He ought to be saying "Here are the practical consequences of the great 
mismatch of capital and value that I and my American friends created between 
1997 and 2007.

Needless to say, financial services will be smashed to bits.

Newspapers will vanish. Broadcast media will become meaningless. Something 
bad will happen to advertising. Large-scale retail will shrink. Business 
travel will collapse. The US will no longer be a significant car producer.

Above all, cash will no longer be a reliable measurement of production.

Oh, and I'm fucking really sorry".

"The crisis is bigger than it appears in the rear-view mirror. It's more 
than jobs lost and companies folding. It's a new economy built on a new 
society that we are only just beginning to recognize if not understand...

It's not a great depression, neither is it a great recession we're going 
through now... Umair Haque called it a great "compression," as an economy 
built on perceived value reconciles with actual value. This morning, The New 
York Times finally realized that what we're experiencing is more than a 
financial crisis: "Job Losses Hint at Vast Remaking of Economy." Well, yes, 
if hints were sledgehammers.

I try to argue in my book that what we're living through is instead a great 
restructuring of the economy and society, starting with a fundamental change 
in our relationships - how we are linked and intertwined and how we act, 
nothing less than that."

http://seekingalpha.com/article/124943-depression-recession-no-it-s-the-great-restructuring

That the economy was built on credit from 1997 to 2007 is a given, but the 
corollary of this observation is that the economy has not been generating 
cash. Gordon Brown ought to be saying

"there was some productivity growth [between 1997 and 2008] but much of it 
fell outside of the usual cash and revenue-generating nexus.  Maybe you will 
live until 83 rather than 81.5 and your pain reliever will work better.  In 
the meantime you will read blogs and gaze upon beautiful people using your 
Facebook account.  Those are gains to consumer surplus, but they don't prop 
up the revenue-generating sectors of the economy as one might have 
expected."

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/03/was-recent-productivity-growth-an-illusion.html

Maria wrote:

> If only anyone knew what it was going to be built on...the governments 
> just keep saying carbon-saving industry. If global warming didn't exist, 
> they would have to invent it. Er...

This is as predicted in a book called "Report from Iron Mountain", 
written back at the height of the cold war, wondering what would happen 
if indeed there was a end to war, and what would happen to society. 
There were many implications, but in order to get society working 
towards a common goal, the author suggested environmental pollution as 
the new "enemy", and that government should perhaps end up having to 
deliberately pollute the atmosphere to get people working together.

Fascinating. At the time, nobody gave a damn about pollution on a 
world-wide scale.

-- 

Doug

>
> If only anyone knew what it was going to be built on...the governments
> just keep saying carbon-saving industry. If global warming didn't exist,
> they would have to invent it. Er...
>

Concerns about man made global warming are about to go out of the
window because economic activity has gone through the floor.

If people are not buying cars it’s because they are no longer driving
them.

Over the next few years, worrying about carbon emissions is going to
seem like a nice problem to have – the good old days.

We need to get back to basics in the UK, get back to doing what
historically we’ve always been good at - selling goods and services
that the rest of the World actually wants.

We need to replace the hole now left by the deluded house of cards -
engine of economic growth - housing market, that we’ve been relying
upon for the last twelve years and that just evaporated.

The only way to fill that gap is not massive deluded public spending
in the hope of trying to second-guess the economic activity of the
future, or even near future – let’s face it, nowadays, even experts in
their own fields can’t predict that such is the rate of technological
change, so what chance ‘high speed broadband in every home by 2010’
Gordon Brown?

What we badly need now is private sector business to thrive and you do
that by massively cutting their taxes and stop treating them like
money trees – end of story!

Here in Birmingham, LDV vans are facing oblivion.

Now they may not be a very good company, seeing as how even before the
credit crunch they couldn’t make a profit, but every week during that
last four years of unprofitable operation the taxman has been turning
up demanding employer’s NI contributions that amount to some 20
million.

