Journal of the mental environment
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Are We Headed for a Crash?
We talk to the streets about the state of the world economy.
- Mon, 11 Aug 2008 3:31 pm — Posted by Trevor
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Comments
The crash of 29 came as a result of many things. Let's list some.
1) Europe was still f'ed over after WWI. The lack of buffering economy in Europe hurt Americas chances of selling goods. Over production led to employers cutting jobs.
2) Protectionism: America's tariffs led to Europe being unable buy American goods. There was also a lack of dollars to buy goods with.
3) The speculation of the stock market led people to lose their shirts, middle class and wealthy alike.
4) Don't forget the dust bowl tossing the mid-west farmers into a tailspin.
5) Florida land speculation. People began to speculate on housing and land in Florida up until the first big hurricane hit and caused the speculators to lose their shirts too.
The strong Asian, Middle East, and European economies will buoy the US economy. The real threat is running out of money and having the rest of the world buy our major businesses making us a vassal, Used-to-Be
It's all going east...Russia flexes it's nationalistic muscles. India gobbles up the telecoms industries. China makes everything for everyone. What's left for the old and tired 'new' world?
I think a radical re-balancing of power is happening now, and the tipping point has been reached. We are entering darker times led by countries with no time for human rights or ecological sensitivities. I think we will have to look at small and local solutions to day to day living, but I think the inflated egos of the West will not handle the shift in consciousness necessary to cope with this.
We wait. We wonder.
I don't agree with some of what they said but it's awesome that you guys are mixing it up a bit with the vids. Keep it up.
she (the first woman), I wonder f she works for adbusters?
The major problem with the US economy is the governments out of control spending
Is this actually useful. Have you not heard any of what these people are saying here in a 100 other more eloquent ways.
want a bunch of tards, thanks for your expert opinion but just because you hope it will happen doesn`t mean something better will come. The reality is no one really can be certain what will happen if the U.S starts losing it`s economic power. I`m scared of the rise of china. I`m against the american corporate control of much of our world but something worse could take their place and have us wishing we were back in the good old days of being over-fed whiners in a very rich country.
Greed, excessive margin, and speculation caused the 1929 stock market crash. However, it did not directly cause the Great Depression. This is a piece that many people miss when causally linking the 1929 Crash and the ensuing slump. Crash does not necessarily equal depression, which is the link you're implying.
If the market crashes again in a similar fashion to 1929, it is impossible to say what will happen. The markets are so much different than they were nearly 100 years ago. So is society. Could be worse...or maybe not. At any rate, I certainly wouldn't listen to the opinions of ill-informed hippies on the street about where the market and world is going.
Goodbye capitalism...
I think people need some materialism! I would like to know what people think about the articles I have posted below...
Shifts and Faultlines in
the World Economy
and Great Power Rivalry
What Is Happening and What It Might Mean
by Raymond Lotta of the RCP
Part 1 :http://www.revcom.us/a/136/lotta_faultlines_pt1-en.html
part 2: http://www.revcom.us/a/137/lotta_faultlines_pt2-en.html
part 3 :http://www.revcom.us/a/138/lotta_faultlines_pt3-en.html
I could watch the video on my computer maybe I should go out and buy a new one adbusters.
Are we headed for a crash? I think the crash already happened, is happening, and will continue to happen for worse and for better. I say bring it on.
I could NOT watch the video on my computer.
i have to say that i agree with anonymous 12 in some ways, and insofar as s/he says empathy, not apathy, and notes the futility of saving the world from global warming and similar other such struggles ... there is inevitability in disaster in this world and there has been disaster before. it is important to remember this for us to place our selves properly in our places, and to be able to have the empathy and effort at cultural understanding necessary to see the pain in the world, the difficulty of the world ... and realize that the problems and pain are not merely out in the world but also in our selves, each of us ...
recognizing the inevitability of, say, global warming or the risk of extreme climactic shift, is not as extreme or cynical as it may seem; rather, it is such an awareness that reminds us all of our fragility, of the risk that every day could be the end, that the disaster could be near ... but also of the need to live vibrantly, mindfully, and to be in the world, not wander blindly or unaware of one's relation to the space and simultaneous frailty and engage in conduct merely because it makes one feel better in his or her place in space, not because of the realization that we all are in the same space and that each person has to change their outlook to be able to truly adopt an ethos - not just an action that is hip and thought to avoid an econ crash, global warming, environmental destruction, poverty ... etc. - the ETHOS, the way of life, is not going to alleviate the risk of destruction be it by human or natural means, but it certainly a way to live with more awareness of not just one's own location but a true sense of place in space, of interconnection with other people. and that awareness necessitates interaction, empathy, networking ... it is a far more cosmopolitan view...and may indeed create more change in the world than being an activist, an environmentalist, a world-saving faddist, other -ist ... insofar as an ethos stemming from an awareness that mass destruction, devastation is inevitable but hoping that a realization of one's place in space transcends locale will help alleviate some of one's own contribution to the pain and despair that exists in this world when we still have the opportunity to dance on it.
I find my self in complete disagreement with you and anon, it is far from too late to stop the effects of global warming. At this point things will probably never be the same, but we still have the opportunity to stop the worst effects of global warming. Wheather we do or not is dependent on the political priorities of our society in the next 5-15 years.
