ECON The Kondratieff Winter Is Upon Us

[etc]

Scary stuff.
The scariest is the observation that each cycle ends with a major war, lately a global war.

In a way, the FRS declared a war against the world with the policy of the "dollar", or the Federal Reserve Note acting as the reserve currency, allowing us to have a higher standard of living than the rest of the world.
Now the pendulum is swinging back. The FRN is losing its status that it should have never had in the first place, versus silver standard.



http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News...s-Upon-Us.aspx

Briefly, the Kondratieff Wave was developed by a Russian economist named Nickolai Kondratieff (1892-1938) whom Stalin later sent to Siberia to ‘count the birch trees’. The major premise is that “capitalist economies displayed long wave cycles of boom and bust ranging between 50-60 years in duration.”

. . .

Second, this is the first cycle that has occurred on a purely fiat money system so the central banks and particularly the Federal Reserve have the capability of prolonging the cycle by printing money.

DAVID DESLAURIERS: What part of the Kondratieff cycle are we in presently - is winter approaching?

IAN GORDON: We’re in the winter because the peak in the big autumn stock market is always a signal that you’ve entered winter. The big bull market in stocks, bonds and real estate always occurs in the autumn. The previous autumn was the 1921-1929 experience and this autumn was the 1982-2000 experience.

. . .

IAN GORDON: I’m absolutely convinced that the cycle itself is an inflation/deflation cycle so that when the cycle starts at the beginning of spring, inflation is very benign - there is no inflation so this started in our present cycle in 1949, then you go into the summer; summer is always the inflationary part of the cycle because there’s always been a war in the summer - the War of 1812, the U.S. Civil War in the second summer, WWI in the third summer and the Vietnam War in the fourth summer.

[UncurledA]

You know, etc, there was a lot of talk of this in the early part of the decade, when it seemed time for the winter to have occurred naturally. However, the weasels in the Fed and Treasury and their UK counterparts have pulled every dodge in the book to deceptively paper over the inevitable, buying some time so we would not recognize any "winter" coming in. With what they have done, we may be entering into a new totally unknown "season", so to speak. They will have made the end result so much worse than an ordinary Kondratieff reckoning, that the cyclical, or seasonal, nature of such a concept is no longer applicable. There may be no upswing from the worldwide financial drunkenness and resource/value exhaustion these guys have fomented. It may be that a Deep Freeze is a more apt allusion. If only we could have allowed the corrections to take place......

[etc]

Economic Ice Age..

Nothing surprises me anymore.

[Volleyball Granny]

Economic failure to world war--I don't suppose Reagan's Star Wars is working, is it?

[UncurledA]

Originally Posted by etc

Economic Ice Age..

Nothing surprises me anymore.

etc, by golly, I think you named it with something that can stick in our minds. Way to go !

[Old Gray Mare]

I believe the corrections will still take place. The difference is instead of a glug of foul tasting medicine we are going to have to sip the disgusting stuff for a long time. It was a choice. It was made and now we have to live with it. It will be a long hard recovery but it will happen. Humans have to build and rebuild. It is in our nature.

[BigFootsCousin]

Originally Posted by Volleyball Granny

Economic failure to world war--I don't suppose Reagan's Star Wars is working, is it?

I wish......

AFAIK, it was merely a 'ruse' used as a threat against the Soviets during the Reagan era.

When we have 'incoming' we'll know readily enough because of what I take directly from the Bible: Rev 6:12-14

12 I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Now, it is up to the Holy Spirit to guide each of us into interpretations of G-ds Divine Word. But, this sure sounds like 'incoming' missiles and maybe mushroom clouds? Dunno....maybe....

I'm NOT counting on any interventions from our government to save us from what surely must come as told in the Book of Revelations and Daniel.

BFC

[etc]

I just repeat until I feel better - "it's not a crash, it's a correction."

Some fortunes were made during GD1. You can still survive during GD part II. TSHTF *for some* but not for all, it's not a global event. It's wealth redistribution. From many to few.

I know a fellow who makes FRNs off the falling FRN. The more the Fed Res Note falls, the better off he is. He is also heavily into silver.

