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The world's full of examples of evolutions that do not lead to a "better place" for millions of innocent bystanders. All the optimism in the world did not keep a Jew in the Warsaw ghetto off the train to a Nazi death camp. All the optimism in the world didn't help a Japanese housewife trying to raise her kids in Hiroshima on Aug 6th, 1945. And all the optimism in the world shouldn't permit a heavily indebted American consumer debt-slave to throw caution to the wind and believe that things are going to get better despite consistently spending more than he/she earns.
Well Bob, I disagree with your assessment because you just don't know everthing about the Jewish & Japanese people who were optimistic. What about the optimism that led many Jews away from the death camps to safer havens? If they had no optimism they wouldn't have even made the effort. What about the optimism that led some Japanese to leave Hiroshima and Nagasaki just prior to the masscares. Optimism is not the cause of this financial fiasco. Stupidity, greed, and ignorance played a far bigger role in bringing it on.
Well Bob, I disagree with your assessment because you just don't know everthing about the Jewish & Japanese people who were optimistic. What about the optimism that led many Jews away from the death camps to safer havens? If they had no optimism they wouldn't have even made the effort. What about the optimism that led some Japanese to leave Hiroshima and Nagasaki just prior to the masscares. Optimism is not the cause of this financial fiasco. Stupidity, greed, and ignorance played a far bigger role in bringing it on.
Many, many innocents were carried away by events out of their control in WW II, the influenza pandemic of 1918, the First Great Depression etc..
And in the economic situation before us, there are many innocents...people who are not up to their ears in debt on houses they never could afford, people without five and six-figure credit card balances, people with significant savings and pensions...and these innocents are at great risk of being swept away by the tide of events brought down on everyone by the stupidity, greed, arrogance, and criminality of the robber barons, inept lawmakers and regulators, and debt slaves alike.
Anyone who would have advocated escape from Nagasaki and Hiroshima before the bombings (not massacres) would have been branded defeatist and pessimistic by their Japanese neighbors. An optimist was the guy who stuck around, faithful in the conviction that everything was gonna be OK and Emperor H would bring in the Big Win. He would probably have posted that "the future's SO bright," if there had existed forums. And things ended badly for him so fast that he couldn't even wipe the cheesy optimistic grin off his face.
Using your analogy to the survivors that escaped Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I am not being pessimistic at all to advocate people get out of debt, stay away from the equity markets, and prepare best they can to survive an imminent Greater Depression. I'm optimistic that survival is possible. I'm also convinced that we are on the brink of having to use our survival skills, right here where we live in Colorado.
Debt is Dumb
Last edited by Bob from down south; 11-30-2008 at 12:48 AM..
Bob...Now you're changing the subject form optimists to innocents. Many of those you refer to as innocents were NOT optimistic. I never called you pessimistic in my post that you quoted. You're putting words in my mouth. I'm glad to hear that optimisim is part of your emotional range, even though you have rarely chosen to express it in this thread ( your perogative of course ).
Bob's the kind of individual that waits to say.. "I told you so" except it actually takes somewhat negatively charged events to get them to say e'm.. otherwise there in stasis waiting..
There's nothing wrong with it.. it's just kind of annoying to participate in this thread and see that and the "peak oil" crazies.. who probably now have nothing to say with gas prices down except peak oil is here and we'll all die by nuclear fire
I don't consider myself a peak oil crazy, yet I take little comfort in this temporary dip in the price of gasoline. If anything, the SUV driving crazies, will say I told you so, and start guzzling gasoline like $4 a gallon was just a blip on the screen, or that the McMansion lovin crazies will go back to building those 4000+ sf monstrosities. IMO, these low gasoline prices are somewhat dangerous.
I have no quarell with Jazzlover and Bob about the validity or the accurracy of the issues they mention in their posts. Where I take issue is with the incessant harping on the bad news that all but the most ignorant already heard at least a thousand times before reading it yet again on this thread. That type of thoughtless posting just adds fuel to the negativity unfolding before our very eyes...and it perpetuates the negative cycle by sucking even more people into it becasue they read it on the internet...so it must be true!
What I really want to say, is not "I told you so." It's: "I'm telling you so right now! Do something to help yourself while you still can!!"
This ongoing discussion isn't just rehash of the same thing. There's new info and discussion out every day, and conditions have changed markedly since we started talking about this topic over a year ago in this forum. It all goes together to paint a picture...a progressively more bleak one, without a doubt. But there are still oh so many people still in denial. Recall that it took 3-4 years after the 1929 stock market crash for the First Great Depression to fully develop.
Here's another current and chilling viewpoint, written by Dr. Brad DeLong, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley. He was also Deputy Asst Secretary of the Treasury under the Clinton administration. He says the Fed and the Treasury have already missed their opportunity to head off the depressionary beast.
People don't want a rehash of the depression.. regardless of what you might think.. bob.. and to be honest 5 years from now your predictions of doom and gloom will look like vapid stupidity..
What is going on is a down market for the real estate bizz.. and the usual sorting out of poor planning/strategy.. all this really exists as a catalyst to put a democrat in the white house.. with that done things will somewhat normalize and get better.. so I took you prediction of
"were going into a depression"
and replaced it with one of my own..
"things will get better.. I know it way better then you and are way more sure.." there not even BAD now by my experience/standing and I'm not going to throw around my facts to prove it so you can poke holes in them..
[mod cut]
People follow common sense cause that's all you need to be your guide..
Last edited by katzenfreund; 12-01-2008 at 07:46 AM..
Reason: be nice please!
Bob must really be pushing some buttons for you to get so worked up....
I've listened to his and Jazz's warnings, and have come out much further ahead financially than I would have if I bought into the 'hakuna matata' philosophy.
Last edited by katzenfreund; 12-01-2008 at 07:47 AM..
Reason: the text you quoted has been deleted
Bob must really be pushing some buttons for you to get so worked up....
I've listened to his and Jazz's warnings, and have come out much further ahead financially than I would have if I bought into the 'hakuna matata' philosophy.
Oh, yah I broke a sweat.. can't sleep at night
So tell me what has bob done exactly for you?
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