturns do not automatically result in civil unrest."

True, Ken, but truest among homogeneous populations with similar cultural backgrounds as well as populations in which there is a large middle class and not a large economically underprivileged class.

-- Klicker (klicker@kbds.rus), May 01, 2000.

"There are profound differences between 2000 and 1929."

There certainly are! Today we have many urban areas full of economically disenfranchised minorities, many who don't even speak English well, that have several times demonstrated that they are ready to loot and burn on short notice, many of whom openly declare that "white" (translation:civilized) America is their enemy to be overthrown. In 1929, most of America shared common European cultural roots.

-- Urbanologist (urb@urbanstudies.foundation), May 01, 2000.

Maybe we should collect these recent pro-gold threads under a new catagory called "Ask Andy".

-- Observer (observer@lotsto.observe), May 01, 2000.

News flash 1: structural poverty has decreased in the United States. Since welfare reform in 1996, rolls have dropped dramatically... over 50% in some areas.

News flash 2: America has been awash in non-English speaking immigrant populations since the mid 1800s. Many of these immigrants settled in large urban areas and were often subject to bitter prejudice... "common European heritage" notwithstanding. This includes common stereotypes like casting Italians as criminals.

News flash 3: To say "many" nonwhite, non-English speaking urban resisdents are "ready to loot and burn on short notice" is both racist and false. This is the same bias the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the European Jews faced. It was wrong then; it is wrong now. The majority of nonwhite urban residents are law abiding citizens.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 01, 2000.

Ken

Rodney King

nuff said.

-- (...@...), May 01, 2000.

Sorry @,

The King riots were very localized within LA, and had at least as many political causitive factors as economic ones.

-- flora (***@__._), May 01, 2000.

Flora my Rodney King statment was in response to Ken's news flash number 3. He made no qualifacation of his broad brush sweep. Are you saying that economic downturns and layoffs are not local in nature? The riots may have been very localised in LA, but they were instantly broadcast throughout the world bringing in the added dimension of the "global community"

Now even more than then our economy is political and our politics is our economy.

I'm not saying people will loot and riot but you can't say they won't.

They have, they do, they will.

Weni,widi, wica, or is it Veni, Vedi, Vica.

-- (...@...), May 01, 2000.

"a,"

You are making it increasingly difficult to take you seriously.

As noted, the Los Angeles "riots" were extremely localized and limited. The vast majority of African Americans and Hispanics (including those living in poverty) did NOT riot. Period.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 01, 2000.

@

{I came, I saw, I conquered?}

There were other minorities involved, on 'opposite' sides.

There were corresponding areas {LA is one giant sprawl} that did not erupt in flames.

The news media has a tremedous impact on how we view such 'incidents'.

-- flora (***@__._), May 01, 2000.

Maybe we should sentence 'a' to listing all the times and places when and where riots have NOT occurred. After the first few million, who knows, he may gain some perspective.

Of course, the list of riots back in the good old days of 'a's childhood is MUCH longer than any time since. How did he ever manage to forget them?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 01, 2000.

"As noted, the Los Angeles "riots" were extremely localized and limited. The vast majority of African Americans and Hispanics (including those living in poverty) did NOT riot. Period. "

You are correct in the above statements. The vast majority of African Americans and Hispanics in L.A. did not riot nor condone the rioting and looting. The rioters, however, did constitute a signficant threat to life and property until forcibly suppressed by armed police and National Guard troops. In Koreatown only armed merchants and ex-military friends firing warning shots stopped the burning and looting after some businesses were destroyed. You're deluding yourself if you think that this will not ever happen again, and not just in L.A.

-- Urbanologist (urb@urbanstudies.foundation), May 01, 2000.

Urbanologist I assure you these people are quite deluded.

-- (...@...), May 01, 2000.

Urbanologist,

Surely the Guard would not have been able to contain all the chokepoints if parts of Altadena, Long Beach, Riverside, and East LA had been so moved. How do you explain what happened?

-- flora (***@__._), May 01, 2000.

Flora,

I don't understand your question. If you are asking why the riots didn't spread further, it's because of a combination of armed resistance (with shots fired) and because the general population did not support the rioting and looting. But the only thing that saved Koreatown was armed and ready-to-shoot merchants and their friends. Some of Koreatown was looted and burned before the law-abiding people took up arms.

I don't see the point about all the nit-picking on this issue (not by you). I am not accusing the majority of law-abiding non-white people of taking part in or condoning rioting looting and burning. My spouse is a "person of color", so I know something about this. But it is quite likely to happen again sometime in the future, and quite possibly in other large cities besides L.A. It's smoldering in the inner cities all the time. People who deny this don't spend much time in such places, or they'd think differently. And, you don't see many middle class people breaking store windows and looting. People like Mr. Decker usually have nice air-conditioned offices along with fat paychecks and benefit packages to support their intellectual musings.