[BlueNewton]

Originally Posted by UncurledA

You know, etc, there was a lot of talk of this in the early part of the decade, when it seemed time for the winter to have occurred naturally. However, the weasels in the Fed and Treasury and their UK counterparts have pulled every dodge in the book to deceptively paper over the inevitable, buying some time so we would not recognize any "winter" coming in. With what they have done, we may be entering into a new totally unknown "season", so to speak. They will have made the end result so much worse than an ordinary Kondratieff reckoning, that the cyclical, or seasonal, nature of such a concept is no longer applicable. There may be no upswing from the worldwide financial drunkenness and resource/value exhaustion these guys have fomented. It may be that a Deep Freeze is a more apt allusion. If only we could have allowed the corrections to take place......

Yes, yes, yes, yes ,yes.

[Vector]

BigFootsCousin, I was a boy of ten when I first read those verses of The Book Of Revelation you cited in post #7. Even then, I took them to mean a description a of nuclear war. I wondered how in the world they knew and if I would be unlucky enough to see them come true.

[gdpetti]

Lots of 'cycles' lining up for the Grand Finale... from economic, political, religious to cosmic(sun, increasing cosmic energy instreaming into our LISM). The "Fall" of Western led civilization as they all prep for their NWO... they hope.

[etc]

It's a phase shift. It's like when you boil water, it Will heat up for a while but start boiling very suddenly, when it cannot absorb the heat anymore.

I admit I am utterly unprepared for this "Winter". Old paradigms are not working or ceasing to work, slowly but surely. I suspect the 9-5 corporate lifestyle I am trapped in may go the way of the Dodo bird. So you have to think of Plan B, and then Plan C.

Corporate life is a historical anomaly. Historically, people had a family business and children worked for it. This idea of sitting in a box all day, year after year, your whole life maybe, manipulating data, is a dead-end. Just the question of time when it ends.

YMMV but most of my expenses, here in the Big City are (1) Rent (2) Food. If I could grow my own food and build my own shelter without insane prices (My rent now costs me more than 1 gold oz/month), it would take care of most of my current expenses.

Most of the people around me, my family included are utterly oblivious to everything around them, thinking this is a minor bleep on the screen and that we will recover soon. See an approaching tsunami and go swimming. The magnitude of the collapse just escapes most people. The every day news is just noise. You have to see the big picture. Even these forums don't fully admit how bad things are in their depth. Maybe, but not yet.

We will "recover" all right but things will be permanently changed in this transition. I think in the next decade what will change is how you work, where you get your food, your community, education, how you do business, the money system, maybe even gov structure. Nothing is off the table. And nothing would surprise me.
Keep in mind millions of people in this country and the billions around the world - they are not going anywhere, but with the whole Systems collapsing, things are going to change and things will be done much differently, encompassing perhaps every aspect of our lives. It's a lot more than the banking crisis, fiat money hyperinflation crisis or the Peak Oil situation. I think these are just the tips of the iceberg.

You have to adapt and adapt quickly, or risk being a dinosaur, unable to cope with the changed world. This is not at all like the GD1 or like any other period in the world. Uncharted territory.

[UncurledA]

Bump to expose etc's post #12. That was refreshingly head-clearing, especially the corporate life comments.

[Cardinal]

Originally Posted by etc

It's a phase shift. It's like when you boil water, it Will heat up for a while but start boiling very suddenly, when it cannot absorb the heat anymore.

I admit I am utterly unprepared for this "Winter". Old paradigms are not working or ceasing to work, slowly but surely. I suspect the 9-5 corporate lifestyle I am trapped in may go the way of the Dodo bird. So you have to think of Plan B, and then Plan C.

Corporate life is a historical anomaly. Historically, people had a family business and children worked for it. This idea of sitting in a box all day, year after year, your whole life maybe, manipulating data, is a dead-end. Just the question of time when it ends.

YMMV but most of my expenses, here in the Big City are (1) Rent (2) Food. If I could grow my own food and build my own shelter without insane prices (My rent now costs me more than 1 gold oz/month), it would take care of most of my current expenses.

Most of the people around me, my family included are utterly oblivious to everything around them, thinking this is a minor bleep on the screen and that we will recover soon. See an approaching tsunami and go swimming. The magnitude of the collapse just escapes most people. The every day news is just noise. You have to see the big picture. Even these forums don't fully admit how bad things are in their depth. Maybe, but not yet.

