Originally Posted by Distinguished Toastmaster

Originally Posted by kenof98112

When the 2010s roll around, the 77 to 100 million strong spendthrift boomer generation will be replaced by the 40-60 some million weak frugal and deeply in debt generation x in middle age (the peak spending years), and it will likely have a pretty dramatic effect on not only consumer spending but the broader economy. Add in the likely dramatic tax increases on generation x for boomer entitlements and it seems likely that that's when the Chinese and Japanese will finally pull the plug on the dollar, with the likely effect of plunging much of the globe into a deep and lasting recession, if not a depression.

Just a nit, but last count, the Boomer gen (defined as 1943-1960) is smaller in number than Gen-X (1961-1981).

Of course if you compare the popular definition of Boom (1946-1964) with X (1965-1976), yeah, there are more "Boomers". But I think that most of us agree here that those born in 1963-1964 are really Xers, as are those born in the late 70s.

I know what you're saying, but the point here is that the core xers - the "baby busters" - will dominate middle-aged-dom (the peak earning and spending years) in the 2010s and into the 2020s, and their small numbers, frugality, indebtedness, and likely high rates of taxation on them (us) will almost certainly have a serious negative impact on consumer spending as a whole (given that a good portion of the spendthrift boomers will have retired and have less to spend, and that the much larger millenial generation won't yet be earning enough to offset the negative impact of xers), not to mention likely equities valuations, real estate, etc. And because of entitlements (espeicially medicare, whose trust fund goes broke in 2018, and is facing a 62 trillion dollar shortfall over the next half century or so) and the fact that older Americans are living longer the uptick in consumer spending and in turn corporate profits, equities, etc will be less dramatic than it might have been even when the baby busters begin to be replaced in middle age by larger cohorts.

Originally Posted by kenof98112

Originally Posted by Distinguished Toastmaster

Originally Posted by kenof98112

When the 2010s roll around, the 77 to 100 million strong spendthrift boomer generation will be replaced by the 40-60 some million weak frugal and deeply in debt generation x in middle age (the peak spending years), and it will likely have a pretty dramatic effect on not only consumer spending but the broader economy. Add in the likely dramatic tax increases on generation x for boomer entitlements and it seems likely that that's when the Chinese and Japanese will finally pull the plug on the dollar, with the likely effect of plunging much of the globe into a deep and lasting recession, if not a depression.

Just a nit, but last count, the Boomer gen (defined as 1943-1960) is smaller in number than Gen-X (1961-1981).

Of course if you compare the popular definition of Boom (1946-1964) with X (1965-1976), yeah, there are more "Boomers". But I think that most of us agree here that those born in 1963-1964 are really Xers, as are those born in the late 70s.

I know what you're saying, but the point here is that the core xers - the "baby busters" - will dominate middle-aged-dom (the peak earning and spending years) in the 2010s and into the 2020s, and their small numbers, frugality, indebtedness, and likely high rates of taxation on them (us) will almost certainly have a serious negative impact on consumer spending as a whole (given that a good portion of the spendthrift boomers will have retired and have less to spend, and that the much larger millenial generation won't yet be earning enough to offset the negative impact of xers), not to mention likely equities valuations, real estate, etc. And because of entitlements (espeicially medicare, whose trust fund goes broke in 2018, and is facing a 62 trillion dollar shortfall over the next half century or so) and the fact that older Americans are living longer the uptick in consumer spending and in turn corporate profits, equities, etc will be less dramatic than it might have been even when the baby busters begin to be replaced in middle age by larger cohorts.

Then you're gen will be fine, while we Boomers take the hit. Bankrupting the productives in society kills society entirely. And to your point about all the money Boomers are supposed to have, and contrary to popular opinion, most Boomers are not ready to retire. The ones that are, are so very ready.

It will be a repeat of the 1930s, with the rich driving Bentleys, and the rest riding the bus. You guys, on the other hand, will retire in the 1T, so make it right. It's yours to screw-up.

Boomers will find a way to screw us. Always have, always will. It's like gravity. :wink:

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Boomers will find a way to screw us. Always have, always will. It's like gravity. :wink:

It seems to me that you're taking up 'screwing' with the wrong male Boomer. :P

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Boomers will find a way to screw us. Always have, always will. It's like gravity. :wink:

It seems to me that you're taking up 'screwing' with the wrong male Boomer. :P

Leave your fantasies at the door big boy. :wink:

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Originally Posted by kenof98112

Originally Posted by Distinguished Toastmaster

Originally Posted by kenof98112

When the 2010s roll around, the 77 to 100 million strong spendthrift boomer generation will be replaced by the 40-60 some million weak frugal and deeply in debt generation x in middle age (the peak spending years), and it will likely have a pretty dramatic effect on not only consumer spending but the broader economy. Add in the likely dramatic tax increases on generation x for boomer entitlements and it seems likely that that's when the Chinese and Japanese will finally pull the plug on the dollar, with the likely effect of plunging much of the globe into a deep and lasting recession, if not a depression.

Just a nit, but last count, the Boomer gen (defined as 1943-1960) is smaller in number than Gen-X (1961-1981).

