Is Economic Collapse Already Here?

[pinzgauer]

I’m a millennial, who has tried to buy a car on multiple occasions, I cannot get approved to save my life. Despite a good income, and the up until recently no dept or other bills, yet I had no problem buying a new house at 2% fixed interest.

I also have never been able to get a credit card.

It’s hard for us, most my friends are in the same spot, we make our money and no one’s willing to help us out so I see a lot of my friends go out and do dumb shit with their cash because they can’t invest it where it counts.

Guess what, decades ago it was also hard to get car loans and credit cards.

We saved and bought used. Got "starter" cards when we had steady jobs, which each of my kids have done.

Painfully saved and did without to accumulate a home down payment.

Now, I have about as good of credit as you can get. Great income. Minimal if any debt other than that which makes sense for tax reasons.

Last two cars I bought were used and I paid cash. If I wanted, I could get 2-3 new car/truck loans. But it currently does not make sense to do so. (Sometimes used valuations make buying new better, but usually not)

If people wanted to have cars, they'd find a way to get them.

Sorry for the "get off my yard" moment, but I see many of the current young adult generation just with different priorities and feel their problems are unique. They aren't, it's just their expectations that are different.

Suggested reading:

"Wealthy Barber"
"Millionaire Next Door"
Ben Stein books on getting started with finances. Best explanation of the natural life cycle of individual and family finances, and strategies for each phase.

[pinzgauer]

Actually we're in debt for alot more than that..Our gov't dosen't include things like medicare,medicaid, social security, welfare,..(unfunded liabilitys) in that figure, and the exact amount that adds on, nobody knows for sure, I myself figure that's at least another $100T

So in your net worth or financial statements, do you list your future college expenses for your kids, etc? Future medical insurance and out of pocket costs?

Your lenders look at ratios, but even they don't examine future unfunded liabilities.

It took me a while to figure out some of the "unfunded liabilities" stuff is a Boogeyman.

Now the national debt, and deficit spending, that's real.

The real risk is inflationary periods, which tend to swamp out national debt, though destroying individual savings.

The various QE exercises are doing exactly that.

[pinzgauer]

That reminds me, I've been seeing what seems like an uptick in people getting passports at the post office lately.. maybe I should get one, while the getting is good...

Nope, it's kids getting ready to do a gap year to find themselves or study abroad

[pinzgauer]

Yeah for you and me, NZ unlike us are smart by not letting the entire developing world into their borders.

Doors don't shut for billionaires however.

Even decades ago NZ was hard to immigrate to, and harder yet to bring money with you. (I first traveled to NZ in 1984)

People always talk about moving to New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Etc. They have websites that will tell you what type of immigrants they are accepting. Some like Canada even have a test you can take.

Most Americans will have a hard time getting an unless they are young and have desirable skills and are economically self-sufficient. Harder yet from other countries, unless it's a refugee/asylum situation. Or one of the old Crown colonies.

[Moose-Knuckle]

That is about as believable as the 1960s Neo-Malthusian 'thinkers' who had similar tales of woe, that were far more 'No'. It's 2018, really 2019 for planning purposes. So in 6 years, 100,000,000 Americans will leave? Over a million per month.... Colorado is BOOMING and we get 70,000 new people a year.... So you are talking two orders of magnitude, going to a country with even less infrastructure to handle people.

Think tanks project forecasts based on data and algorithms, not magic eight balls or ancient holy texts. Extrapolate from that what you will. When, not if the US house of cards economy goes tits up the .gov via COG will loot pensions, investment portfolios, 401ks, et al. to keep vital critical systems on life support.

So yeah, I can see how millions of young people forced to pay taxes would bale if their .gov just legally stole everything their grand-parents and parents worked for their entire lives.

Yeah, I don't believe that either. I don't believe any of this nonsense anymore. People have been preaching collapse doom and gloom since forever and we're still clipping along just fine.

Aside from living like a crazy hoarder there is exactly jack shit one can do about this anyway, so go live your life.

Belief is subjective. The stock market crash of '29 and the decade long Great Depression that ensued was not fear porn. People are not doing "fine" in places like Venezuela after their economy collapsed. Argentina went through it in '01 and Greece '10.

There is plenty a person can due to prep for an eventuality that doesn't preclude them from living their life or give them a hoarding disorder. YMMV.

[Moose-Knuckle]

Even decades ago NZ was hard to immigrate to, and harder yet to bring money with you. (I first traveled to NZ in 1984)

People always talk about moving to New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Etc. They have websites that will tell you what type of immigrants they are accepting. Some like Canada even have a test you can take.

Most Americans will have a hard time getting an unless they are young and have desirable skills and are economically self-sufficient. Harder yet from other countries, unless it's a refugee/asylum situation. Or one of the old Crown colonies.

That is why In my previous post I was talking about billionaires buying up land in NZ.

[SomeOtherGuy]

Yeah, I don't believe that either. I don't believe any of this nonsense anymore. People have been preaching collapse doom and gloom since forever and we're still clipping along just fine.

I am 100% certain there will be an economic collapse "some day", and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we're living through it right now. But I cannot tell you which specific day it will arrive, or be dramatic, and no one else can either. It's like earthquakes and meteor impacts - statistically it's 100% certain to happen, but when it's going to happen is mostly a guessing game. For both of those we can predict them somewhat, very shortly before the event - not long enough to do much of anything useful.

Aside from living like a crazy hoarder there is exactly jack shit one can do about this anyway, so go live your life.

I'll disagree there. Living in a stable low-crime area that isn't absolutely dependent on the grid for survival is possible, and a small compromise for a potentially huge benefit. I'm not talking Sandpoint Idaho either, you could be in any of hundreds of smaller cities across the country, or in a rural area 30 minutes outside a larger city. Living in central Tucson, or being a gentrification pioneer in some place like Detroit or Philadelphia, offers a much more immediate risk in the event of a social or power-grid disruption.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

So in your net worth or financial statements, do you list your future college expenses for your kids, etc? Future medical insurance and out of pocket costs?

Your lenders look at ratios, but even they don't examine future unfunded liabilities.

It took me a while to figure out some of the "unfunded liabilities" stuff is a Boogeyman.

Now the national debt, and deficit spending, that's real.

The real risk is inflationary periods, which tend to swamp out national debt, though destroying individual savings.

The various QE exercises are doing exactly that.

Kudos for rational thought.

People here are talking about the fall of Rome levels of mayhem, which is a western point of view since the eastern half of the Roman Empire went for another 1000 years.

Plans for something like this? Unless it includes 500 of your closest and most useful friends in some area that has natural insulation from the outside, forget about it. You can’t talk about his level of mayhem, a billion people killed (almost double of WWII loses) in just a few years, and think that any kind of ‘plan’ you have that doesn’t include artillery and air support isn’t going to isn’t really a plan, it is stockpiling for some other group.

[Dienekes]

As a history nut, among other eccentricities, I decided to tackle Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". 1 1/2 million words, or so they claim. I've made an initial dent in it, and it's actually a better read than I expected. It's damn sobering to get some insight into what took them down in the end and how a lot of it parallels what's going on now. Very similar stuff, just what appears to be happening faster in our case. It would be nice if this were just another case of "the sky is always falling"; I don't know.

But we sure don't learn anything from history. I wonder how many questions on "the Americans" will be on the test in, say 2230.

Hopefully Bismarck was right when he commented that “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”

[SeriousStudent]

It's worth the read.