We will "recover" all right but things will be permanently changed in this transition. I think in the next decade what will change is how you work, where you get your food, your community, education, how you do business, the money system, maybe even gov structure. Nothing is off the table. And nothing would surprise me.
Keep in mind millions of people in this country and the billions around the world - they are not going anywhere, but with the whole Systems collapsing, things are going to change and things will be done much differently, encompassing perhaps every aspect of our lives. It's a lot more than the banking crisis, fiat money hyperinflation crisis or the Peak Oil situation. I think these are just the tips of the iceberg.

You have to adapt and adapt quickly, or risk being a dinosaur, unable to cope with the changed world. This is not at all like the GD1 or like any other period in the world. Uncharted territory.

This redistribution of wealth is the key to the whole thing.
It implies that this crisis was planned, and is being controlled, to just that purpose.

The reason that every square inch of earth in this country is controlled, is so that you will be stuck paying into this system and abetting that very redistribution. Otherwise, you could build a very energy efficient house for under the cost of 1 oz of gold, grow your own food, and not be stuck in a cube your whole life.

I recall someone saying 20 years ago, that eventually seeds would be the new medium of exchange. We may yet come to that.

[etc]

That's right, if I had such a house and a source of food, I wouldn't need corporate life and I wouldn't need the System, period. You would be de facto independent. Nobody would have leverage on you.

The main objection I have to the current modus operandi is that if you buy a house, you own the house and it owns you. It's not just 30 years of payments and slavery to the bankers. You are in the Matrix. Worse, TPTB can exert enormous force upon you, with your "stuff" being the leverage they can use on you. You have to be a "good boy" and comply, comply, comply with everything they come up with or fear losing everything you have. Protest taxes and the Alphabets put a lien on your house and freeze your bank account.

Some of the wisest people I have met own nothing on paper, have no visible assets. This doesn't mean they don't have stuff, they just don't have stuff to take away. PMs are obviously nice, as they are highly liquid and off the grid but I wonder if there is a way to own a house not in your name, maybe in the name of some corp, or maybe anonymously somehow.

The thing that appeals to me is divorcing the System as much as possible: No debt, no visible ownership of anything substantial, no credit cards. The next logical step for me is to become self-sufficient, able to get your own food.

There was a bleep in the news a few days about the gov advising people to help needy neighbors with food. Well, if they had been honestly interested in resolving that issue, they would have suggested for people to grow food and become self-sufficient. Cans of food don't exactly grow on the trees. I expect a lot more hunger, maybe even starvation levels, the System is ripe for such a situation.

Right now the System endures and much as we claim to hate it, we need it. Truth be told we need it more than it needs us, by far. In such circumstances, no meaningful reform can take place, all talk about changes is just air vibrations.

What I am really interested in is enabling a paradigm shift on a personal level, seeking meaningful change in my life. If I accomplished just these two - independent housing without decades of debt and a source of food outside of the supermarket system, I would be most happy. What we have right here and right now is ongoing, micromanaging statism and inability to escape it. Things have to change -- a lot.

Maybe a crash, or TSHTF in whatever manifestation is not such a bad thing after all. Maybe it's needed. Maybe our current practices are unsustainable long-term. I know my life is. I need to get a parachute and have an escape plan before the thing crashes.

Why preserve the System which will sacrifice millions to perpetuate itself? Make no mistake about it, the System absolutely does not need you as an individual. It would eject you to save itself. Why would I spend even 10 mins saving such a System. It needs the compliance of many but not you specifically. The real problem is, if you decided to drop out and starve it, you will starve first before the System starves. Believe me, I tried. This is why it perpetuates. Right now anyway. I don't think this will be the case forever and maybe not for a long time.

It's not enough for some isolated individuals to starve the System, some paradigm shift needs to occur in how people view their source of income, where they get their food, housing and much more.

[Ender]

Well said!

Originally Posted by etc

It's a phase shift. It's like when you boil water, it Will heat up for a while but start boiling very suddenly, when it cannot absorb the heat anymore.

I admit I am utterly unprepared for this "Winter". Old paradigms are not working or ceasing to work, slowly but surely. I suspect the 9-5 corporate lifestyle I am trapped in may go the way of the Dodo bird. So you have to think of Plan B, and then Plan C.

We can only hope. The 9-5 BS is one of the most unnatural lifestyles I can think of.

Corporate life is a historical anomaly. Historically, people had a family business and children worked for it. This idea of sitting in a box all day, year after year, your whole life maybe, manipulating data, is a dead-end. Just the question of time when it ends.

YEP.

