The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

[ASH]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

To sum up my argument: Leadership that is stupid and short sighted enough to let the tech bubble run to its disastrous conclusion, stupid and short sighted enough to let the housing bubble develop to bale the economy out of the tech bubble crash, and then let the housing bubble run to its disastrous conclusion, stupid and short sighted enough to try to restart the FIRE Economy and drive the economy toward a mid-gap recession, at which point a new round of layoffs pushes unemployment to 12% and higher and crushes consumer spending -- such leadership is stupid and short sighted enough to finish the course, to lead the US into wars it cannot win.

Sorry for the low resolution, but...



(A bit of humor from The Best Defense blog at Foreign Policy.)

[jpatter666]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

This link shows WWII the biggest kahuna of them all.

Possible the reference was more to individual battle deaths -- for which WWI was notorious for being a meat-grinder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_casualties

[Chris Coles]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

As scary as it sounds, I believe that much of the world will be safe as I believe that New World Order wars will be fought via proxies, and unless you are at the age to qualify for a draft, you have nothing to fear.

The most dangerous place will be Israel

touchring brings into the debate a valid point; that perhaps the central trigger for a proxy war will be Israel. Here in Europe, we recently watched a quite riviting TV series; The Promise, which set out to describe the period running up to the end of 1948 where the British left and the State of Israel was founded. Now I am the first to admit I do not have a full grounding in the complete history of the ongoing problems in that region; but this did go some way to widening my understanding of the conflicting attitudes and problems to be surmounted if peace is to be realised. But be warned, it is a full six hours spread over four separate programs. Here is a link to the review in the New Statesman, (complete with 522 comments):
http://www.newstatesman.com/televisi...liza-palestine

And all four episodes from Channel4 OD http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-promise/4od

You can, if you wish, buy the full DVD: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Promise-DVD-...8556504&sr=8-1

[oddlots]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

E.J. does a great Daniel Plainview, but I still prefer Patton's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fhhm2rh00I

Great piece.

[touchring]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

Having lived all my life in an autocratic market economic system, I do know a bit of their vulnerabilities and their strategies.

Their greatest weakness is the lust for power over everything else including their own lives. The market economy is just the "means" to protect this power, and not the "end".

Their strategy is quite simple:

1). Remove social safety nets and create as many blue collar low paying jobs as possible. When people are paid just enough for subsistence, got no pensions or unemployment benefits, they will work 12hrs day or more to make ends meet - so there is no time for political activities - less social unrest.

2). Ensure there is a wide social divide - a rich and a poor class - make them hate each other - a divide and conquer strategy. However, this is a delicate operation as there is a need to ensure that not too much of this hatred is directed at the authorities. It's ok if the people hate the rich though.

So unless free trade comes to an end, China will probably introduce even more subsidies to prop up the export industry (lowly paid job making industry) and also additional measures like restricting exports of rare earth metals so that production is forced to remain in China, etc. Of course, this is a beggar thy neighbor policy that will lead to further job losses in the West (even if the West falls into depression jobs are still being exported to China).

If you guessed right, this ploy is not sustainable. When free trade ends, that's when war will start.

The one scenario I can see which would result in a WW III type eruption is where China's economic miracle ends and the Chinese government then uses patriotic sentiment to fuel a conflict with the United States to distract the population.

However, the gigantic caveat in this scenario is that both sides are then essentially in it for the distraction: control is maintained such that significant infrastructure damage, much less nuclear war, is prevented.

If the government of China were a bunch of feckless idiots like in the US, I'd be more in agreement with you.

However, the government in China is still more or less the last of China's equivalent of the 'Silent Generation' - they know firsthand the suffering from and fundamental impossibility of control in an open conflict situation.

My view is that said government is far more likely to wuwei: sway with the wind and permit the US to do things like Libya, relying instead on time and inertia to permit their opponent to destroy himself.

After all, China needs to do nothing in order for the situation in the US to come to a head.

[Chomsky]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

You sure about that? Or did you mean death by machine gun? Your own wiki link has WWI as the 6th most deadly conflict.

This link shows WWII the biggest kahuna of them all.

[flintlock]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

Civilians can very quickly become uncivil. As for"" very few civilians being brainwashed etc." The problem with the weapons we have now is that only a very few willing civilians are needed to cause mayhem. I am a close acquaintance of a 30 year old woman who was a refugee from Vukovar in the serbo-croat war. Some of the stories she has told me are gobsmacking. An example how one nutter can have a big influence is Arkan. Oh and all this was in Europe by the way.

Its funny you brought up this war(Serbia) because I was just about to post it as example of how quickly people can lose their "civility".

People also lose their qualms about killing really quickly when they've been hungry and miserable for a while. Hard to compare what a fat and happy Europe of today (and USA) is capable of vs when TSHTF. People can turn really ugly really quickly. And the internet can be used negatively in this regard as well.

A LOT more men died in WWI than WWII.

You sure about that? Or did you mean death by machine gun? Your own wiki link has WWI as the 6th most deadly conflict.

