One big thing missing: too much spending by gov’t. The problem of deficits is 100% too much spending over the business cycle.

Related point: politicians who promise more responsible spending, i.e. less spending, do NOT usually get elected. This is because voters want, and vote for, the “free lunch” goodies the (lying) politicians promise them. With support of the big-gov’t media.

Until voters choose responsible small gov’t leaders, the excess debt problems will continue festering and being such a big problem there is little economic growth.

Finally, every gov’t, including Greece & Germany, could reduce their “market” debt by paying bills with 1 year, 0% interest, Bearer Bonds. “Borrowing” from those who first receive gov’t benefits. They should include the caveat that such bonds will be accepted at 100% value as tax payments.

Germany should do this, and then demand that Greece also does it; and all EU gov’ts could do this, to avoid external debt default. And, if the internal businesspeople are NOT required to accept these bonds as payment, the bonds are not “legal tender” in violation of the EUzone agreements.

Yet, if the local business do accept them, at some 20% discount or so, the Bonds act a lot like base Money.

I support a return to the Gold standard, but doubt it will happen and continually look for other, more realistic ways to constrain the overspending of gov’t.

I wouldn’t blame the shoppers by the way since they can expect our economists to look after the macro economy the same was they can expect our structural engineers to ensure the shopping centre doesn’t fall down.

If buildings collapsed periodically, engineers would look to the foundations and when economies collapse periodically economics should be no different.

At the foundation of the economy is the creation and destruction of the lifeblood of the economy – Money. It is our commercial banks which create money, as accounting entries, through loans and we cannot ignore the fact that every euro has a corresponding debt as a result. Our banks also destroy this money as loans are repaid which is why reducing our debts doesn’t leave us in a better position.

Under this system the debt crisis can’t be resolved. If we get more money for growth, we have equally more debt. If we pay off our debts, the money no longer exists.

The only way to keep this system going is for us to take on more debt from banks than we repay. In recent decades this has been achieved through mortgages taking longer and longer to repay. However, having reached their natural limit of taking two concurrent careers to repay we can no longer expect house buyers to prop up this system any longer.

We could resolve the debt crisis overnight by restoring the money creation process to a public institution. We could also stop banks from deleting money a number of different ways.

1. James O’Reilly and his conflict of interests….seriouly WTF is he doing still in government????

2. Adam Clayton using our legal system for free ( he pays no taxes here ) to get his accountant sent down for 7 yrs.

3. Sean Quinn and co. off-shoring 500million euro to russian accounts…being held in contempt of court…..he walks free….again WTF???????

A seriously enraged citizen!!!!

http://peakoil.com/generalideas/review-of-j-h-kunstlers-too-much-magic/

We see some of the comments here about the suburban lifestyle ethic, with a life centred around the mall, persistent distraction from the flat screen TV, endless credit driven trajectories to absurdity, escapism, and nostalgia.

And I ask myself, are we not on the same trajectory.

Behaviour breeds results, and the east of the country spent ten years in the American dream, and maybe places like Cork or Galway had it for shorter time periods. Now we see the results.