YMMV but most of my expenses, here in the Big City are (1) Rent (2) Food. If I could grow my own food and build my own shelter without insane prices (My rent now costs me more than 1 gold oz/month), it would take care of most of my current expenses.

Homesteading is the most freedom enhancing lifestyle IMHO. There are millions of acres of "government owned" land.

Most of the people around me, my family included are utterly oblivious to everything around them, thinking this is a minor bleep on the screen and that we will recover soon. See an approaching tsunami and go swimming. The magnitude of the collapse just escapes most people. The every day news is just noise. You have to see the big picture. Even these forums don't fully admit how bad things are in their depth. Maybe, but not yet.

We will "recover" all right but things will be permanently changed in this transition. I think in the next decade what will change is how you work, where you get your food, your community, education, how you do business, the money system, maybe even gov structure. Nothing is off the table. And nothing would surprise me.

If we are smart, we can make it better.

Keep in mind millions of people in this country and the billions around the world - they are not going anywhere, but with the whole Systems collapsing, things are going to change and things will be done much differently, encompassing perhaps every aspect of our lives. It's a lot more than the banking crisis, fiat money hyperinflation crisis or the Peak Oil situation. I think these are just the tips of the iceberg.

My hope is that if we fall, that the whole world goes with us; it will be much easier to deal with just local conditions than to have to also deal with invading forces.

You have to adapt and adapt quickly, or risk being a dinosaur, unable to cope with the changed world. This is not at all like the GD1 or like any other period in the world. Uncharted territory.

ETA: And yes, it is indeed, The Matrix.

[Old Gray Mare]

Originally Posted by etc

You have to adapt and adapt quickly, or risk being a dinosaur, unable to cope with the changed world. This is not at all like the GD1 or like any other period in the world. Uncharted territory.

Good post etc. People are very good at adapting, some better than others. If it comes to adapting or not eating or watching their kids go hungry my bet is they will adapt and quickly. In the next few years I expect to see lawns turned into victory gardens as food prices rise, laundry flapping on clothes lines the breeze as electricity costs rise, I expect farming to become more sustainable, more labor intensive and more dangerous as clueless desperate people try their hand at it. I expect to see a loss of forest cover especially in the northeast, homes need to be heated. I expect waterborne disease to rise as aging water and sewage filtration plans fail and demand for their services rise. Fewer and smaller cars on the roads with more depending on mass transportation. Work will become much more physical. Education costs will fall with demand. Apprenticeships may become popular. War traditionally happens when there are high populations and limited resources.

On the good side I see life becoming more sustainable and local. I don't think the standard of living will return but the quality of life may improve. The quality of food for those able to adapt may actually rise. What we think of as food may change as well. Household help may not belong to just the Gilmore Girls strata of society.

[Dozdoats]

It is not enough merely to navel-gaze 'The System' in an attempt to analyze what is coming IMHO. I don't believe 'the System' exists merely as an accident of time, place and space. All 'Systems' of this nature, all complex multidimensional human scale systems (economics, politics, etc) evolve to serve a set of perceived needs.

The question is, whose needs are being served, and whose needs will be served by whatever 'System' evolves in the future?

Those who see themselves as the Masters of the current 'System' have stated repeatedly their goal of significantly reducing the human population they see as a burden to this planet. They've put it in writing in Georgia granite for the world to see ( http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/Message.htm ). If the stated goal of a maximum population of 500 million humans is reached, that means 5.5 billion of the humans currently residing on earth must cease to live.

That doesn't sound like a very friendly overture to me...

dd

[Cardinal]

[quote]I wonder if there is a way to own a house not in your name, maybe in the name of some corp, or maybe anonymously somehow./QUOTE]

You cannot incorporate and then put your own house under the Corp., the IRS will go after you bigtime for that; they consider it fraud.

Best thing to do is get one of those how to disappear books, it has some advice on how to hide the ownership of your residence.

[etc]

Originally Posted by Old Gray Mare

.....................................
. If it comes to adapting or not eating or watching their kids go hungry my bet is they will adapt and quickly. In the next few years I expect to see lawns turned into victory gardens as food prices rise,

When I was not working during the Recession of 2001, I had a victory garden - and my next door neighbor used to steal from me. This was in the South so use your imagination. And I was friends with her kids so they told me. She had a huge entitlement attitude. I planted a tomato plant or several for her kids and she forbade them to water it or cultivate it instead stealing from me.

