Reply #17: Here comes one of Tansy's questions --

[Tansy_Gold]

I haven't had time yet to read through the entire link, so I'm going to post this question and if you want to tell me the answer is in the link, I'll find time later to read it.

But here's the question, or maybe questions --

If this "bubble" amounts to $600 trillion with a T, who ultimately would get that money? We're talking about investments that are essentially wild ass bets at some hyperVegas roulette wheel, but when the whole thing gets paid off, someone gets the money. Someone "wins." Who is that?

If I were to walk into a Vegas casino and tell them I want to bet $100,000 on. . . .whatever. . . .they'd laugh at me. Tansy Gold doesn't have $100,000 to gamble with. Tansy Gold doesn't have $100,000 period. So they wouldn't take my bet. They'd be stupid to do so, because if I won, I'd walk away with the money, but the bigger chance is that I'd lose and they'd get nothing. But in a scenario like that, we know who the "winner" is likely to be, and the loser.

But in the derivatives game, are the holders of those $600T in markers also essentially betting that the various governments will come in and back up the bets? That's what it has seemed like to me.

And if the governments -- who are NOT backing up the universities and the pension funds -- bail out the BANKS that are making these bets, which appears to be what has happened so far, who gave the governments the right to do that? And yes, that is kind of a rhetorical question because I know how governments work. But by the same token, I think we need to look at the role government is playing -- and not just in the US -- in managing and/or manipulating the whole FIRE foundation of "the economy."

Debt as investment seems to me to be merely an off-balance-sheet euphemism for gambling for greed. Words have meanings and consequences, and I think we need to get back to calling spades spades, crooks crooks, and greedy ass selfish children who don't want to take care of their aging parents but do want to inherit all the money, well, we should call them what they are.


Tansy Gold, who got a post pulled last night for doing the latter and doesn't care. :evilgrin: