Financial markets implode

Depends on your age.... and I don't think any financial adviser would ever say you're "supposed" to have Gold.

 

Damn, the dollar is killing my city economics... T_T on a city of 200000+ people since 9/11/2001 were lost 20000 workplaces... euro is too strong, exporting to a country in crysis like USA is almost impossible right now, and we even have a good contribute from our government to make all worse....

Now, since Mc Cain is going to win, who will be the next country that will be attacked? iran? venezuela, panama or cuba? after all USA economics are over 40% in military, and that have no reason to be in a peaceful world. :/

also the US military expenses are said to be "unincomprimible".

oh by the way, the ?palin? sarah stated that they could attack russia... man! those are the people that will bring the world to an end. those are the poeple that made everyone think that SOMEONE won the cold war, and that will bring a new one, or even an HOT one.

BTW i have one idea to solve the economics problems. take back all the military around the world, stop having bases in all the world, protect the city and borders at home. it's less expensive for sure, can help economy and even give back enough money for an efficient health care system....

it's time to make people at home well, and this is true for US, GB, Italy and all the countries costantly busy in military operations all over the world.

 

I don't understand any of this... A bank that acted as leader and loaned money to a bunch of banks, even though they were probably never going to see it again, files for bankruptcy and now the dollar is even more fucked?

 

Bank Of America going to have a monopoly soon.......

 

McCain may still lose, I don't think anyone has a crystal ball or any inside information on this one, do they?

I worry a lot less about Iran, Venezuela, Panama and Cuba (strange choices) and a great deal more about Pakistan.

Not sure what this meant, but certainly it looks as if we are all paying dearly for military intervention across the Globe. Not nearly as dearly as those who have lost their lives on both sides however.

It is a bit frustrating to hear everyone bemoaning the state of the economy, the World and the way things are going down the pan. Most of us live in remarkable comfort, stability and health. Whenever our material wealth dips a few percentage points or we take a dent in the amount we can spend each month we start to decry the state of the World.

Frankly, we are still relatively comfortable, still able to walk to the shops and find the shelves full of food, the employment rates are not wiped off the map and despite a looming recession I cannot see many of us here being affected to the extent people have to endure in war zones in order for us to enjoy the wealth we take for granted on a daily basis.

These are our troops, we put them there and they are defending our ability to live the lives we do. We are paying through the nose for that defense, however. We cannot have it both ways!

We really are not suffering on the same level.

That's not exactly what she said. She stated that if necessary, she would have no qualms about attacking Russia. A very different thing indeed, especially given what has been happening in Georgia.

Russia has Europe by the balls! On one hand Russia needs the investment and payment for their oil & gas that Europe brings, whilst on the other Europe couldn't currently survive without those resources. It was disgusting how little was said and done to curb Russia's actions.

The attack on Georgia was a very shrewd piece of muscle flexing and saber rattling on the part of Russia and it spat in the face of Europe and to an extent America too. It was a big bully shoving the little kid around and saying 'So, what's your big brother going to do to protect you?' knowing full well Big Brother would do nothing. NATO is toothless. Russia got what it wanted, and we all reacted precisely as predicted. This wasn't just about a small strip of land. The bigger picture was the perception that NATO countries are encircling Russia. Back in the 90s Russia wanted to join and for some unknown reason we said no! We kept them out.

America then did the predictable within 1 week of the Georgia attacks and finalised the missile site(s) with Poland to the North. It was described as 'coincidental' in that the signing was scheduled for that week, but that was political jargon for 'f**k you!'

When the Cold War ended, Russia was a basket case with a terrible economy and the West sneered at it and had pretty much treated it in a similar way ever since. Putin was determined to change that. This might be an over reaction, but I think of Hitler when I think of Putin in the sense that Germany's nose had been put out of joint and he wanted to restore Germany's land and status in Europe. Putin clearly wants to do the same and restore Russian pride, irrespective of whom he steps on. We never seem to learn and out economies are now so intertwined it has become awkward.

Years ago I worked for a small business reporting on the new trade & investment deals being established between western companies and Russian organizations. To say the business methods employed were incompatible would be somewhat strong, however it quickly became clear that investing in the region was likely to be very risky. That has proved right!

With Putin at the helm (with a puppet or not), Russia is dangerous and just dismissing it is the riskiest option. Georgia has given Europe a broken nose and black eyes. It showed to exactly what lengths Russia was prepared to go to and it was shocking.

In most instances, pulling out would be the worst thing the military could do. Peace keeping missions have questionable results on many occasions, yet pulling out in many parts of the World would ensure that the warring / opposing factions would set upon one another and result in all our war.

 

Anyway, back on topic...

A I G anyone? OH:

 

By the way i have a big number of infos about georgia, that i think in USA are not of public domain.... the situation is not exactly as you are portraying, tought i think it's not very interesting to go deep in the matter. also keep in mind that russian "informational" power is close to zero compared to the USA/usa friendly european one...

btw i think that something like this was inevitable after kosovo...

 

dude, I hope mc cain ain't going to bomb iran (well, he ain't going to bomb iran anyway) coz my uncles invested so much there (money flows at incredible speed for a foreigner that would invest in this country. like, er, in dubai). Would be sad for them to see the buildings they are currently building on Fox News lol
As for the dollar going low, ebay.com has been my friend for a while ^^

 

Aka, conspiracy theories relating to McCain etc? 'Cause if so, I am not a believer in that one.