Multi-generational welfare growing up before my eyes.

One time she conned me into taking her to Chimart for shopping. That was before I knew about garden theft or lawn furniture theft. Her car was broken down for 3 years. You should have seen the shopping cart she had, stuff falling out of it it was so full. You paid for all of it.

I only lost under 10% of what I had, drought got the rest.
If things get *bad* and I think they will, your garden will be picked clean. You will have to camp out there overnight. There was a study that people are willing to kill after going hungry for 11 days.

[etc]

Originally Posted by Dozdoats

It is not enough merely to navel-gaze 'The System' in an attempt to analyze what is coming IMHO. I don't believe 'the System' exists merely as an accident of time, place and space. All 'Systems' of this nature, all complex multidimensional human scale systems (economics, politics, etc) evolve to serve a set of perceived needs.

The question is, whose needs are being served, and whose needs will be served by whatever 'System' evolves in the future?

Those who see themselves as the Masters of the current 'System' have stated repeatedly their goal of significantly reducing the human population they see as a burden to this planet.


dd

Interesting. Yeah, the pagan "The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth".

One key thing to realize is that TSHTF will happen for *some* but definitely not to all. TPTB don't care about gasoline price, they will always have their jets, which they will fly in, eating caviar, drinking champaign, watching you drive your donkey cart to the local market.

TPTB are well prepared for the Titanic sinking, they have lifeboats, we OTOH don't. Not really. I am acutely aware I am terribly unprepared. Though I am taking steps in that direction.

[Old Gray Mare]

Originally Posted by etc

I only lost under 10% of what I had, drought got the rest.
If things get *bad* and I think they will, your garden will be picked clean. You will have to camp out there overnight. There was a study that people are willing to kill after going hungry for 11 days.

Now you're scaring me. Winter season has just begun. There is not much in the garden clean to pick clean now anyway. Chances are what food is there they would probably not recognize as such and some of it like rhubarb would be poisonous if incorrectly prepared. She might kill herself and the kids from ignorance of not knowing how to cook or what is safe to eat. With some of the medicinal herbs in my garden it would probably not be good.

I'd like to hope our economy will recover. While I like to think the best of most of my neighbors, there is a key lock on the chicken coop door.

[Y2kO]

Originally Posted by UncurledA

You know, etc, there was a lot of talk of this in the early part of the decade, when it seemed time for the winter to have occurred naturally. However, the weasels in the Fed and Treasury and their UK counterparts have pulled every dodge in the book to deceptively paper over the inevitable, buying some time so we would not recognize any "winter" coming in. With what they have done, we may be entering into a new totally unknown "season", so to speak. They will have made the end result so much worse than an ordinary Kondratieff reckoning, that the cyclical, or seasonal, nature of such a concept is no longer applicable. There may be no upswing from the worldwide financial drunkenness and resource/value exhaustion these guys have fomented. It may be that a Deep Freeze is a more apt allusion. If only we could have allowed the corrections to take place......

Excellent points. The 'chartists' are not credible when the markets are totally manipulated.

[Spirit Of Truth]

War can occur anytime along the downside of what is ultimate an Elliott Wave Grand Superycycle collapse. This is because, as Schumpeter so aptly put it, these are gales of creative destruction that go beyond the shop floor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

After World War Two, which led to the prior long-wave low, the technological/production base in much of the world was wiped clean through brute military destruction. This opened the way for establishing a new base, invented primarily in America, to engine the whole surge of material progress that continues even to this day.

Likewise, after World War Three, I expect the same.

[Sleeping Cobra]

Originally Posted by BigFootsCousin

I wish......

AFAIK, it was merely a 'ruse' used as a threat against the Soviets during the Reagan era.

When we have 'incoming' we'll know readily enough because of what I take directly from the Bible: Rev 6:12-14

12 I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, 13and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as late figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. 14The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

Now, it is up to the Holy Spirit to guide each of us into interpretations of G-ds Divine Word. But, this sure sounds like 'incoming' missiles and maybe mushroom clouds? Dunno....maybe....

I'm NOT counting on any interventions from our government to save us from what surely must come as told in the Book of Revelations and Daniel.

BFC

As the Nuclear Mushroom develops, it parts the sky (receding like a scroll)

[Sleeping Cobra]

"For In One Hour, Great Riches Became Naught"-Revelations 18:17