A 15 year recession?

[goebfwai]

15 years doesn't sound to me as if it is all outwith the realms of possibility. My gut instinct is 10-15.

 

[Groucho]

It's the bit if that debt that's unservicable that's the issue...that figure includes mortgages, altho unsecured debt is still twice the average level in the EU...not that I can find any reliable stats on it...

Interesting if slightly dull article on banking debt

<<<Written when pissed>>>
It is not really simply the issue of banking debt and personal debt (including mortgages at a time of falling house prices). The reason that debt has become such a feature of modern/late capitalism and consequently the apparently defining feature of the onset of capitalist crisis is because of deeper problems - a crisis of profitability. That is the rate of profit to investment (not the overall level of profit but the ratio of profit to the necessary investment needed to be likely to - in a World that always is about a gamble - reep a profitable return). The 'credit crunch' is but a manifestation of a deeper crisis. The solution is not simply to be correlated with the cost of cancelling out bad debt. We have to look at the causes of the build up of debt in the first place. Greed? yes, but that is a given. It is the failure of capitalist mechanisms to reep the necessary profitable returns compared to investment that led investment to opt for the ease of debt funded profit. <<<written when pissed>>>

 

[Dr Jon]

Thing is, the future of those we care about is too important to be trusted to the whims of a bunch of fucking investment bankers and political parasites

Exactly.

So we need to find a way to look after ourselves

Any ideas?
I've been looking at the Transition Towns movement. It sounds good in theory, but the cynic in me is wondering how the parasites and the powerful will manage to fuck it up for everybody...

 

[Barking_Mad]

plenty of 'to let' signs round my area are going up on shops and small businesses.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Exactly.

Any ideas?
I've been looking at the Transition Towns movement. It sounds good in theory, but the cynic in me is wondering how the parasites and the powerful will manage to fuck it up for everybody...

I think this is an excellent start. The current transition intiatives seem to be managing fine, albeit a bit 'below the radar' of most large institutions. Other more contentious actions might spin off, but the basic approach is pretty politically neutral and capable of being fairly inclusive.

 

[darkfibre]

presumably you understand that finite resources run out if you use them up really fast?

Heh... sorry to bring it up again, but whilst looking for something totally unrelated, I came across this:

HC Deb 14 January 1980 vol 976 cc1179-80 1179

§ 2. Mr. Dubs asked the Secretary of State for Energy for how many years he expects the United Kingdom to remain self-sufficient in oil.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1980/jan/14/oil-self-sufficiency#S5CV0976P1-02832

Interesting historical piece.