http://aftaka.org/2008/12/12/direct-action-in-iceland/

http://aftaka.org/2008/12/22/actions-continue-in-iceland/

also ct i agree with yr english grandpa. ww2 pulled us out of the great depression. iraq/afgahan war pull the united states out of the due recession/slowdown after the dotcom bubble burst in 2001-2002, and thus this bubble was created.i think the next war will be in pakistan. obama already wants to put more troops in pakistan and on other side india might also attack pakistan because of what happened in mumbai. next year there is general elections in india. if the bjp( hardline hindu) comes to power then there is a very big possibilty of an attack on islamabad.
fdl, buy gold to hedge against hyperinfation. ( i have bought some)

thailand will devalue the baht. this is all they know to solve any economic crisis. when all currencies are debasing i think precious metals will soar!!

…well now we are going over, and the Chinese and the US still think ‘forward’ is the solution, not reverse!

The US is STILL trying to spend more than it earns and prop up banks that make phantom profits from phoney transactions. And China is aiming to keep selling to everyone and pocketing the surplus.

Einstein said to repeat the same failed actions again and again in the hope of a different outcome is a clear sign of insanity. He was right.

Btw, an ASEAN/China/Japan trade bloc will do what? They are all trying to run current account surpluses – how can they do this with eachother? Who will do all the buying, and who the lending?

Ultimately, all of Asia needs to spend more (starting with pro-poor pro-consumption policies: ironically, what Thaksin ordered) while the West needs to learn a ‘1997′ lesson or three.

Will they?

If not, there is simply no telling how bad this is all going to get. I’m bunkered down already…

It means also, a new tariff system, a protectionist system, which guarantees to each nation, that its investment in production, which everybody has supported, presumably, is going to be protected in price. We can not have a low-price economy. The problem in China, for example, is, the prices at which China is able to have an export market, the prices are too low! You cannot maintain China’s population with those prices. And the reason this was done, was to lower the price of production below the cost of production! So we moved production out of Europe, and out of North America, we moved it to prices below the actual, physical cost of production, considering the capital investment in technology. Therefore, you take and dump on China and other countries, you dump an export market for them, but then you don’t allow them to earn enough to support their entire population in development. The same thing happens in Africa. The same thing has happened in South America and Central America, in recent periods, mainly since the 1970s.

The world financial system is going down, and the only real question is whether the mayor world powers have the sense to reorganize it before it disintegrates completely.

That same warning applies to society itself. As the banking system crumbles around us, governments slide deeper into the red, as the world productive base continues its slide into oblivion, what are we doing about it? Is our very civilization itself not disintegrating before our very eyes?

What we are witnessing is the breakdown of the global economy as a whole.

One of the early warning signs of breakdown can be seen in the transportation sector, where world shipping volume is in rapid decline. Ocean-going cargo ships are being mothballed and orders for new ships cancelled. Container cargo at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach—major ports for Asian-U.S. trade—was down some 10% in November over November 2007. The decline in shipping is also hurting the U.S. railroads, where car-load volume dropped 10% in October over the year before, and the delivery of new rail cars is projected to drop sharply in 2009.

The mining sector is declining sharply, with cutbacks in production due to falling demand and falling prices. Rio Tinto, one of the largest mining concerns in the world, has announced that it will cut its workforce by 13%, put many of its mines up for sale, and slash capital spending.

The combined effects of cutbacks in mining and cargo transportation reflect a breakdown in the global supply chain. If the mines do not produce and the ores do not ship, then the fertilizers necessary for agriculture and the metals necessary for manufacturing will not be produced, with devastating consequences.

These declines are accelerating as the effects of the financial collapse spread. We are losing the capability to produce and transport products upon which human life depends, and the consequences will be horrific. According to the UN Food ad Agriculture Organization, 14% of the world’s population—some 963 million people—are malnourished, an increase of 40 million people in one year.

What is rapidly falling apart is the whole globalization model, and the post-industrial society. The US and Europe having stripped its industrial might in favor of outsourcing production and relying on services, information, and finance to drive their economy, now find themselves in deep trouble on every front. At the same time, the nations to which they shifted their production, notably China, are in deep trouble, as shipping collapses and consumer demand in the U.S. and Europe drops. The whole world is breaking apart.

This can be reversed, but only if we abandon the foolish policies which brought us to this point. The financial system is finished, and the bailouts are only making matters worse.

The Threat: Shrinking markets is a threat to world peace. World War II happened because Japan-Axis bloc wanted to lock-in on raw material source and markets.

I talked to a 70-yr old Briton, who is spending his retirement life in Thailand. He’s like my grandpa but in English version. Having just returned to Thailand for 2 days, he said the situation in the UK is very depressing. He also mentioned the possibility of WWIII. However, we agreed that the world today is different from the world 80 years ago. The world has learned from the fresh experience of US & Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan that hi-tech weaponry are useless. People from different parts of the world talk to each other more. As well, there have been no conflicts that could ignite wars in sight. It is best that the West start to let loose some extent of their wealth and resources to the Orient.

“It’s a nice club of gentlemen drinking tea…

You’re right. There is nothing to worry about ASEAN as the group has become magic hens that lay golden eggs for Japan, Korea, and recently China. It is not the ASEAN population but companies from Japan, Korea, and China, plus Europe and North America, who benefit from AFTA.

So who cares about ASEAN meeting?

The depression of 1930s, deeply researched and studied by current Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, it is believed could have been prevented if the Federal Reserve did NOT tighten monetarily at that time. The current crisis it is believed parallels the 1930s and Bernanke/Paulson eased the money/liquidity spigots to wide open to prevent another depression. All the other central bankers of the world had followed the American lead and the result is a deluge of fiat money and megatons of liquidity that so far had not made any perceptible impact on the economic slowdown and the financial crises. So open the money/liquidity spigots even more! They still talk of the DEFLATION threat . . but they also worry of the HYPER-INFLATION threat that looms as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow.

People have the right to scream at the their leaders to ask: “DO YOU REALLY HAVE A HANDLE ON THE CRISIS? DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE ALL DOING? CAN YOU GIVE US MORE THAN A 50-50 ASSURANCE THAT YOU ARE NOT MAKING THINGS WORSE BY ALL YOUR ACTIONS?”

I am a SAVER and I have saved a lot for my retirement. And specially in Asia, there are more savers than inveterate spenders. And our savings are deliberately being eviscerated by the runaway money printing machines of central bankers of the world. And what for?

It is injustice to millions of savers like me. The central bankers of the world are trying to save financial deadbeats and wasteful spenders by trying to lend them even more money to buy more cars/LCDs they can’t afford, or, provoke an inflationary run that would revive home prices so those mortgage defaults would not appear, in the banks bookkeeping, to NOT be underwater! (This is ridiculous central bankers simulating window-dressing for the imprudent bankers/financiers)

This is lunacy!

The UN is powerless. ASEAN is even worse.

It’s a nice club of gentlemen drinking tea…

As for the corporate tax cut… well that could be a good idea. It’s important to remember that companies listed on the SET… have already 25 %. It’s unfair. And this helps very large companies. I think the gvt should cut the taxes for SMEs, until a certain level of turnover and/or profits.