Also, Germany's problem wasn't a lack of oil, but a lack of manpower as to the reason it lost. It bet on superior technology over manpower to the Russians and lost. Once it had lost all its men on the Eastern front the war was technically over.

And for labasta, WWII was way too complicated to simply sum up Germany's reason for losing as manpower. It certainly was a factor, but a billion Red Army fanatics couldn't have beat Germany alone. Someone else brought up the fact that warfare today has very little to do with manpower. As a matter of fact, manpower could be seen as a liability at some point.

[jk]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

i think they have to be looking for work within the past month to count as unemployed. if they are discouraged in fact as in name, they've stopped looking and they've stopped being counted.

[ST]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

That is correct. If you stay unemployed long enough, you're not unemployed anymore and don't show up in either the mean or the median rates.

I asked the fellow who's report I cited. He said that is not true - he's says that those unemployed longer than 99 weeks are in fact included in the mean and that until January no matter how long they have been unemployed they were listed as 2 yrs but since there are so many people now the BLS has changed that 2 year cap to a five 5 year cap so it doesn't skew the data. I couldn't find anything to confirm or deny on the BLS site for the inclusion/exclsion. Here's a link on the cap change:

http://www.bls.gov/cps/duration.htm

and here is the author I contacted:

The Trend in Long-Term Unemployment and Characteristics of Workers Unemployed for More than 99 Weeks
Gerald Mayer GMAYER@crs.loc.gov
Analyst in Labor Policy
December 20, 2010

[c1ue]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

Originally Posted by c1ue
...a US-China war being one which both will lose.

But why is that an argument that it will not happen?

The one scenario I can see which would result in a WW III type eruption is where China's economic miracle ends and the Chinese government then uses patriotic sentiment to fuel a conflict with the United States to distract the population.

However, the gigantic caveat in this scenario is that both sides are then essentially in it for the distraction: control is maintained such that significant infrastructure damage, much less nuclear war, is prevented.

If the government of China were a bunch of feckless idiots like in the US, I'd be more in agreement with you.

However, the government in China is still more or less the last of China's equivalent of the 'Silent Generation' - they know firsthand the suffering from and fundamental impossibility of control in an open conflict situation.

My view is that said government is far more likely to wuwei: sway with the wind and permit the US to do things like Libya, relying instead on time and inertia to permit their opponent to destroy himself.

After all, China needs to do nothing in order for the situation in the US to come to a head.

[Chris D.]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

the war ends in a way that was not foreseen at the outset with a scale of casualties beyond imagination

Seems like most of the losses would come as a result of famine and disease. You could see significant parts of the third world have their tentative economic gains since WW2 erased by factional proxy wars sponsored by the US and China (e.g., Afghanistan). Large parts of Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South America could be decimated much like Europe was during the 30 Years War. These regions are where the most tentative major population centers and relatively untapped resource wealth lie. Seems like a showdown over Taiwan would be the inevitable test case for nuclear brinksmanship.

[jiimbergin]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

You raise an important issue. From my point of view, the most important thing you can do (with respect to the problem you are talking about) is to raise your children in respect and love. If your children love and support you in your older years you shouldn't care about the rest of the younger population.

I agree, and I would add grandchildren, nieces and nephews etc.

[Alvaro Spain]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

For what it is worth, we "oldies" have more to fear from the younger generation who see us as the reason for the high taxes and the impediment to their ongoing survival. If they, as a group, ever decide we are "expendable"; we might have a very difficult time surviving. They live on a different planet, always plugged into their stereo ear-pads etc.. We need to keep in their minds a reason for their support, perhaps by providing some leadership in our local communities that sets us out as supportive of them as a group. Food for thought.

You raise an important issue. From my point of view, the most important thing you can do (with respect to the problem you are talking about) is to raise your children in respect and love. If your children love and support you in your older years you shouldn't care about the rest of the younger population.

[Chris Coles]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

For what it is worth, we "oldies" have more to fear from the younger generation who see us as the reason for the high taxes and the impediment to their ongoing survival. If they, as a group, ever decide we are "expendable"; we might have a very difficult time surviving. They live on a different planet, always plugged into their stereo ear-pads etc.. We need to keep in their minds a reason for their support, perhaps by providing some leadership in our local communities that sets us out as supportive of them as a group. Food for thought.

[cjppjc]

Re: The Next Ten Years – Part I: There will be blood - Eric Janszen

Civilians can very quickly become uncivil. As for"" very few civilians being brainwashed etc." The problem with the weapons we have now is that only a very few willing civilians are needed to cause mayhem. I am a close acquaintance of a 30 year old woman who was a refugee from Vukovar in the serbo-croat war. Some of the stories she has told me are gobsmacking. An example how one nutter can have a big influence is Arkan. Oh and all this was in Europe by the way.

Thank you for that link. I had never heard of Arkan, and I am not well informed of the bloodshed in that part of the world. It does help to prove a point, that man has not evolved into some kind of gentler species.