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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 14, 2009 - 12:35pm PT
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http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11444354
I don't know, but it's worth considering. The situation seems to be getting worse all the time. There is a tipping point where a collapse is possible.
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Oxymoron
Big Wall climber
total Disarray
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Jan 14, 2009 - 12:36pm PT
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Syntax.
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Danielle Winters
Trad climber
Alaska
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Jan 14, 2009 - 12:49pm PT
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Is that the same bunch of guys that told us Sadam Hussin had weapon's of mass destruction, And that the fall of Vietnam would lead to world communism ???
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2009 - 12:58pm PT
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Hmmmm! No, I don't think so. These are the guys watching the Mexican Army, police, Federal police and cartel thugs shooting and blowing the cr#p out of each other.
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mojede
Trad climber
Butte, America
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Jan 14, 2009 - 01:01pm PT
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Sounds like the guys who are pushing for a North American "Union" to me.
I hope not.
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couchmaster
climber
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Jan 14, 2009 - 01:57pm PT
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Saw one in Dec. originating from the US gov't that had the possible collapse of the US in 2009 as it's subject. I couldn't find the link though, but I distintly remember it as coming form several major mainstream news orgs.
Then there was this as well: http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/38659
Good read: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4591
Says: "Last year’s worst-case scenarios came true. The global financial pandemic that I and others had warned about is now upon us. But we are still only in the early stages of this crisis. My predictions for the coming year, unfortunately, are even more dire: The bubbles, and there were many, have only begun to burst.
The prevailing conventional wisdom holds that prices of many risky financial assets have fallen so much that we are at the bottom. Although it’s true that these assets have fallen sharply from their peaks of late 2007, they will likely fall further still. In the next few months, the macroeconomic news in the United States and around the world will be much worse than most expect. Corporate earnings reports will shock any equity analysts who are still deluding themselves that the economic contraction will be mild and short.
Severe vulnerabilities remain in financial markets: a credit crunch that will get worse before it gets any better; deleveraging that continues as hedge funds and other leveraged players are forced to sell assets into illiquid and distressed markets, thus leading to cascading falls in asset prices, margin calls, and further deleveraging; other financial institutions going bust; a few emerging-market economies entering a full-blown financial crisis, and some at risk of defaulting on their sovereign debt.
Certainly, the United States will experience its worst recession in decades. The formerly mainstream notion that the U.S. contraction would be short and shallow—a V-shaped recession with a quick recovery like the ones in 1990–91 and 2001—is out the window. Instead, the U.S. contraction will be U-shaped: long, deep, and lasting about 24 months. It could end up being even longer, an L-shaped, multiyear stagnation, like the one Japan suffered in the 1990s.
As the U.S. economy shrinks, the entire global economy will go into recession. In Europe, Canada, Japan, and the other advanced economies, it will be severe. Nor will emerging-market economies—linked to the developed world by trade in goods, finance, and currency—escape real pain.
What constitutes a “recession” will depend on the country in question. For China, a hard landing would mean annual growth falls from 12 to 6 percent. China must grow by 10 percent or more each year to bring 12 to 15 million poor rural farmers into the modern world. For other emerging markets, such as Brazil or South Korea, growth below 3 percent would represent a hard landing. The most vulnerable countries, such as Ecuador, Hungary, Latvia, Pakistan, or Ukraine may experience an outright financial crisis and will require massive external financing to avoid a meltdown.
Click Here!
For the wealthiest countries, a debilitating combination of economic stagnation and deflation might happen as markets for goods go slack because aggregate demand falls. Given how sharply production capacity has risen due to overinvestment in China and other emerging markets, this drop in demand would likely lead to lower inflation. Meanwhile, job losses would mount and unemployment rates would rise, putting downward pressure on wages. Weakening commodity markets—where prices have already fallen sharply since their summer peak and will fall further in a global recession—would lead to still lower inflation. Indeed, by early 2009, inflation in the advanced economies could fall toward the 1 percent level, too close to deflation for comfort.
