We would be a lot worse off.

agreed...

which is why anyone insisting "so what if oil is $100! we seem to be doing just fine!!" is in full denial.

by printing money, we've merely bought a bit of time in the face of the inevitable.

Might be time to change policy....

and maybe put more emphasis and incentive on churning out science graduates and less on finance grads.

Obv quantitative easing didn't cause the last crash, was just a means to stop the bleeding and give money to their friends. More of a cough than the cold. When as Sarbanes-Oxley passed, and why didn't anyone go to jail the last time? Great job improving accountability, seems to have really worked. <obviously rolls eyes>

In the states we complain little about moocher states, where as in europe it is a huge ordeal to have a state like greece that needs transfer payments to survive. Do people freak out that west virginia depends on federal transfer payments?

You don't really see this in the US. I'm not sure why but maybe it's because transfer to another country is going to generate a lot more emotion than a transfer within the same country? Or perhaps the relative size of the transfers is larger in Europe?

the economy isn't coming back.

[ ] sure it is... here's why: ...
[ ] nope... ^^

Jiggs: At what point in time would you say "the economy is back"? I mean, what kind of criteria do you have and such?

If you argued that creating the giant honeypot attracted the flies, that would seem a bit more rational, but that's not how it went down either. The creation of the whole system was done in a cigar filled room.

I guess a couple of clear indicators to me (for the context of this thread) would be:

- pre-9/11 unemployment levels (including the old critieria for what constitutes "employed") ...
- a wages/bennies/compensation rate growth of, say +4% again?

I could probably think of a few others.

Worst recovery ever...still 6 million less full-time jobs than before the collapse if I'm reading that chart right.

I thought I heard a different number than that just the other day, but it's late, can't remember.

true...

and most everything that was agreed upon that night at the table was based on the presumption of "plenty more where that came from ... tomorrow."

agreed

As far as that commedity prices chart goes...

What percentage of the world population in 1970 could afford an ounce of gold.....

What percentage of the worldpopulation in 2006 could afford an ounce of gold...

What percentage of the world population in 2014 can afford an ounce of gold......

in 1970 if you sold ......"widgets"...... you only had to worry about seeling 4your "widgets" to one of the 7 continents maybe 2......in 2014 people in 6 continents are buying your widgets....**** with amazon maybe 7 continents....

I do have aproblem with people who can't understand that 300,000,000 people are not buying things now....it's like 300,000,000 billion or something

^^^^^^^ Infininty X Infinity........(asplode)

Doesn't matter.

Gold isn't something that is a good or service the average consumer is purchasing on a day to day basis.

oil is though...

Important to remind people every once in a while: it's called the petrol dollar today for a reason.

jiggggzzzzz you welching on the oprah avatar?

It was one bet, which was re-defined, including concessions for him (nations) as well as me (time). Not two bets. I did my time, so STFU.

peeeeeeeeeekkkkkkk welschhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I would argue that Europe is in worse shape than the US because of flawed fundamentals. In my opinion, the EU is a failed experiment that is just taking some time to unravel. This said, I wouldn't argue that the US is in great shape either - it's just the prettiest of all the ugly. The US is still relatively the safest place to park, but the current administration appears to be doing whatever they can to discourage businesses from investing in the US. In my humble opinion, the primary reason businesses continue to invest in the US is because they're bullish on the American people and and American work ethic. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending upon where you read this post from), I believe that US advantage is eroding.

lol

largely agreed... but worse shape merely because they haven't been printing up money or bailing "lenders" out at anywhere near the rate the U.S. has.

Instead of bailing out banks and big business, they bail out out a country, lol. This is why I believe the EU was a failed experiment. They were able to save Greece // they won't be able to save Spain or Italy. I believe they are in worse shape because, while the EU wasn't set up with the intentions of socialism, that was the end result. Greece can only produce so much olive oil, and the Germans (rightly, imo) won't put up with it forever.

Weren't there prerequisites to joining the EU in the first place?

They didn't intend to just let anybody join, did they?

Market would crash overnight if QE stopped or the FED raised interest rates!!!
CRASH, not a "Correction"!
Its all hot air right now. Its gonna get real bad soon.