So, what do you think? Where is it heading (short term/long term).
No politics/religion/finger pointing please (At least not at nations or fellow blenderheads). 
This thread will not have been around long before the fingerpointing towards countries and leaders start.
The worse an economic downturn may do to me is that my value presentations for people buying my art would be more popular then my new medium and high end presentations.
My fatherās job is fairly safe, Wichita should do fine as long as rich people overseas are buying city build planes, you simply donāt want to be in the financial industry right now.
No politics
Itās impossible to discuss the world economy fully without politics being involved.
In before lock? Maybe.
Well, maybe a better way of putting things would be:
Is the system broken? Are there alternatives? How could they be implemented? Is it time to quit the fiat sytem and get back to say, a gold standard?
My opinion.
Every time there is a crash, a new generation of opportunity is born. Its a great cleansing of the stale thoughts of today.
I listened to an interesting talk 3-4 year ago foreseeing this. it was from an archaeological anthropologist. He had identified 5 markers that always became present before the collapse of a civilisation. The US (and much of the world) were up to 3 of the 5 markers.
Each time there is a collapse, there is always ālargerā growth out the other end, a death of a civilisation or way of life is always the start of something better.
See you all on the other side.
Iād be interested to learn what those āmarkersā are! 
Weāll get over it.
People are only making the situation worse by panicking.
I never read his book so i donāt know exactly how he broke things down. These may not be the five but were all key points. He did a lot of research into all civilisations of all sizes, trying to break down what people were thinking and going through in their heads. One quote that stuck with me was āWhat was the person who cut down the last tree on easter island thinking at the time?ā (the tree was cut down so the gods could save them)
- Waste, or rubbish generation. (indicates a certain amount of inefficiency or extra wealth and greed)
- Outsourcing of knowledge/jobs. I.e. offshore production today, and in Romeās times, the use of slaves and āother peopleā for all the educated jobs meant the balance of power changed significantly
- Turning heavily to religion. Today there is a rise in fundamentalism in a time of easily accessible knowledge. His example of the past was Easter Island and the building of large heads as a āgods save us from ourselvesā offering.
- Exponential resource consumption. when resources get rare they are exponentially consumed because their value goes upā¦ this leads naturally to no resources. regardless of whether it is food, water, gold, oil, metals crucial to the creation of circuit boards (7 years left for many of them BTW)I must try to remember his name and find his book. He had dedicated his entire life to this stuff, and was an extreme optimist. his entire goal was to learn from history, and the best point of it all was that each time a civilisation collapses it actually prospers in the longer run. So donāt worry about things, keep your eyes open for the opportunities.
double postā¦
Well, after the Roman empire collapsed, we had the Dark Ages. That would make me worry. :eek:
Was it Jared Diamond? The book sounds like āCollapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.ā
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(book)
Iāve read it several timesā¦ scary stuffā¦ but not entirely hopeless.
In general, any book by Jared Diamond is worth reading, IMHO.
Interesting question. David Icke have some interesting information aboutā¦
David Icke - Live At The Oxford Union Debating Society
After company values collapse it would be a great opportunity for another company to springboard into becoming a coglomerate for any market it chooses assuming it can bypass monopoly laws.
Game publisher stocks have fallen, maybe EA and Actiblizz will come under one umbrella by a third company, and then half the games you find at Best Buy will be either incomplete, suck, or make you pay through the nose.
I think this is going to really force the world to take a good hard look at the natural resources of this planet and hopefully realize that thereās not enough left to continue wasting them the way we are right now. Everything from oil to lumber to coal and other resources are being depleted so rapidly that we can no longer keep up with demand so long as we are being this inefficient with their use.
I mean, the current economic crisis is based on a lack of credit, but in the US at least there is a much larger collapse that is about to happen that is somewhat related to the credit crisis and thatās inflation. Itās already started, but right now the credit and housing crisis are overshadowing it. When the inflation ābubbleā bursts, tho, what will be destroyed isnāt the value of houses or some banks, it will be the dollar itself. Businesses might be having a slightly rough ride now, but in a year of two (if not sooner than that) there will be a much larger problem that will affect everyone in this country, and that will be the time to start seriously considering our economic options and reevaluating what exactly it is weāre all trying to acheive here.
CD, I wasnāt talking about games, I was refering to the real Roman empireās demise. lol
I hope that it would just be a short term crisis in our worldās economy particularly in the US. Countries are relying too much of the US economy and if something happens to that economy the whole world will suffer. Third world countries will suffer greatly. Letās not pray that it would become a long term problem.
I think things are getting better now.
and Iāve heard the oilās running out too.
First I would like to read a statement by the guy who locked the previous thread about the same topic. At the moment it is not clear whether this discussion is welcome here at all, even in the āoff-topicā forum.
By the way, it doesnāt work without fingerpointing. For example, if I say āEuropean banks will be more cautious about investing in top-rated US asset backed securitiesā, there is fingerpointing included. If I say āThe credit card crisis will be the next blow to the global economyā, there is fingerpointing again.
Hey all
Just wanted to let yous know that itās not so bad at the moment. Come on, the stock prices were overly inflated for some good companies like the supermarket chains, utility sector and so on. So now they are quite underpriced, especially the banks, which the government is now backing 100%. Why not buy 'em cheap now - in a few years they will have more than double in value.