This scenario is dangerous for many reasons. A number of central banks will be close enough to setting interest rates of zero that their economies fall into a triple whammy: a liquidity trap, a deflation trap, and debt deflation. In a liquidity trap, the banks lose their ability to stimulate the economy because they cannot set nominal interest rates below zero. In a deflation trap, falling prices mean that real interest rates are relatively high, choking off consumption and investment. This leads to a vicious circle wherein incomes and jobs are falling, with demand dropping still further. Finally, in debt deflation, the real value of nominal debts rises as prices fall—bad news for countries such as the United States and Japan that have high ratios of debt to GDP.
As orthodox monetary tools become ineffective, policymakers will turn to unorthodox approaches. We’ll see traditional fiscal policy, in the form of tax cuts and spending increases, but also worldwide bailouts of lenders, investors, and financial institutions, as well as borrowers. Central banks will inject massive amounts of cash into financial systems to unclog the liquidity crunch. More radical actions, such as outright purchases of corporate and government bonds or subsidization of mortgage rates, might also be necessary to get credit markets functioning properly again.
This crisis is not merely the result of the U.S. housing bubble’s bursting or the collapse of the United States’ subprime mortgage sector. The credit excesses that created this disaster were global. There were many bubbles, and they extended beyond housing in many countries to commercial real estate mortgages and loans, to credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. There were bubbles for the securitized products that converted these loans and mortgages into complex, toxic, and destructive financial instruments. And there were still more bubbles for local government borrowing, leveraged buyouts, hedge funds, commercial and industrial loans, corporate bonds, commodities, and credit-default swaps—a dangerous unregulated market wherein up to $60 trillion of nominal protection was sold against an outstanding stock of corporate bonds of just $6 trillion.
Taken together, these amounted to the biggest asset and credit bubble in human history; as it goes bust, the overall credit losses could reach as high as $2 trillion. Unless governments move with more alacrity to recapitalize banks and other financial institutions, the credit crunch will become even more severe. Losses will mount faster than companies can replenish their balance sheets.
Thanks to the radical actions of the G-7 and others, the risk of a total systemic financial meltdown has been reduced. But unfortunately, the worst is not behind us. This will be a painful year. Only very aggressive, coordinated, and effective action by policymakers will ensure that 2010 will not be even worse than 2009 is likely to be.
Nouriel Roubini is professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business and chairman of RGE Monitor (www.rgemonitor.com), an economic and financial consultancy."
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2009 - 02:05pm PT
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It's interesting from a hypothetical point: what if Mexico did collapse into anarchy? I've lived long enough to see Mexico slide downhill in a rather consistent manner over the last twenty or so years. I don't think it wise to ignore the potential for a serious problem here. There would be many serious political, social and security ramifications to chaos on our southern border. It would be a problem that would significantly re-orient our government's international priorities. Keep in mind that history can blindside us with a situation that might turn our world upside down.
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couchmaster
climber
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Jan 14, 2009 - 02:13pm PT
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Interesting that Mexico has had serious regulation of firearms since 1968 for the law abiding prople, yet they are still seeing 3 kidnappings a day on agerage. Murders are rampant. All the police and ALL the drug dealers have weapons and both are crooked and just run roughshod over the honest folks.
Please don't let any of that happen here.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2009 - 02:21pm PT
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Wouldn't it be ironic if Mexico did collapse into complete anarchy, and Obama was forced, due to security concerns, to intervene to establish order. Now that would be a topic to get ST going wild.
Whatever, the next few years are going to be interesting and exciting. Goes along with that old Chinese proverb doesn't it?
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Jan 14, 2009 - 02:22pm PT
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Guess where the majority of those automatic weapons the cartels have are from. Good 'ol USA.
As for Mexico generally, I think a total collapse is unlikely, and their economy has advanced quite a bit. The richest guy in Mexico made his money in telecommunications.