Of course if you compare the popular definition of Boom (1946-1964) with X (1965-1976), yeah, there are more "Boomers". But I think that most of us agree here that those born in 1963-1964 are really Xers, as are those born in the late 70s.

I know what you're saying, but the point here is that the core xers - the "baby busters" - will dominate middle-aged-dom (the peak earning and spending years) in the 2010s and into the 2020s, and their small numbers, frugality, indebtedness, and likely high rates of taxation on them (us) will almost certainly have a serious negative impact on consumer spending as a whole (given that a good portion of the spendthrift boomers will have retired and have less to spend, and that the much larger millenial generation won't yet be earning enough to offset the negative impact of xers), not to mention likely equities valuations, real estate, etc. And because of entitlements (espeicially medicare, whose trust fund goes broke in 2018, and is facing a 62 trillion dollar shortfall over the next half century or so) and the fact that older Americans are living longer the uptick in consumer spending and in turn corporate profits, equities, etc will be less dramatic than it might have been even when the baby busters begin to be replaced in middle age by larger cohorts.

Then you're gen will be fine, while we Boomers take the hit. Bankrupting the productives in society kills society entirely. And to your point about all the money Boomers are supposed to have, and contrary to popular opinion, most Boomers are not ready to retire. The ones that are, are so very ready.

It will be a repeat of the 1930s, with the rich driving Bentleys, and the rest riding the bus. You guys, on the other hand, will retire in the 1T, so make it right. It's yours to screw-up.

How well do you think losts did in old age? When "the Other America" was written in the early 1960s documenting the appalling poverty among the elderly it was nomad poverty they were talking about, and of course by the time increases in social security benefits and indexing to inflation happened a great many nomads were already dead.

A similiar thing will likely happen.

Just because the economy is in the tank, and nomads are going bankrupt left and right doesn't mean that we won't be taxed through the teeth to pay for boomer entitlement benefits, the so-called war on terror, and our staggering debt. FDR did the same thing to losts, who saw little benefit from new deal programs but ended up paying for both them and the war.

Caving? Apparently not...

US fights back against 'rule by clerics' (exerpted)

To head off this threat of a Shi'ite clergy-driven religious movement, the US has, according to Asia Times Online investigations, resolved to arm small militias backed by US troops and entrenched in the population to "nip the evil in the bud".

Asia Times Online has learned that in a highly clandestine operation, the US has procured Pakistan-manufactured weapons, including rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, ammunition, rockets and other light weaponry. Consignments have been loaded in bulk onto US military cargo aircraft at Chaklala airbase in the past few weeks. The aircraft arrived from and departed for Iraq.

The US-armed and supported militias in the south will comprise former members of the Ba'ath Party, which has already split into three factions, only one of which is pro-Saddam Hussein. They would be expected to receive assistance from pro-US interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord.

A military analyst familiar with strategic and proxy operations commented that there is a specific reason behind procuring arms from Pakistan, rather than acquiring US-made ones.

"A similar strategy was adopted in Afghanistan during the initial few years of the anti-USSR resistance [the early 1980s] movement where guerrillas were supplied with Chinese-made AK-47 rifles [which were procured by Pakistan with US money], Egyptian and German-made G-3 rifles. Similarly, other arms, like anti-aircraft guns, short-range missiles and mortars, were also procured by the US from different countries and supplied to Pakistan, which handed them over to the guerrillas," the analyst maintained.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Caving? Apparently not...

What do you mean? If that article is to be believed, it looks like Bush is going to arm insurgents.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Caving? Apparently not...

What do you mean? If that article is to be believed, it looks like Bush is going to arm insurgents.

In an effort to not even learn the lesson of the last mistake, we are about to replicate the al Qaeda/Osama bin Laden scenario ... and we're doing it in response to the 9/11 terrorism by those 'other guys'

Brilliant!

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Caving? Apparently not...

What do you mean? If that article is to be believed, it looks like Bush is going to arm insurgents.

Yeah, but those are going to be his insurgents, don't you see...

From the: Best of the Web Today - February 14, 2005 | By JAMES TARANTO

Wright Is Wrong

Check out the opening paragraphs of a story in today's Washington Post by reporter Robin Wright:

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy--potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions. But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base--and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy--$300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.

Wright's assertion that the Bush administration never wanted democracy in Iraq is untrue. Here is what President Bush had to say on the subject way back on Sept. 12, 2002, in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly:

The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond.

Notes blogger Arthur Chrenkoff:

Remember all the controversy and hand-wringing over the past three years about the radical neo-conservative cabal running the US foreign policy and pushing their mad schemes to export liberal democracy to all the unfree parts of the world? Well, strangely, now that the election in Iraq has taken place, we discover that the US has after all been run by cold-blooded realists who didn't care about such trifles like democracy because all they ever wanted was to lord over Iraq and steal its oil.

Originally Posted by NickSmoliga

From the: Best of the Web Today - February 14, 2005 | By JAMES TARANTO

Wright Is Wrong

Check out the opening paragraphs of a story in today's Washington Post by reporter Robin Wright:

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy--potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions. But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base--and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy--$300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.

