U.S. accountant-in-chief: ‘We’ve never seen the likes of what’s coming’ – Financial Times, Jan. 29 An influential US official on Tuesday hit out at his country’s “addiction to debt,” warning that the federal budget was on an “imprudent and unsustainable path” due to ballooning healthcare costs. David Walker, US comptroller general, warned a Senate budget…
Category: Economy
Doomer fringe converging on the mainstream (Headlines from the Meltdown)
Cardin comments: You know life on planet earth has gotten weird when conventionally respectable mainstream news sources start running stories that sound like what would have formerly been dismissed as the ravings of a conspiracy nut. But — and this is a crucial point — is anybody really listening? Case in point: an analysis piece…
A plague of toxic everything (Headlines from the Meltdown)
General comment from Cardin: A few things I’m reading and hearing — none of them referenced below — suggest that January’s generalized stock market mini-crash/meltdown may have played itself out, and that the coming weeks may witness a generalized, although volatile, meltup. Only time will tell. What’s certain is that other problematic aspects of the…
Not just an economic crisis but a difficult cultural transformation
As is obvious from my last few posts, I’ve decided to start keeping tabs here at The Teeming Brain on doomer-sounding economic news stories, essays, analyses, op-eds, and rants. Currently the media are presenting a veritable cornucopia of these things, and they seem likely to keep it up for a very long time to come….
A nightmare economy (Headlines from the Meltdown)
Seeing Signs of ‘Systemic Failure’ – The New York Times, Jan. 23 “This is not a normal crisis,” George Soros, the hedge fund pioneer turned philosopher, said today to a group of reporters he had invited to lunch at the World Economic Forum. “It is the end of an era.” It was the “era of…
Economically, this is “the big one” (Headlines from the Meltdown)
U.S. Moves to Avert Economic Meltdown – Associated Press, Jan. 23 Jolted by global recession fears, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates Tuesday, and President Bush and leaders of Congress joined in a rare show of cooperation in promising urgent action to pump up the economy with upwards of $150 billion in tax cuts and…
Panic sets in (Headlines from the Meltdown)
Global economic crisis ‘serious’: IMF chief – Associated Press, Jan. 21, 2007 The head of the International Monetary Fund called the global economic situation “serious” and said markets worldwide had responded skeptically to a U.S. stimulus plan. Dominique Strauss-Kahn stressed that a U.S. recession would affect economies across the globe. “The situation is … serious,”…
Unfolding financial carnage (Headlines from the Meltdown)
Hmm. It’s been a month and a half since I made the first of six announced updates. Tempus fugit. Right about now, for various reasons, I want to upload this post before it’s possible for me to groom it properly. The haste is due to the fact that I want to beat the American stock…
The Future Is Now: Peak oil arrives, the world begins to shake
The theory of peak oil has been around for several decades now. I first discovered it myself a little over four years ago and found my view of modern technological/industrial civilization and our collective future deeply impacted by it. Two things have proven particularly fascinating to me in this regard over the past couple of…
Food spikes, foreclosures, and cultural freefall
Has it really been three weeks since my last post? A glance at the date stamp on that previous post indicates the answer is yes. I’m now four weeks back into my teaching job, and this, in conjunction with a couple of extra-job responsibilities, is eating up nearly all of my time. Alas, the blog…