But it's not great, and it has gotten worse. Kind of depressing. Back when I used to go to Hueco Tanks, I didn't worry too much about going to Juarez. Don't know if I would go these days.
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WoodySt
Trad climber
Riverside
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 14, 2009 - 02:26pm PT
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Graniteclimber,
That was grim. Maybe I should delete "hypothetical".
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Forest
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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Jan 14, 2009 - 02:58pm PT
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Regulation of just about anything in Mexico is near meaningless because law enforcement is almost non-existent.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 14, 2009 - 03:07pm PT
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Regulation of just about anything in Mexico is near meaningless because law enforcement is almost non-existent.
Well, that's because it's safer and more lucrative to work for the drug cartels if you're in law enforcement there. That's is a big part of the ongoing problem. Until the drug cartels are eliminated or marginalized, there will be blood and chaos.
(sounds like another ongoing conflict in the world...)
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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Jan 14, 2009 - 03:51pm PT
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"what if Mexico did collapse into anarchy?"
How would you tell?
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andy@climbingmoab
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 14, 2009 - 03:57pm PT
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Mexico isn't anywhere close to collapsing. The drug cartel problems are significant, but fairly localized to the US border areas, some border areas with Guatemala, and the growing corridor from Guerrero to Sinaloa. Most places in the country are relatively unaffected, and media coverage has been sensational.
I traveled extensively in Sinaloa, Nayarit, Guerrero, Chiapas, Oaxaca, and other areas of Mexico earlier this year and saw no signs of instability or fear except in Culiacan and a few back roads villages in Nayarit, which I did get out of as soon as possible. The military checkpoints were frequent and seemed professional, but looked easy to avoid in a country the size of Mexico with the intricate network of back farming roads. Mexico has a very difficult problem, but they are trying.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 14, 2009 - 04:05pm PT
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From granite's article link;
Lying dead that afternoon of March 14, 2007, were an off-duty police commander and his wife, Benjamin Espinosa and Griselda Melendez, who apparently were shopping for a religious medallion in gratitude for a successful intestinal operation on their hospitalized infant daughter. Beyond them lay Ignacia Perez, a homemaker who lived on a former garbage dump and sold jewelry to neighbors, who paid her in weekly installments.
Sprawled near the entrance was Fernando Rodriguez, an unarmed security guard who took the $90-a-month job to save for his oldest daughter's 15th birthday celebration. He lived in terror that someone with a gun would come through that door.
Oh man, that really sucks ass...F*#king scumbags (the shooters)!
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Jan 14, 2009 - 04:36pm PT
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Yeah, it really hits you in the gut. Here are the pictures.
Security guard Fernando Rodriguez, who was killed in the attack at Lozano Garza jewelry store, took the $90-a-month job to save for the 15th birthday celebration of his daugher, Esmeralda, left. She and her sister Areli, right, live with their widowed mother and a younger sister in a barrio outside Monterrey.
Fernando Rodriguez's widow, Oralia, and their daughter Esmeralda look at photos of the slain store security guard.
Fernando Rodriguez, hugging one of his three daughters, was devoted to his family. The security guard did not carry a weapon on his job at Lozano Garza jewelry store and feared for his safety
Then go back here and see how big a problem this is. It's not an isolated case. http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/02/04/mexico.general/index.html
Mexico drug fighter killed after less than a day on job
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- A recently retired Mexican army general whose bullet-riddled body was found Tuesday near Cancun had taken over as the area's top antidrug official less than 24 hours earlier, officials said.
Retired Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñonez, his aide and a driver were tortured before being killed, said Quintana Roo state prosecutor Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carrillo. He said there was no doubt Tello and the others were victims of organized crime.
"The general was the most mistreated," Rodriguez said at a Tuesday night news conference monitored by El Universal newspaper. "He had burns on his skin and bones in his hands and wrists were broken."
An autopsy revealed Tello also suffered broken knees and was shot 11 times, Mexico City's Excelsior newspaper said.
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