-- Urbanologist (urb@urbanstudies.foundation), May 01, 2000.

Oopsie!

Silly me, I forgot to notice that this is all really just about Mr. Youknowwho.

-- flora (***@__._), May 01, 2000.

Gad, it's just like Old TB2K this time last year. As a card-carrying Doomer(TM), I have to say it's rather odd to again read breathless posts describing the destruction which awaits us all from {YOUR FAVORITE THREAT TO OUR WELL-BEING GOES HERE}. Most passing strange..

"I KNOW", your handle is a vast overstatement (and you do need to take a good, deep breath or two.) You cannot "know" the future, only analyze current trends and then propose a scenario and support your argument. Please do so, and then listen to critiques of your reasoning. Both Jim Cooke and Ken Decker have consistently stated that they have concerns about current socio-economic trends. They are probably considered "doomers" (or at least overly pessismistic) by some.

Calm down, O Cognizant One, and get into a dialogue. It's much more enjoyable (and useful.)

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), May 01, 2000.

Hohohoh--Heeheehee-hahaha. I'm not worried about a thing but lack of rain. I've got some stuff left from the BIG Y2K HOLOCAUST that should see me through the coming crises. Just laughin' and plantin' veggies and flowers, and enjoying my life to the fullest. Let 'er crash!

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), May 01, 2000.

gilda,

Does 'Let 'er crash' translate into 'Burn, baby, burn'?

-- flora (***@__._), May 01, 2000.

Urbanologist,

Since we've traveled from economics into race and class issues, why don't you address the 'reason' many rioters gave for targeting Korean owned businesses?

When you wrote:

"And, you don't see many middle class people breaking store windows and looting. People like Mr. Decker usually have nice air-conditioned offices along with fat paychecks and benefit packages to support their intellectual musings."

I can't help but overlay that with something eve wrote about yesterday on the 'free will' thread:

"It was Immanuel Kant (late 1700's), though, who first came up with the idea of a "mass consciousness," that created reality, where all of mankind was included. Then Marx took this idea and just split it up. He saw no need for one mass consciousness and split it up into classes, where each class (e.g., the proletariat) had its own "mass consciousness." And others came up with variants of this; e.g., a racial mass consciousness, which all the members of a particular race would have."

You're heading into some interesting territory, care to continue?

-- flora (***@__._), May 02, 2000.

Urban,

The race or ethnicity of your spouse does not assure you any expertise in this subject matter. If you make the assertion riots are likely to happen in the future, you ought to back it up with some sort of evidence. You simply assert anyone who disagrees with you knows nothing about the "inner city." So, if I might summarize your argument...

"I have a spouse who is a person of color and I know riots are likely to happen in the future because I said so. If you don't agree, you just don't know what you are talking about particularly if you are Decker who probably is affluent."

Impressive. (chuckle) God help us if any leading sociologists have air-conditioning or even worse, live in the suburbs! Science, Urban, is about the pursuit of knowledge absent bias. You need to leave your baggage at the door if you want have a serious discussion about social unrest.

Flora,

Idealism actually started with Plato. Kant advanced the concept that human understanding opposes the world of "things as themselves." mind and spirit created reality. Later German idealists like Hegel contended that mind/spirit created reality. Marx turned Hegel on his head with dialectal materialism.

When you get into "mass consciousness" I'm not sure if you mean a more philosophical concept or a more Jungian theory. And I'm not sure anyone is really interested.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 02, 2000.

Flora,

I would enjoy further discourse, as long as the objective is better understanding for all of the issues under discussion.

Please tell me what you understand to be the reason (rationale?) that the looters gave for targeting Korean-owned businesses.

My own understanding was that they claimed that the Koreans were "exploiting" them. In reality, they appear to have targeted any convenient business except for some black-owned businesses who were fortunate enought to have identified themselves as such in time to be spared.

Another interesting fact is that although the initial rioting appeared to have been mainly by African Americans in response to perceived injustice to them as a race by the Rodney King acquittals, it quickly became more economic in nature (looting) and was joined by significant numbers of non-Mexican Hispanics, mainly from Central America.

I am fairly familiar with Korean culture and people and can discourse knowledgably regarding them. Koreans are very hard-working people, as a group, but behaviorally are almost the exact opposites of African American people. By this I mean that African Americans are a very verbally outgoing, touching, physical people, whereas the Koreans tend to hold things inside, and not touch or be very outgoing regarding physical contact in the same way. This is obviously a recipe for trouble. The mistake the Koreans made was in not employing local people from the neighborhood to work in their stores and help bridge the cultural gap. I understand that after the riots there were a lot of efforts to increase inter-cultural sensitivity, with some degree of success. Let's also remember that there were people from other cultures such as Mediterranian also running small liquor and grocery stores in the riot area.