On top of that, the local outreach PC loonies, down at the council,
have been hitting them with record levels of business rates set,
unbelievably, next year to rise by 15%.

Now if that’s not a f**king fantasy island death wish economic policy
I don’t know what is, and do you wonder why Hoover can’t f**k off
quickly enough to Turkey.

>
> Oh, and I'm fucking really sorry".
>

He can’t say sorry for this.

Once culpability, even if only in a small part (which it isn’t), has
been established without doubt, he’s finished and he knows it.

Sorry simply wouldn’t be good enough; history is full of ministers
that have resigned for far less than this.

That’s why he’s desperately living by the sword, whistleblowers,
regulators, bankers and eventually even close colleagues (Darling) are
all expected to fall on their swords so that he can avoid any blame.

But given events over the weekend (for f**ks sake even the earth
shattered on Loose Women today when they broke off from discussing
‘Dancing on Ice’ and post pregnancy incontinence to ask should he say
sorry), his time must be running out now.

My reliable (honestly) sources are saying, “Keep you’re eye on
Darling” because a serious rift over policy has broken out.

Hardly surprising because Darling and the treasury want what’s best
for the economy whereas Brown wants what’s best for him?

'Doug' wrote this:

>Maria wrote:
>
>> If only anyone knew what it was going to be built on...the governments 
>> just keep saying carbon-saving industry. If global warming didn't exist, 
>> they would have to invent it. Er...
>
>This is as predicted in a book called "Report from Iron Mountain", 
>written back at the height of the cold war, wondering what would happen 
>if indeed there was a end to war, and what would happen to society. 
>There were many implications, but in order to get society working 
>towards a common goal, the author suggested environmental pollution as 
>the new "enemy", and that government should perhaps end up having to 
>deliberately pollute the atmosphere to get people working together.
>
>Fascinating. At the time, nobody gave a damn about pollution on a 
>world-wide scale.

Thanks, I think a lot of people who understand human psyche and
society will understand your comments. The problem govts have is
that, whereby the risks in the Cold War were massive (complete
annihilation of mankind anyone?), those associated with global
warming - sorry it's climate change now - are relatively minor.

The result is that there's plenty of room for dissent without
risk, and we see half the population simply don't believe what
the govt and its poodle scientists say.
Exactly the same analysis exists regarding terrorism and all the
other latest scare stories cooked up to keep us in line.

It all suggests to me that govts will need to manufacture a whole
new very major crises that really does ensure we are obedient, but
I could only speculate on what it might be!

-- 
socialism is like chronic heart disease ...
you may not know you suffer from it, but it'll kill you in the end.

A socialist:"someone who knows everything but understands nothing"

On 10 Mar, 14:30, "DVH"  wrote:
> He ought to be saying "Here are the practical consequences of the great
> mismatch of capital and value that I and my American friends created between
> 1997 and 2007.
>
> Needless to say, financial services will be smashed to bits.
>
> Newspapers will vanish. Broadcast media will become meaningless. Something
> bad will happen to advertising. Large-scale retail will shrink. Business
> travel will collapse. The US will no longer be a significant car producer> Above all, cash will no longer be a reliable measurement of production.
>
> Oh, and I'm fucking really sorry".
>
> "The crisis is bigger than it appears in the rear-view mirror. It's more
> than jobs lost and companies folding. It's a new economy built on a new
> society that we are only just beginning to recognize if not understand...
>
> It's not a great depression, neither is it a great recession we're going
> through now... Umair Haque called it a great "compression," as an economy
> built on perceived value reconciles with actual value. This morning, The New
> York Times finally realized that what we're experiencing is more than a
> financial crisis: "Job Losses Hint at Vast Remaking of Economy." Well, yes,
> if hints were sledgehammers.
>
> I try to argue in my book that what we're living through is instead a great
> restructuring of the economy and society, starting with a fundamental change
> in our relationships - how we are linked and intertwined and how we act,
> nothing less than that."
>
> http://seekingalpha.com/article/124943-depression-recession-no-it-s-t...
>
> That the economy was built on credit from 1997 to 2007 is a given, but the
> corollary of this observation is that the economy has not been generating
> cash. Gordon Brown ought to be saying
>
> "there was some productivity growth [between 1997 and 2008] but much of it
> fell outside of the usual cash and revenue-generating nexus.  Maybe you will
> live until 83 rather than 81.5 and your pain reliever will work better.  In
> the meantime you will read blogs and gaze upon beautiful people using your
> Facebook account.  Those are gains to consumer surplus, but they don't prop
> up the revenue-generating sectors of the economy as one might have
> expected."
>
> http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/03/was-rece...

