Birmingham ReAL Reviews Financial Armageddon

Birmingham ReAL, a blog offering "commentary and discussion about issues affecting Birmingham, Alabama, particularly focusing on its finance, economics and real estate," features a review of Financial Armageddon:

Michael Panzner's very readable book , Financial Armageddon, details the challenges the United States is apt to face in the near future as the two fat decades of the eighties and nineties give way to a lean period in the first part of the 21st century.  He identifies four threats:  Private debt; retirement system debt; government debt; and credit derivatives.

The book was published in 2007, and the headlines of today could have been ripped from its chapters.  The collapse of municipal debt?  He predicts it.  The collapse of the dollar?  That too.  The collapse of the housing market?  Of course, but that was underway even as the book was being written.

He predicts a period of deflation followed by hyperinflation.  I can't quite fathom where he expects the deflation to come from, but he seemed to think the fed would be far less accomodating--at first--than it has been, and then would overreact the other way.  W/ the rescue of Bear Stearns by the Fed friday, I'd say the Fed is about as accomodating as could be, and that hyperinflation is around the corner, without us ever having experienced any of the deflation.  Any currency losing value as fast as is the dollar is bound to enter a hyperinflationary mode.

He predicts economic malaise or worse, high crime, civil unrest, food shortages, etc--all the stuff that doom and gloomers always predict.  The only difference is that his predictions are based on a financial system collapse that has more or less played out precisely like he guessed, except in magnitude, yet....

At the end of all this doom and gloom, Panzner notes that this cloud may have a silver lining, as the financial and economic armageddon will require us to give up our vapid, shallow, consumeristic-based lifestyles for a more humble life focused on things that matter.  If so, I'd say bring on the armageddon.

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Comments

[David]

The ongoing debacle in America,the Financial break up.Has been on going for some time ,certainly prior to G.W.moron's term in the WH
Americans have been running up credit debt for quite a while.

Although most Americans do not get it,oh they know something is up they hear it in the news daily,but they do not understand the full brunt of what is happening .

Here is a short explanation in a few sentences if I may.

America is finished ,resources depleted,even drinkable water is running out.Everything must be imported,so you have to pay for everything you use.
The problem is your money is no good anymore
the world doesn't want it.
besides being blood money ,it isn't worth anything to anyone because it devalues too quickly.

Then comes the solution,TheNorth American Union
where you get Canadian laws and you lose the constitution and bill of rights.
Oh and by god you had better tow the mark or you will find yourself in concentration camps placed all across America.
It is over ,America is bankrupted and depleted .
Has been for some time ,they are just leaking out the news a little at a time so as not to panic the people.
your politicians have gutted,looted and raped America into a bankrupted pile of rubble.
For those that do not understand this there is no hope for them they will be pennyless and homeless and still be wearing a silly grin saluting the flag and bending over backwards to take it up the rearend.
It is over

You have had gangsters in the WH since the day they murdered JFK.Americans deserve their plight for not demanding justice be served when they killed him.

I like to close with an Abe Lincoln para phrase
"Not in a thousand years will America be defeated,if
we are defeated it will come from an enemy from within"

[Jes]

"Financial Armageddon" did two things for me--it convinced me not to buy a house for a while yet here in southern California where the housing bubble had been extreme and it convinced me to get out of my investments in financials. Admittedly, we're talking just an ordinary 401(k) and a couple IRAs--I'm no billionaire. Peanuts, in the scheme of things. But they are MY peanuts and I'd have hated like hell to lose 'em.

[Concerns4Retirement]

David,

You Go! Yup! It's your hard earned savings!!! If you need it, it should be there for you!

I've sat w/ so many & even had a TV show urging folks to consider Financial Armageddon's insights. ...we need to be aware of the stepping stones of the deep waters...safety, guarantees play major role in navigating our financial and also social policies. The unaware gets drawned..linking the global-energy in love might be our true savior.

We the global people need to band together humbly in love to form a very strong network. Where if even one among the human family is hurt unjustly, the population at large needs to make the System of Robber Barons know--zero tolerance. Enough is enough!

Michael...I'm a long fan of Free Speech TV. I've logged on there & I've also contributed a couple of replies on vine (?), but I think free speech (which I haven't had much time to kick off any real blogs there yet) is a global grass roots forum. What do you think to also link your blogs there & simply allow for a unified voice to triamph at grass roots level to eventually influence policies in favor of sustainable, just and joyful human family, and w/in such environment we can nurture profit of those who empower the human family?