How Will YOU Do if We Sink into a Horrendous Depression?

[ritehook]

I don't necessarily mean through any wise financial investments you may have made - gold for inflation, stashed cash for deflation.

If you did that - very few have - congrats to you. Let's hear about it - just don't bullsh1t or we may meet you in the mean streets.

I mean "how will you do" in a wider sense.

The demographics on this board tell me that not only has no one here lived through the Great Depresion of the '30s, but it's likely not even your parents did. Grandparents maybe.

I of course did not either. But have read about it, and watched documentaries. And know two old guys who did live through it. Ugly.

How long can you survive without a decent-paying job?

Are you in a city, and are you prepared for urban warfare? Because this country is nowhere near as culturally and racially unified as it was then.

"Multiculturalism" may have it virtues, but having a tough, unified nation is not one of them. The only thing holding the American nation together right now is the overwhelming chase after the dollar - Show Me the Money.

When that breaks down when social order is a distant memory, will you survive?

Do you have an escape valve into another country? And gold or jewlery you can use once there to establish yourself or live for a while without income?

Do you have wife and family? That will set the odds against you a bit more than if you are single.

IN OTHER WORDS: WHEN THE PARTY'S OVER WILL YOU CONK OUT AND DIE ON THE SOFA?

OR SOBER UP FAST AND REALIZE THAT LIFE IS WAR NEVERENDING, EVEN WHEN MASKED BY 60 YEARS OF SWEET PROSPERITY?

[daneblazer]

i'd throw it all on the under

[ryanXL977]

take to the streets and **** people up i guess

[Richkas]

A depression means more money for people like me.

[durito]

Just a depression

or a horrendous depression?


I don't live in the US, though I'd probably have to come back if things got that bad economically there as the effects would be worse here.

[durito]

A depression means more money for people like me.

Aren't you a 40 year old garbage man?

[ryanXL977]

its inevitable
its right around the corner
it was gonna happen in 20 years but bush sped it up by 1000x

[B.Gray]

i'd throw it all on the under

lmao...

[ritehook]

There are in any nation a handful of personality types who actually WELCOME the disorder and chaos that accompanies major disruptions and tears in the fabric of social order.

Who actually lust for the committment of the struggle, of the fast changing scene on th ground.

Napoleon would never had been heard of had it not been for the immensely chaotic French Revolution, and the Wars of Liberation that followed.

Stalin would have remained a Georgian peasant and bank robber if not for the Bolshevik Revolution, and the years of war agaisnt the Tsarist Army after their coup.

Hitler was an unknown soldier when WWI ended, but parlayed the fight against the subsequent Red Revoltion and economic chaos of hyperinflation into Fuhrer of Germany. (Money printed in the morning become worthless in the afternoon.)

The German/Jewish poet and thinker Heinrich Heine spotted these personality types, the ones who thrive in war. Especially domestic war, the kind he called bellum omnes contra omnes (war of all against all).

They survive in the cracks during good times, and emerge with bloodlust when the fissures widen.

Damn, makes me wish I was twenty years younger. Always wanted to try out that big chair in the Oval Office.

[ryanXL977]

i am 31, how do i take over when the chaos ensues

go buy 6 big guns and 250000 rounds?

[donjuan]

I don't necessarily mean through any wise financial investments you may have made - gold for inflation, stashed cash for deflation.

If you did that - very few have - congrats to you. Let's hear about it - just don't bullsh1t or we may meet you in the mean streets.

I mean "how will you do" in a wider sense.

The demographics on this board tell me that not only has no one here lived through the Great Depresion of the '30s, but it's likely not even your parents did. Grandparents maybe.

I of course did not either. But have read about it, and watched documentaries. And know two old guys who did live through it. Ugly.

How long can you survive without a decent-paying job?

Are you in a city, and are you prepared for urban warfare? Because this country is nowhere near as culturally and racially unified as it was then.

"Multiculturalism" may have it virtues, but having a tough, unified nation is not one of them. The only thing holding the American nation together right now is the overwhelming chase after the dollar - Show Me the Money.

When that breaks down when social order is a distant memory, will you survive?

Do you have an escape valve into another country? And gold or jewlery you can use once there to establish yourself or live for a while without income?

Do you have wife and family? That will set the odds against you a bit more than if you are single.

IN OTHER WORDS: WHEN THE PARTY'S OVER WILL YOU CONK OUT AND DIE ON THE SOFA?

OR SOBER UP FAST AND REALIZE THAT LIFE IS WAR NEVERENDING, EVEN WHEN MASKED BY 60 YEARS OF SWEET PROSPERITY?

Lol. At least you are good at exaggeration. Hopefully no one takes your post too seriously though.

1. Based off of Intrade's prediction markets, there is only a ~20% chance of a recession in 2008 and a ~50% chance of a recession in 2009 and I think those are too high.

2. The country is more racially divided today than in 1929? WTF?

3. Urban warfare is ROFL.

[durito]

1. Based off of Intrade's prediction markets, there is only a ~20% chance of a recession in 2008 and a ~50% chance of a recession in 2009 and I think those are too high.

I think they are way too low.

[ritehook]

i am 31, how do i take over when the chaos ensues

go buy 6 big guns and 250000 rounds?

heh, heh

Those ideally suited will be military officers - on the younger side. Like Lt Cols.

Pissed that the neocons conned the nation into an impossible war (Iraq) and waiting for their chance for revenge.

They will tho need a significant civilian street army - if the bottom really does drop out. I'm "American" enough to resist the idea in my soul, tho my head knows it's very possible.

If things do get squirrely on the street look for any large group gaining traction among the masses - forget their ideology, in mercurial times ideology is like underwear, you change it as conditions dictate.

Esp if this street opposition is forming something akin to militias ......

No, it can't happen here.

Can it?

[War i'm intersted in right now is Eagles vs Cowboys. Freakin' unbelievable hotdoggin rookie with that crap. After the depression we'd go on the field and hang him on the goalposts)

[ryanXL977]

it can happen here
its happened everywhere
it will happen here
we are no different than anyone else

[donjuan]

Durito,

To be clear, the wording for those is that a recession is defined as 2 consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth.

[nosniboR11]

lol you guys are funny,

[ritehook]

Early 30s is the ideal age for street leader in times of chaos. Early forties at the outside.

Hitler was in his '30s when he launched his movement in the chaotic Germany of the 1920s, with an unbelievable hyperinflation that totally wiped out the German middle class.

I believe Lenin was about the same age when he masterminded the "ten days that shook the world" in Moscow in 1917.

I don't know about Mao Tse Tung during the fight agasint the Japanese and his Red Army's conquest of China in '48. But I'd wager -500 that he was in his 30s or early 40s when all that came down.

Younger, the requisite maturity isn't there. Older, the concentrated energy is lacking.

For the potential world-shaking revolutionst, age will be about 32-42.

Marchons, marchons . . .

[ritehook]

To be clear, the wording for those is that a recession is defined as 2 consecutive quarters of negative

Antique definitions that support the bs of antique ruling class.

Needs drastic revision -- just like the antique ruling class.

[ryanXL977]

im only 31
****

[donjuan]

Sounds like you should get out to Hollywood and start writing movies. Meanwhile, in reality your scenarios are extremely unlikely any time in the near future.

[donjuan]

Antique definitions that support the bs of antique ruling class.

Needs drastic revision -- just like the antique ruling class.

Why?

[ryanXL977]

its happened before
it aint the first time

[donjuan]

I should have known better than to open a thread on SBR looking for anything beyond irrational panic.

[ryanXL977]

who is panicking
im hyped
i dont have kids
just a dog
anyone with kids is ****ed

[durito]

Durito,

To be clear, the wording for those is that a recession is defined as 2 consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth.

OK, that's probably reasonable then.

[donjuan]

Hyped? How is they different than panic? Seriously, people need to get a grip. A few large financial companies have done poorly. It's not as if they are just disappearing. They still have tons of underlying assets.

[ritehook]

The country is more racially divided today than in 1929? WTF?