Credit bubbles happen even if the world understands Kondratiev. If
they didn't happen, then he'd be wrong. There is no warning of events
that can be avoided in an understanding of K-Wave theory. Its human
behaviour, so its irresolvable.

But life would be boring without periodic social upheaval and
political change, wouldnt it?

You should thank New Labour and the Republicans. They will yet change
the world - even if not how they intended, or not anything like they
intended.

On 16 Mar, 16:33, allandetr...@live.co.uk wrote:
> > If only anyone knew what it was going to be built on...the governments
> > just keep saying carbon-saving industry. If global warming didn't exist> > they would have to invent it. Er...
>
> Concerns about man made global warming are about to go out of the
> window because economic activity has gone through the floor.
>
> If people are not buying cars it’s because they are no longer driving
> them.
>
> Over the next few years, worrying about carbon emissions is going to
> seem like a nice problem to have – the good old days.
>
> We need to get back to basics in the UK, get back to doing what
> historically we’ve always been good at - selling goods and services
> that the rest of the World actually wants.
>
> We need to replace the hole now left by the deluded house of cards -
> engine of economic growth - housing market, that we’ve been relying
> upon for the last twelve years and that just evaporated.
>
> The only way to fill that gap is not massive deluded public spending
> in the hope of trying to second-guess the economic activity of the
> future, or even near future – let’s face it, nowadays, even experts in
> their own fields can’t predict that such is the rate of technological
> change, so what chance ‘high speed broadband in every home by 2010’
> Gordon Brown?
>
> What we badly need now is private sector business to thrive and you do
> that by massively cutting their taxes and stop treating them like
> money trees – end of story!
>
> Here in Birmingham, LDV vans are facing oblivion.
>
> Now they may not be a very good company, seeing as how even before the
> credit crunch they couldn’t make a profit, but every week during that
> last four years of unprofitable operation the taxman has been turning
> up demanding employer’s NI contributions that amount to some 20
> million.
>
> On top of that, the local outreach PC loonies, down at the council,
> have been hitting them with record levels of business rates set,
> unbelievably, next year to rise by 15%.
>
> Now if that’s not a f**king fantasy island death wish economic policy
> I don’t know what is, and do you wonder why Hoover can’t f**k off
> quickly enough to Turkey.

Massive investment in new technology to be built here, applied here,
and sold around the world,  is the only way.

It will happen, eventually. Its just a matter of how much pain it
takes before the penny drops.

Gordon Brown is intent upon a short-term fix (G20 stimulus) to get him
to the next election. He aint yer man.

I dont know who "yer man" will be. But, if long delayed, he may then
be of a quite unfamiliar political colour.

aracari wrote:

> It all suggests to me that govts will need to manufacture a whole
> new very major crises that really does ensure we are obedient, but
> I could only speculate on what it might be!

Yes; I think the authors point, though, was that the Defence industries 
soaked up *so much* money that, for example, we could (and we did) place 
a man on the moon without even touching the military spend. Equally, the 
USA could house every family into new accommodation from the proceeds of 
twelve months' defence spending. And a free health system would take 
care of a few months' spend. The sums are huge, and getting an 
equivalent problem to soak up all that money would be extremely 
problematical.

Who would have guessed that our own banks might have provided that 
necessity? ;-)

-- 

Doug