I hope she will in future.

I agree with Mr Handover. [if that is your real name, it's a good one]

The Crash didn’t change the world by 1930 either. Give this three more years, and then see if nothing has changed.

If the next is bigger than this one then THAT will change everything.

Personally, I don’t think this crisis is over, not even close to over, just a lull in the storm.

Your posts are consistently gloomy, and in my view rightly so. The financial crisis, which seemed as it though was going to change everything, has in the end turned out to be one of those proverbial turning points at which history failed to turn. Most of the readers of this board are, I expect, now looking forward to the next crash, the biggest one of all.

However, I wonder whether you could tell us if you see any “green shoots,” so to speak, in the political system? We all have a sense of what the big guns are thinking and (not) doing. Obama has turned out to be a shocking disappointment, seemingly in hock to the very forces he so eloquently denounced in his campaign. Barney Frank’s actions so far seem to be as timid as his tongue is sharp. Geithner — well, nothing need be said about the young lad who carries the water for his Wall-Street paymasters. Bernanke — you said it all above.

So are there any heroes anywhere? Elizabeth Warren? She might be the head of the new Consumer Finance Protection, if it ever actually happens, but will she be able to do anything meaningful or will it all just be about tinkering at the edges?

Is there anyone else we could look to or rally behind that you can think of? Or are we essentially limited to posting cranky replies on your blog and stocking up on canned goods for our financial fallout shelters?

No, no accolades please it will be a labor of love (love them shrimp)

Sure beats the h*** out of sequestrating CO2 underground!

My vote for John as our next president.

unless there is a common idea/belief of how a decent person should behave and fear of what happens if he/she doesn’t it doesn’t work. On the village and probably club level it is the fear of being shunned that provides a powerful incentive. If you move to bigger entities you have to have something bigger. To date this something bigger has been religion. In the last century ideologies gave it a try with horrifying results – communism, nazism and – maybe – nationalism

right now it looks to me like religions are competing heavily inter alia about whether the secular democratic state is good or bad. – if I am right about this then you can’t get at it with a few or even a lot of ethics rules.

On a second note, I had a brainstorm of an idea and would like to bounce it off you guys if you could contact me.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2ba2378-9186-11de-879d-00144feabdc0.html

His view is that the real Bernanke is the one described in 2 and 3 in Simon’s post. I agree. We can and should improve this institution. The time for the “turnaround specialist” is past. Let’s get a “builder” in there, who has a world view that can actually leverage the considerable human resources a the Fed banks.

- you do not need a piece of land to grow potatoes, it can be done in a barrel and the yield is quite impressive, also rabbits thrive even on a balcony

1. Inertia and resistance to change. This is almost always the case. It is like all the previous bubbles that have gone on longer than one would have thought.

2. Chinese industry knows how to make goods and services for the US market. The US buys household gadgets, Dell laptops, and so forth. Many of these items would not sell well in rural Chine (my educated guess). A poor (by US standards) rural population has more practical and pressing needs than the US population. The rural Chinese population is more like the US rural population 100 years ago.

Consequently, China must retool to manufacture goods and services for the (huge) rural population. Farming tools, possibly small generators, reliable small refrigerators to preserve meat, various things like this would probably be the winners. It is not just a matter of shipping the items currently in WalMart or Target to the rural Chinese population. Many of the probably won’t sell.

China now has the factories and technical expertise to make items appropriate for the rural population that ideally should boost food production and raise the standard of living in rural China, but they do not necessarily know exactly what to make or how to market it to the Chinese population. They need to study the early history of industrial nations like the US that were once in the same boat. Very likely, they will figure it out.

Every day the clown show in the US gives them more and more reason to reevaluate their policy, if they have not done so already, and there is pressure from the rural population for change.

Sincerely,

John

More than anything, I suppose I’m asking: Is the Big Crash inevitable? And if so, where are the greatest strains / most dangerous bubbles in the economy that could catalyze such a crash?