Wright's assertion that the Bush administration never wanted democracy in Iraq is untrue. Here is what President Bush had to say on the subject way back on Sept. 12, 2002, in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly:

The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond.

Notes blogger Arthur Chrenkoff:

Remember all the controversy and hand-wringing over the past three years about the radical neo-conservative cabal running the US foreign policy and pushing their mad schemes to export liberal democracy to all the unfree parts of the world? Well, strangely, now that the election in Iraq has taken place, we discover that the US has after all been run by cold-blooded realists who didn't care about such trifles like democracy because all they ever wanted was to lord over Iraq and steal its oil.

This sounds a lot like "Mission Accomplished", to me. :P

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Caving? Apparently not...

What do you mean? If that article is to be believed, it looks like Bush is going to arm insurgents.

Yeah, but those are going to be his insurgents, don't you see...

Yes, attacking his democratic government that includes his man, Ahmad Chalabi. Kinda rich eh? :wink:

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblo...005_01_30.html

THE IRAQI ELECTION AND OTHER THINGS
Dateline: IcelandAir Flight 633 from Reykjavik to Boston Logan, 1 February 2005

Gotta admit: the Iraqi election process went very well, and it was very impressive to see so many voters, so many candidates, and such a professional effort all around but especially from the interim government leadership. It's a big deal this all went so well in a country of over 25 million (something like three dozen deaths nationally despite a lot of efforts from the insurgency).

You have to hand it to Bush and the Neocons: they don't just talk about doing stuff, they actually get it done. Ugly and incompetent at times (basically the entire occupation)? Definitely. But they get it done. Others talk, promise, hedge, and generally give reasons why none of this can ever happen, but this election happened. It is awfully hard to imagine anything but Saddam still in power if Bush isn't president these last four years. And it's awfully hard to imagine all the change and tumult in the Middle East since 9/11 that actually has the region looking like it might finally start moving in the direction of something better after roughly half a century of U.S. presidents promising to do something and never quite doing anything but let it sink further.

The big thing now for the Bush administration is simply being smart enough to realize that with all the initial conditions severely altered, they need to plan adaptively if they want to take advantage of what they've started. That's basically my pitch in the Feb. Esquire piece, which the magazine will soon post online.

Frankly, my favorite media story to date on the election was run prior to Sunday's vote ("In Culture Dominated by Men, Questions About Women's Vote," by James Glanz, NYT, 30 Jan 05, p. 16). Talk about a glimpse of freedom: all those Iraqi women, for the first time in their lives, making a political decision "away from the immediate influence of husbands, sheiks and other clerics."

Here are some of my favorite bits:

? "Many women here express resentment over the de facto control that clerics already exercise in this lives and cite clerical rule in Iran as an example to be avoided. Many say that in the privacy of the polling booth, whatever the sheik may have directed will not be in play."

? "'I would go and listen to him and see if his words would be of interest to me,' said Om Muntadhar, an elderly government worker and a member of a local aid society. 'But when I go to the booth, I will do as I wish.'"

? "Women in Basra generally cite security and stability as top concerns for election day and put religion lower on the list."

? "'We want a really strong person, not a sheik,' said Iman Abdul Karik, also a government worker,. And Iman al-Timini, a translator, said she heard the same message from women again and again: 'No one would vote for the turbans.'"

Here's the real promise: the U.S. mandated that at least one-third of the candidate lists be made up of women. No matter how many get elected versus the religious leaders, we've set something very powerful in motion here, something the Salafi jihadists like al-Zarqawi and bin Laden will never abide by.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Caving? Apparently not...

What do you mean? If that article is to be believed, it looks like Bush is going to arm insurgents.

Yeah, but those are going to be his insurgents, don't you see...

And undermine the democratically-elected Shi'ite power structure in the south of the country. So much for "purple fingers". :lol:

Originally Posted by NickSmoliga's Laughable Silliness

Wright's assertion that the Bush administration never wanted democracy in Iraq is untrue.

You obviously don't read enough, certainly not in this very thread a few posts ago.

Originally Posted by Peter Gibbons

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Caving? Apparently not...

What do you mean? If that article is to be believed, it looks like Bush is going to arm insurgents.

Yeah, but those are going to be his insurgents, don't you see...

And undermine the democratically-elected Shi'ite power structure in the south of the country. So much for "purple fingers". :lol:

"Purple fingers", "blood-stained hands" -- who can keep these things straight? Suffice it to say, some upper appendage will be done up in some color. That's why the US invaded, don't you remember?

Originally Posted by Thomas Barnett

You have to hand it to Bush and the Neocons: they don't just talk about doing stuff, they actually get it done. Ugly and incompetent at times (basically the entire occupation)? Definitely. But they get it done.

Good heavens.

This calls for a round of :arrow: :arrow: :arrow: (with apologies to Mr. Saari).

Didn't Charlie Manson "get stuff done", too?

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Didn't Charlie Manson "get stuff done", too?

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Stalin, Hitler, Mao, they all got a hell of a lot done when you think about it. :wink: