...ruh roh...

Shores of Lake Michigan. Gen's visiting Sarah's Grandpa and Grandma. I'm not far, in NE Ohio disposing of deceased parents property with my sisters...

Generally, where ever I consult I ask clients to put down a retainer. Nothing is worse than having to collect back fees on intellectual property. Where I am at now I have been for 18 months. They have always paid all of their vendors promptly, I know I see all cash disbursements. Every consulting firm who has come in over the six months has asked to be paid in advance. Sign of the times baby! Companies are not paying their bills in a timely manner.

Uwe wrote..

Actually, I'm going to take my daughter ... To the range.

Just got back. She doesn't like +P ammo in an Airweight J-Frame.

-Uwe-

Since you're in the area, drive the Tunnel of Trees M-119. Gorgeous lakeshore jaunt, showcasing more repossessed borrowed-money trophy homes than you can shake a sheriff's auction at.

Great autumn photography

Uh, where I am is somewhere I've been many, many times. It would be hard to surprise me with something I don't already know about

The European solution is easy. Just print more money. Which is what they are going to end up agreeing to do.

Looks like the North western side of Lake Michigan around Leeland. Is that one of the Manitou Islands?

Manitou - yep.

Been there many times... we're leaving next Saturday for Michigan visiting family and renting a cottage on Lake Michigan. We can't wait either. Our favorite place for summer.

****somewhere where silence beez ****

Ok, Comedy Central has the worst site ever, but I like to trot out this Jon Stewart clip from time to time.. I don't think even Jon knows how accurate his commentary was on this one:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-ju....

Don't worry EU, your banks will be fine, even if it means your governments have to declare banks the only entities capable of owning property. The Romans invented serfdom you know, in the aftermath of an economic crisis brought on by debasement and malinvestment.

lake buena vista...I also had a buena vista on a spot where I hope someday will be a deaf school

Good stuff Jstanley. Nothing a little Bob Wills won't cure. Deep in the Heart is played in the middle of the 6th inning of every Texas Ranger game.

I have a degree in finance. I have played with those PV numbers for years. I don't do it any more because I have done it enough that I know what Karl wrote to be true.

Every solution is to either print money, which reduces the purchasing power of everything already saved up, thus deflates the purchasing power while inflating or incur more debt, praying that some kind of miracle happens that suddenly the numbers start adding up faster in repayment and in the economy than is possible. One thing about annuities is the payout can only be made on what is possible at the time the payout starts. The 10 year treasury is paying 1.6% or so. That amount of money, which is nearly 100% of the estimated lifetime payout has to be due at time of retirement, no matter what the estimated interest rate is on accumulation. The fact of the matter is that the bulk of the money that could earn any kind of interest or return to pay anything is in accounts that would be due shortly. The people that are far enough away from retirement that 8% might happen have very little of the funds present at this time. The bomb has already blown.

They could fix this mess if they were willing to destroy the banking business as it is set up now. All the debt could be bought with printed money and held intact. The money would be due and payable to the government and could be used to invest in what remaining debt was good. We would then get rid of credit banking and go to 100% reserve banking, where all the money loaned out was real and no longer available in everyones account. The money would have value because it is needed to pay debts. This is the only reason paper money has ever had value. Bad debts could be managed in this fashion. We would have inflation, but as long as more money wasn't continually created, it would stop relatively fast. Assets would deflate and a real interest rate would emerge shortly. The current system can't be fixed, because of the exponential nature, the addiction of new credit to increase debt and spending and the fact that the debt and money are tied directly to each other and one can't be supported without the other. There are trillions of make believe dollars and other currencies that can't really exist, due to insolvency.

Friend of mine went by his credit union yesterday. When he was inside, there were stacks of loaves of bread. He asked what it was for and they ansered that it was there way of helping out there customers with something they could really use. Modern day bread lines? Said it had been "well received."

I have to get back up there where Karl was. There was a guy up at the tip of the Leelanau peninsula who kept 400 or so kinds of apples. Some of them traceable clear to the middle ages. You wouldn't know some were apples if he didn't tell you, because of the odd size, shape, and color. I wonder if he is still there; he wasn't any spring chicken. He had a whirligig by his driveway that was Uncle Sam sitting milking a cow that had taxpayer painted down its side. Very realistic when the wind blew hard - he really pulled on old Bossie.

Karl, you might find this article on Mises.org interesting from an angle other than what we hear. It is really kind of anti Nigel Farage in regard to the Euro, in that it is about the Euro forcing the big governments in Europe to reform and shrink. Germany adopted reforms over the last decade to conform to the rules of the Eurozone while the rest of Europe took the stability of the currency as a permit to squander their resources and credit. Others, not including most of the other northern states. The current cries are more about the political classes and bankers needing adjustments to continue their own games, which are exponential expansion of credit for the purpose of more profits and more goodies for their political beneficiaries. The reason the Euro doesn't fit is because the bankers and politicians like to violate the rules and screw the rest of society out of what they produce, for example, the Krugman, Bernanke, Obama line of thinking. Most of the Obama stimulus went to keep paying over priced state union labor, rather than real investment. Shovel ready projects were generally union coffers, where the unions shoveled in the money. The reason why the Euro doesn't work is the same reason the gold standard didn't work, in that the excessive credit creation of banks and governments exceeded the capacity of the monetary base to sustain the exponential increase of debt. This goes a long way toward your dollar capital for dollar risk, low growth government and stable or even declining prices.

http://mises.org/daily/6069/An-Austrian-....

Yep...

In the meantime the global economic capacity growth is still 0.0% per annum as the volume of the earth basically remains constant with just an insignificant uptick in net retained solar power from the Sun and an even more insiginficant positive volume of retained stellar power from all the other stars of the universe reaching earth combined. Don't forget that a star 10,000 light years away does generate some catchable energy value (which we can capitalize upon in our economies), though not much.

Oh, politicians know the math. But for them it doesn't work that way - by the time the situation blows, they won't be in their current position any more, and it will blow into someone else's face.
And even if it blows into the current politician's face, it won't hurt >>his<, wallet, it will hurt the government and the people.
As long as they can separate the consequence from the action, and redirect the consequence to someone else, why would they care about math?

IMO, Those who manage anything - governments, countries, companies, what you will - need to feel the consequences, good or bad, on their personal property, up to the point where the house is taken from them and they have to sleep in a cardboard box under the bridge. (And, conversely, to get fat bonuses if their government budget (or company etc) goes positive, with all obligations still fulfilled)