Just speaking facts, man. Not ideology. The latter is just a luxury, window dressing for a revolutionist. Power is the main aim.

There was really only one main voice calling for justice and redress of wrongs in the US of the '30s: the white working class.

Other groups were bitching, but were not really heard of.

F'rinstance, there were an estimated 200,000 illegal aliens from Mexico in the USA when the Great Depression hit.

Many of them, perhaps most, were sent home by an angry Anglo populace. In some cases the townspeople would hold raffles to raise money to buy one way bus tickets to Mexico for their illegal populations to return home.

And the great populist president of Mexico at that time, Lazaro Cardenas, welcomeed them with open arms.

Blacks bitched too, but few heard. The signature novel and movie of the era was "The Grapes of Wrath," about a family of white Okies migrating to California.

In times of stress, people become tribalists. The veriest white liberal, if tossed into most prisons in this land, will ally with the Aryan Brotherhood -- or become a bitch of the black or Hispanic prison gangs.

Nothing to do with any ideology - just a fact.

It's allmost certain if Chaos Comes to America (great movie title) the war on the street will be not only economic but racial as well. Tho I suspect the Constitution will be suspended before that happens and the coutnry will be run out of the various military bases throughout the land.

I like political spec, but right now fuk it, I want a Dos Eques and to watch the second half of a helluva Mon Nite game

[Brock Landers]

Need to be in a recession proof industry, like higher education in a town line mine

[donjuan]

Ritehook,

More irrational panic. Since I consider this thread an entertainment thread rather than anything remotely approaching reasonable economic/political/social discussion, I'd love to get a laugh from hearing how likely you think your scenario is.

[Crayzee]

i'll continue gambling if the books are still there
and play guitar on the streets for pennies

[ritehook]

im only 31
****

Well, you'll be good to go next year.

Hope your speaking skills and charisma are up to the task.

I read somewhere that the "secret" to Hitlers "hynotic gaze" is that he would stare at the forehead of the person to whom he was speaking, not in their eyes. Tho it appeared that he was staring into their souls. Carnival trick, but whatever works.

Hope nothng happens,I've been working for five, six yeas(snails pace) on a novel that incorporates some of these themes. Dont want reality to overtake my fiction, goddamit.

Bush, shake your cowardly ass up and nationalize the country's banks.

Wait, on second thought, Creepy, don't do it ........

[ritehook]

Ritehook,

More irrational panic. Since I consider this thread an entertainment thread rather than anything remotely approaching reasonable economic/political/social discussion, I'd love to get a laugh from hearing how likely you think your scenario is.

plus 2000

For now

"What today appears impossible in the minds of practical men, tomorrow prevails." - Trelawney (Brit historian)

[ritehook]

Sounds like you should get out to Hollywood and start writing movies.

Been there, done that.

Once dated a B actress. Ok a B- one. Looker tho. Bit parts on a lot of TV shows tho. Including Third Rock, Desperate Hws, etc.

[ritehook]

Hyped? How is they different than panic? Seriously, people need to get a grip. A few large financial companies have done poorly. It's not as if they are just disappearing. They still have tons of underlying assets.

It's true there is a lot of underlying stability. There are thousands of banks in the country, but only about 110 that have real or potential liquidity crises.

But, a lot of that number are the giants. Not BofA, but Countrywide, WaMu, others.

The foreign adventures add to the overall debt, and our financial bondage to China and others that hold most of that debt. (Does old John know that Russia also holds a lot of our debt? Oh, I get it. Go to war with Russia and cancel the debt. Nice mushroom clouds over LA, Chicago, Washington . . .)

Nobel Prize Winning economist says Iraq war alone (not counting Afghan) will cost US 3 Trillion Bucks.

The US is an economic powerhouse. But all giants die, often from overweight.

Love to continue the discussion, but want to watch the same war all of America is now watching, down in Texas, sh1tkickers vs Birds. Bye.

[SBR_John]

I don't think things will get much worse. I went thru the late 70's and this is nowhere close. Just got to wait it out.