Let me close this treatise and solicit your comments with this thought:

Many people believe(d) that the owners of the small shops in the riot areas were getting wealthy off of the community. This may have been true for some of the original owners of these businesses who sold out long ago to the current owners. But most of the small merchants who were hit by the rioting were likely not rich. They most likely bought the businesses from previous owners at substantially increased prices and incurred lots of debt in order to do so. They will not gain any measure of wealth until they pay off the heavy debt loads.

-- Urbanologist (urb@urbanstudies.foundation), May 02, 2000.

Ken,

I sometimes get the feeling that yourself and certain other obviously intelligent, educated, and eloquent members of this forum are more interested in winning intellectual arguments than in sincere discourse and sharing knowledge.

I acknowledge and retract my judgemental comment "People like Mr. Decker usually have nice air-conditioned offices along with fat paychecks and benefit packages to support their intellectual musings."

It was born of the frustration that so many people I have talked to about these issues don't really have any idea what they are talking about, and you just happened to be a target of opportunity.

Your summary "I have a spouse who is a person of color and I know riots are likely to happen in the future because I said so. If you don't agree, you just don't know what you are talking about particularly if you are Decker who probably is affluent" is incorrect.

The fact that my spouse is non-white is only one factor in the equation. It has, however, allowed me to gain experience in a lot of areas to which I might not otherwise have had access. My experiences and opinions regarding subject issues stem from spending a fair amount of time in various inner-city areas. I strongly suspect that I have spent more time in these settings than you have.

I believe that we will have riots in various inner cities sometime in the future both for economic and political reasons. It doesn't matter that low-income people are better off than many others in the rest of the world. What matters is that they perceive that they are worse off than the rest of us "affluent" Americans, and that they also believe that they are "entitled" to the good life, and have the "right" to obtain it by force if necessary. They also believe that they are the "victims" and and that anyone more affluent is a "victimizer".

These people have been used for political ends for a long time by various power groups. All that's needed is for some economic, political, or environmental event to set them off.

If you still don't believe me, spend some time in the Bayview-Hunters Point area of San Francisco, or Oakland, or South Central L.A.

There's no point in arguing this just for the the sake of winning an argument. If I were still going to these areas, I'd invite you to join me for lunch and see for yourself. Thankfully, I'm no longer doing so.

-- Urb (urganologist@urbanstudies.foundation), May 02, 2000.

Urb,

Thanks for taking the time to flesh out those areas of the conflict. I think for lots of folks unfamiliar with the area & cultural dynamics, the impression was much more 'black & white'.

One other remarkable thing about the Koreans there is their financial committment to each other, especially when it comes to investing in individual business opportunities.

Ken,

I was ruminating about something eve said the other day, in regards to idealism being ultimately responsible for societal events. I'm having a hard time with the 'mass conciousness' concept myself. Sorry to have possibly polluted this thread with the paisley thoughts that form in my mind as I zip through the posts.

-- flora (***@__._), May 02, 2000.

Urb,

In the marketplace of ideas, the clash of intellectual arguments is often synonomous with enlightenment.

When you "strongly suspect" I have spent less time than you in urban setting, I sense some bias. What exactly do you know about me? Do you know if I am a person of color? Where I have lived? What I have studied? Do you know what I have read in sociology, anthropology, economics, etc?

Your argument starts with an unproven premise... that you are more knowledgeable about inner city life than I. What is amusing, at least to me, is that you have never bothered asking about my experiences or education. We may find that you are better qualified than me to theorize about sociology in modern urban America... but that would require something more than premature prejudice.

Even if you are better qualified, you still have not proven your thesis, to wit, "we will have riots in various inner cities sometime in the future both for economic and political reasons." [I am pressed to think of a thesis more vague.] I imagine if we wait long enough there will be social unrest somewhere. And it's pretty easy to postulate that the reasons might be economic or political.

The point of the original thread was a linkage between the current economy and social unrest. In short, will we have "riots" if the stock market crashes? Will cities burn to the ground because of higher unemployment? If you can be a bit more specific, Urb, what is your proof (aside from personal experience) that major cities will suffer significant social unrest during an economic downturn? If you are drawing on historical examples... I suggest we've had many recessions without rioting. If the inner cities have been left out of the current economic "boom," then would they even notice an economic downturn? In some cities, the unemployment rate for young African American males is already above 25%.

Your turn...

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 02, 2000.

Isn't it about time for Manny to make an appearance and hijack this thread?

-- Observer (observer@lots.to.observe), May 02, 2000.