 

you are funny. No, first hands infos i got from russia. my wife is russian and when you are there you can get the info without having to listen to tv news or newspapers.

tvs and newspapers from usa, russia and europe are all lieing or, at the very least showing just the little infos that are "useful" for the governments.

about the mc cain conspiracy theories, i consider them ridiculous. propaganda, as many other news are.

edited: and most importantly what do you know of georgia, abkhazia and south ossetia? i mean, beside that they were part of the former URSS?

 

It seems to me that Russian is supporting the breakaway areas of Georgia primarily for three reasons.

1. To once again bolster their sphere of influence which has been decreasing.
2. To show NATO that they are still a force of power if need be.
3. To create buffer zones between themselves and NATO which is encroaching into former Warsaw Pact countries.

 

;-)

No criticism of either you, your wife or anyone that your wife knows, but I am sure that Russia believes it was liberating Russian citizens in South Ossetia.

Have you considered that perhaps even the Russian people are being lied to? It is certainly worth considering no? Perhaps a little light 'bending', after all Putin is forever displaying his masculinity and his military prowess.

Given the UK's experience of trying to establish the truth regarding Alexander Litvinenko and his murder in London (and the subsequent charade in trying to bring the accused murderer to trial) I am less likely to accept the Russian Governments verdict. If the West finds it hard to accept Putin's version of democracy, it might have something to do with the manner in which he conducts his business both at home and abroad.

I thought the reporting was pretty well balanced actually. From what I could see and read it was clear that Russia was waging war against a sovereign state on the fringes of Europe. The sort of behavior that simply shouldn't be allowed to occur.

The reports were critical of Georgia also, and I am sure that atrocities were carried out on both sides. War is an ugly business and the winner usually gets to dictate the eventually historical version of events.

With almost constant media attention I think in this instance everyone's lies were caught out.

I don't think that most news agencies have anything to gain from lying. I also doubt that I am alone in thinking that Russia was heavy handed in dealing with Georgia. I am also well versed in propaganda and try to obtain my views from a variety of sources.

Yep, pretty much my take on it too! I suspect that is why most press let that story line drop.

Only what I learned having studied history and working for "NewsBase Russia". Whilst working with the editing team trawling through hundreds of thousands of newspaper clipping and information provided by Russians and people working out in Russia.

I too have first hand experience of working with a Russian team based in Moscow. There is nothing personal here. It's not as if I dislike the Russian people.

Our aim with NBR was to actually encourage the establishment of international business and welfare relationships within the former USSR.

 

Precisely

 

ABSOLUTELY! i don't get my infos on the matter from russian news

so i'll elaborate concerning georgia/russia/abkhazia and ossetia since it seems there's interest on the topic.

first of all everybody knows that georgia was a part of former soviet union, right? well at the end of the soviets many small (in a russian view of it) part of russia detached themselves and became autonomous countries.

it happened so to ukraine, lituania, georgia ecc ecc. that is a normal process in history, since some of these countries had their own culture, traditions and such. in short those were nations.

This is the case of georgia too. the diference from the other ones is that georgia made a country that contains many nations. this is always a mess.

everybody remembers yugoslavia, right?

Inside georgia there's these 2 (now) famous nations of abkhazia and south ossetia. The problem is that these 2 parts have always been indipendent republics even at the time of soviet union, and since 1993 have been asking to form their own country or to get indipendency. this is an old matter as you can see now.

also important is that Ossetian and abkhazian don't speak the same language with georgians! They just speak their own language and russian. sure in more than 10 years they were forced to learn it, but georgia and these 2 nations have nothing in common.

also the south ossetia never existed. it was always one only Ossetia, and south ossetian are wishing to join back to north ossetia that is still part of russia as an indipendent republic.

if i haven't bored everyone to death i'll keep giving you the point of the political matters behind all the mess, like UE role, russia role, and US role on request.

 

Not disagreed with a word you have said...

However, I would be interested to know why Russia decided to bomb Georgia back into the stone age at this precise time on this precise agenda?

That to me is the most intriguing of the whole situation. I get the 'liberating Russians trapped in countries that were never Georgia and cannot be claimed to be Georgian', however the timing, the manner, the death toll.

I realise this is perhaps not the thread for this. In brief I have understood the argument. Wondering why now it raised it's head and the fact that Georgia was on the verge of becoming a NATO pact country had nothing to do with it?

This is why I think it was a very deft coup on the part of very clever tacticians in Russia.

 

Out 600 billion,

Well people there goes my coffee money for the week. :crying:

 

And I would like to keep it that way, thank you very much. If the markets tank and the economy sinks, that means pretty much any of us here with a 9 to 5 are in danger of being laid off.

Thankfully, I have a bit of seniority, but I'm in no way secure. Giant megacorporations like the one I work for have a habit of canning entire departments.

It's got more to do with the way energy distribution networks are set up in the area (pipelines and the like) than actual Russian citizens. Wars are never started to help people, only protect capital.

 

To me. Russia just got bored and decided to do what they used to do back in the Cold War, which was to stir up shit with its neighbors to attract attention from the West.

On topic:

I'm glad that in the field of work I'll be heading into, there will still be a demand for it

 

On a positive note the UK pound has got back to be worth more then $1.80 Just hope Gordon Brown can use his smoke and mirrors to force Darling to pump some more money into the money markets so the pound might rise back to 200 yen.

 

Nah, its all about petrol you see. They are all moving towards Iran. It's just a matter of time until somebody (not necessarily USA) will take over IRAN.

EDIT : f*ck this reminds me alot of DUNE xD