rmptr
Silver Member
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It may be real silly for all I know, but I still have this idea that I should warn people about the 8000 pound behemoth that is about to move into their living room. The first problem is that nobody wants to know, the second is that they have better things to do; the living room is about to be foreclosed upon anyway, so why would they care about a biblical hairball sitting there?
I read quite a lot, as you may by now have surmised, and a fair bit of it about housing sales and mortgages. And I just can’t believe there are still people buying homes these days. There’s always the 0.01% that have more money than they know what to do with, but the rest are nothing but loose screws, bolts and nuts. Reading, though, is one thing: meeting people face to face, and corresponding with friends, only to find that they refuse to listen and are about to close a mortgage and a purchase, that I find hard to take.
But how loud can I scream? There’s a limit, or I’ll be listed as a public nuisance. I know that nobody can foresee the future, but what we can do is see trends and trendlines. In the face of those, what I say here is not some tea leaf reading session.
It’s the other way around: all those people who claim we’ll get out of this in good shape, and soon, have no other claims to support that view than faith-based ones. The government will save the day, or the central bank, or even: man is at his best when he’s challenged, and "someone" will find "something".
But I tell you, grasshoppers, change is going to come, and it will be sweeping and in many cases deadly, and I firmly believe you’d be better off if you would recognize that. In politics and finance, all the people you read about today, the Bernanke, Paulson, Gordon Brown, King and Darling and Trichets, they’ll be gone very soon, once the whips come down, only to be replaced by other hand-puppets. Who will also be presented as smart and wise and having your best interest in mind.
But that will be true no more for the new Punch and Judy’s than it is for the present ones. Not for them, and not for the oinking and bleating heads that give you the "news" on your plasma screen. Or for the folks who are supposed to educate your kids. All these people have priorities different from yours.
The only thing you can do that is real, that improves your chances of not having to eat from garbage bins or prostitute your duaghters, is to lower your demands and wishes, by a lot. And find people around you that you can trust, and keep them close; your world will become much smaller, travel will be a luxury that you can't afford.
As for me, sometimes I wonder why I don’t just go make money, get a sportscar and burn it all down; my view of the future differs little from Pieter Bruegel’s 16th century vision of the triumph of death, or Matt Simmons' "If we don't change, we'll just start fighting each other". I don't think we'll change; I don't think we are capable of changing, we're just another tragic species propelled by 3 billion year old amoebe brains.
<eof
I think he writes very well...
Best
It may be real silly for all I know, but I still have this idea that I should warn people about the 8000 pound behemoth that is about to move into their living room. The first problem is that nobody wants to know, the second is that they have better things to do; the living room is about to be foreclosed upon anyway, so why would they care about a biblical hairball sitting there?
I read quite a lot, as you may by now have surmised, and a fair bit of it about housing sales and mortgages. And I just can’t believe there are still people buying homes these days. There’s always the 0.01% that have more money than they know what to do with, but the rest are nothing but loose screws, bolts and nuts. Reading, though, is one thing: meeting people face to face, and corresponding with friends, only to find that they refuse to listen and are about to close a mortgage and a purchase, that I find hard to take.
But how loud can I scream? There’s a limit, or I’ll be listed as a public nuisance. I know that nobody can foresee the future, but what we can do is see trends and trendlines. In the face of those, what I say here is not some tea leaf reading session.
It’s the other way around: all those people who claim we’ll get out of this in good shape, and soon, have no other claims to support that view than faith-based ones. The government will save the day, or the central bank, or even: man is at his best when he’s challenged, and "someone" will find "something".
But I tell you, grasshoppers, change is going to come, and it will be sweeping and in many cases deadly, and I firmly believe you’d be better off if you would recognize that. In politics and finance, all the people you read about today, the Bernanke, Paulson, Gordon Brown, King and Darling and Trichets, they’ll be gone very soon, once the whips come down, only to be replaced by other hand-puppets. Who will also be presented as smart and wise and having your best interest in mind.
But that will be true no more for the new Punch and Judy’s than it is for the present ones. Not for them, and not for the oinking and bleating heads that give you the "news" on your plasma screen. Or for the folks who are supposed to educate your kids. All these people have priorities different from yours.
The only thing you can do that is real, that improves your chances of not having to eat from garbage bins or prostitute your duaghters, is to lower your demands and wishes, by a lot. And find people around you that you can trust, and keep them close; your world will become much smaller, travel will be a luxury that you can't afford.
As for me, sometimes I wonder why I don’t just go make money, get a sportscar and burn it all down; my view of the future differs little from Pieter Bruegel’s 16th century vision of the triumph of death, or Matt Simmons' "If we don't change, we'll just start fighting each other". I don't think we'll change; I don't think we are capable of changing, we're just another tragic species propelled by 3 billion year old amoebe brains.
<eof
I think he writes very well...
Best
