@agoltz lol profiting on make believe money is awesome isn't it?

@jimmykorea

"Conservatives" in the U.S. have been predicting hyperinflation and been urging people to buy precious metals since at least the 1890s. Buying gold in 2008 would have been a great idea, but you would have had to ignore the same advice for most of the preceding 108 years. You'll also note that "conservatives" have been predicting hyperinflation for the last 40 or so years with particular urgency, and even more so since the financial crisis -- it's coming next week, next month, next year, just you wait. When the latest deadline isn't met, they push it back a few months. Meanwhile, the U.S. can borrow for 10 years at under 2% and for 30 years for not much more than 3%.

You may also recall that the U.S. had marginal tax rates approaching 90% during its most prosperous period (1950s), and managed to finance enormous structural development, on which we're living today. The U.S. would have no interstate highway system, no semi-conductor industry, no aerospace industry, etc., if not for high taxes in the post WWII period, up to the Reagan years, when we began to fall behind the rest of the world. Saying that taxes yield no benefits is like saying that long-term investment is a waste of money.

Finally, you note that the "Buffett Rule" will produce too little revenue to be significant. Would you then agree to return to the much higher marginal tax rates of the 1950s on high earners, when we had far more rapid growth than we do now, despite much lower rates today? Or to instituting an annual "wealth tax", like the one Argentina?

I'm late to this discussion but my take is this. There is no easy answer because the US has become over time a dependent nation of big government, there is no quick fix and there is no painless solution. The truth is America needs to implode just like countries like Argentine, Iceland did. You can't cut spending overnight but you can make a serious commitment to it. I believe Ron Paul is the only one who has a serious plan for that. Also you need to understand that Taxation is NEVER EVER going to plug the holes made by overspending. A good example is the Buffet Tax which is really propoganda to portray Obama as the man of the 99% while the Republican nominee (almost definetly Romney) will achieve nothing.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2012/04/buffett%20deficits%20perspective.jpg

*Worth noting if this chart was to scale the second bar would be through your ceiling.

So the truth is I believe we need and will have whether we like it or not a reset event. I personally think it will consist of hyperinflation and a US default with many banks and people losing their life savings. But after this reset the US can wake up and reshape itself. I believe the US could become less global not more and will become insular and will trade in smaller scale ways with local economies developing.

Anyone one here with half a brain should be buying Gold and Silver and preparing for the reset that is sure to come within the next few years. Possibly as soon as late this year. though I'm thinking a 2013 or 2014 date is more realistic.

@ghkqn

Thanks for post with info.

@brianluce

As I already said, you need to spend some time researching this field and turn off emotions.

brianluce - unfortunately, a lot of countries around the world are building aircraft carriers. China plans to build 5 super carriers (aka 75000 tons or bigger) before 2020. Currently, China is learning the ropes on how to operate a carrier (which they fully rebuild), from cloning Russian's SU-33 (called J-11), to how to launch/retrieve aircrafts (in a partnership with Brazil, which also belongs to the aircraft carrier club) or managing a carrier task group (any carrier needs to be protected with anti air and anti sub). Next door, South Korea plans to build a smaller one(s), and Japan already has one (although it is called a helicopter carrier to go around constitutional issues) and it will not be the last. Even Thailand has 1 (although it is mothballed due to lack of money - a carrier is a money sink hole), not counting India which already runs 1, is getting a bigger one from Russia and is building a homegrown design. In Europe, you have the French nuclear carrier, Spain has 1 and is building a larger one (by the way, this is the design that Australia adopts for its upcoming carriers), Italy has 1 at least and the UK plans to build 2 super carriers. Clearly debt is not really an issue. As VK points out, an aircraft carrier is the only way to get your bombers close to any potential or future source of problems and it is the best way to project power (which matters a lot to many countries, just as hosting the Olympics). I agree that a supersonic anti ship missile can be troublesome due to the short reaction time, but even a supersonic one can be dealt with. That is assuming that the attacker can get close enough to launch, since any carrier is protected by many ships and subs, not counting its own airborne radars and fighter cover. A super carrier at 100000+ tons will also need to be hit a lot to disable it (its electronics are the vulnerable points). Others are working on different anti-access technologies to keep a carrier further out, like China with its DF-21D which is a ballistic missile (assuming they can resolve the issue of real time control/tracking and long range detection). In wars, it is always a game of cat and mouse, who is faster?

In an ideal world, we all wish that there are no wars (it is not as if each country does not have other pressing needs to satisfy), but wars have been around as long as the human race. I do not work in Defence by the way, just intrigued by the technologies and strategies involved.

@johnnym

Weimar Germany

Don't really know that so totalitarian was in Weimar Germany.

Problem is not in some "totalitarian" regimes. Problem is in resources and products distribution.
Most probably methods to do it will change. Either it'll become Global Empire vs few renegade countries in endless wars with hundreds of millions in casualties.
Or few unions with same results.

@johnnym

" just like we look at WWII now" is quite opposite to "just like people in 1941 looked at 1938"

how does that differ from what i said?

@Vitaliy_Kiselev ah, you remind me to watch Silence of the Lambs again :)

yes, ordinary people are being deprived of the most basic necessities.

In a few decades we will look at this madness, just like we look at WWII now, and ask ourselves : "what were we thinking?"

if we, as a species, still exist of course ..

A description of that Depression here:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/the-depression-youve-never-heard-of-1920-1921/

I said financial system, not financial sector. All prices are based on the financial system and are ultimately based on bank valuation of their assets. When banks systematically inflate asset values by fraud, this destroys the price signal resulting in misallocation of capital. It leads to stagflation, a shrinking cake and an accumulation of wealth and power by the very fraudsters who caused the crisis through their fraudulent accounting. Prior to 2009, banks were obliged to mark-to-market. They didn't for MBS, CDS and CDOs. If they had, regulators would have intervened well before 2008, forcing them to bolster their capital position (and cut bonuses).

The big financial difference between now and 1921 is the existence of CDS. Yet the systemic risk posed by these instruments would disappear if they were reclassified as insurance products (requiring capital) and traded on open exchanges with nightly margin posted as collateral.

As long as big corporations do not pay taxes and instead are being subsidized by the taxpayer, we will see this kind of imbalance.

Recognition of Depression is required. That means driving fraud out of the financial system. As assets are properly valued, their prices will collapse resulting in a big deflation. Nearly all TBTF banks will go bankrupt, become nationalised with the fraudsters running them prosecuted.

A big deflation will reduce government expenditure drastically, but the purchasing power of each dollar will rise. The Depression of 1921-23 was handled by non-intervention, and resulted in a rapid recovery. The path we're on is opposite to what is required. It is a path leading to hell.