Thinking about the War in Iraq from this framework is perhaps the clearest illustration of my point. Here we have a war for which all of the stated reasons for invasion were proved false, there were no WMD's, there were no Al-Qaeda ties. So why are we there? We're there so ExonMoble can make record profits two years in a row, so Haliburton can get huge contracts to build military bases. At its heart this is a war about two things: lining the pockets of the super rich, and strategic control of a dwindling resource. This is also a war that will end up costing the people of the US at least a trillion dollars. Imagine what a fraction of one trillion dollars could have done to improve renewable technologies, even 10%. The advances produced by 100 billion dollars invested in green technologies would be absolutely crucial in stopping the threat of global warming and saving ourselves from annihilation. Instead we spend 10 times that on a war to enrich a handful of mega corporations.
The people who run society most of the time, the politicians and the corporate CEO's, will never end global warming so long as they're benefiting off it. Its up to us, the people who don't benefit off rising temperatures (not to mention prices!) to force our government to take give the reforms that we need, not the ones the bosses crave. Don't just consign yourself to defeat! Nothing is preordained, the world doesn't have to be the way it is, we can fight back, and we can win. If we're unified and organized there's nothing we can't do.
-Owen
owen i don't think you disagree all that much as you think you do ... the deal eg with global warming is that it happens, and then the globe cools ... it is a cyclical cycle that corresponds with pole shifting and repositioning and has happened and will continue to happen. when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the average temperature was 9 degrees higher.
but there is a critical distinction when thinking about HUMAN contribution to global warming, and the place in space awareness with an eye to personal contribution to the pain and strife in the world is what i think would allow all people the cognizance and consciousness necessary to butt up against those corporations and super-rich,, to find self-motivated pockets of resistance that aren't centered around the latest fad, like, the reality of global warming and the now-hip-again ecoawareness but a truly deeper understanding of place and contribution so that the challenges confronted by persons are genuine, continual, and part of a growing social consciousness. until that social consciousness becomes real, and not rooted in a culture of fad-followers and hop on the bandwagon activists who palliate themselves but do little to actually confront or challenge what you identify as the people who run society most of the time. society is all of us ... we only have to accept inevitability of death, destruction and defeat and center our awareness of place in ourselves, in teh space we are in, while being mindful of everyone and everything else.
also the unification and organization i think will come far easier when people accept their own contribution to the HUMAN contribution to the pain and suffering in the world, while recognizing that the human contribution will be nothing less than an enigmatic blink in the cosmic eye of the earth and our galaxy and the existence. the thin balance that life is ... and an awareness of that, i like to hope, will help unite society. but till then isms and activists and identities and binary divides of either/or, dichotomous bullshit debates where peeps are more similar than they will recognize ... create difference and division and identity onto which people hold and think that their identity is the right one to unify around. rather, it is not either/or but this/or/and/etc ... not one slash but many that can play together, dance together, as we must on this earth, with awareness of the differences and acceptance thereof, with awareness of how every imposition of that / creates and develops the pain in the world that allows absurd empiric capitalism and greed take advantage, as well as localized hatred, and widespread hatred like the west/islam slash ... and so many others.
so perhaps the disagreement lies in what people localize around ... and if that is the case, then perhaps we will always fundamentally agree. i say localize around awareness of frailty, reality of destruction, and self-contribution.
A leading question taken to the streets is basically a waste of time, you very rarely get any useful info, only a reaction. Unless you're trying to control the thoughts of the viewer this video is bunk. A Fair question might be "Where do you see the economy heading in the future?" It's a shame to see AB use media tricks they criticize.
Just because a question is leading doesn't make it irrelevant, and just because it's answerable with a yes or no doesn't make it leading. This question was not that leading. This was a research question with a narrow focus. Your question, while more open-ended, is suggestive aswell. It implies that the economy has a future and that it's heading somewhere. People would answer into that framework. They would have said well, uh, electric cars and hydrogen fuel and uh, social welfare, and uh a whole bunch of futuristic economy stuff, because that's what you asked for.
Is the big crash going to happend soon? =Leading question
Have you heard anyone talking about the big crash? = leading question
Let's face it - the strong will survive, its always been that way and always will be that way. Networking is one of the ways to go. Make global connections if you can. You never know when you'll need to seek refuge somewhere. Empathy not apathy. Hould make you more accepted and more liked amongst other cultures.
Let's face it the dinosaurs went extinct, why shouldn't we.
Pillage the world's resource live off the sweat of others isn't that's one of the benefits of being born into the first world. Help those you can't, try not to think about those you can't.
By the time we've exhausted the world's resources completly I think I'll be long dead. For those generations in front of me, sorry evoloution's a bitch.
I'm not saying we should be gluttonous consumers but if buying something or doing something makes you happy, even it is only for a moment, why not this is an aspect of evoloution that we have already reaily adopted. Do we really think we're going to reverse global warming - no way - its only going to get worse this is the reality, the truth does hurt, life's too short to worry about things that are beyond are control. We have spent generations establishing systems and governments that will worry about this for us. Enjoy your life, be a good a person and sacrifice and recycle what you can.
Don't listen to me - be your own person, if being an environmentalist or an activist makes you happy than by all means. I'm just ranting, not preaching.
i raise my glass in agreement.
Buddy how old are you 12 probably not (atrocious grammar and spelling) I should hope a 12 year old isn't so cynical. You say empathy not apathy, this is forum is for people who want change not some phony like yourself. I feel bad for people like you, so narrow minded probably stuck into the 9 to 5 trying to pay off a student loan or something, more like trying to payback mommy. For god sake get your shit together, its called imagination use it and get passed your scarcity mentality. Its people and families like yours which make the world so fucked up.
The entire world does not depend on the USA, but apparently, some USAers depend on that belief
Wishful thinking...
Those of us who see the ere of our/their ways are impatient about a solution and want a revolution. It would be so much easier if western consumer capitalism collapsed on its own rather than a confrontation.
Yeah... I mean isn't that the plan?