Take my advice: if you have no savings, start now. If you have adjustable rate debt, convert it to fixed rate. If you have dollars, convert them to Euros or Yen. We are about to experience the result of our lack of discipline. The good news is that the death of the dollar will likely be the death of the evil empire that it supports and life to so many innocents around this globe.

M.R. Major, USAF, Retired

The dollar is dropping like lead.

Americans, on average, have a 0% savings rate.

Chinese save, on average 30% of their income.

We are dependent upon 2 Billion $ of Chinese debt each day to finance our nation and war.

You work the numbers. I’m not good at math. We are fucked.

I’d rather see heated debate than calls for silence. If investors are stupid enough to believe paranoid ramblings then they don’t deserve to make any money if they’re wrong.

CNBC cheerleads for the markets every day regardless of fundamentals (housing optimism last year) and it just makes them look desperate and moronic. Lets encourage the naysayers, maybe we’ll learn something.

http://www.kyle-brady.com/2007/10/20/yes-its-a-bubble-now-stfum8/

–Kyle

-Poor fiscal policies by this current administration (increased budget and trade deficits)

-Poor monetary policy by the Fed (Low interest rates drive up assets, driving up expectations and speculation which lead to pain down the road. This is what happened from 1999 when the Fed cut rates after the LTCM deblacle.) Your tech stocks are going to go down when interest rates eventually go up.

-Housing takes up a big portion of the economy not just in materials, but also the money involved in equity withdrawals that are used to temporarily and unsustainably drive consumptions.

Any financial analyst worth his salt will tell you that volatility is back. The indices have been relatively quite but now you’ll see gyrations reminiscent to the late 1990s early 2000s. Emotional investing is going to be the norm again, rather than the rule. (Perhaps the popularity of options trading is contributing to this volatility.)

But the question is: Will this affect internet stocks? If the economy is hit, will GOOG, YHOO and other’s revenues get hit?

Ask yourself: What percentage of GOOGs and YHOO revenues are advertising dollars that “old economy” companies willing to retract when they are hit by a slow economy? For the answer to that, read Fred Hickey’s High-Tech Strategist.

I’m living in Europe now where they’ve been saying this same stuff for the past three decades.

I’m all for market correction. The housing market was out of control and a correction is taking place. The dollar is weak, but won’t necessarily remain that way forever and spurs manufacturing in other ways. There are definitely problems but if everyone predicts an imminent crash then people lose confidence and start behaving in ways that will encourage it. Masses can be influenced by chicken little.

When I was helping a friend with a PR blast a few months back, a very nice lady from CNN told us the story sounded interesting but that they were focused on the “stock market crash.” I felt the same, “what crash? if you make it a story and hype it endlessly then everyone will panic and it WILL crash…”

Our broadband penetration is 13th in the world in connectivity to the last mile and speed & quality. Only 28% of seniors (above 65) are online and the numbers are growing. We have a lot of room for growth; we just need to nurture it better & stop being so sensationalist about everything – good and bad.

It’s kind of cool that if all the papers and bloggers and everyone is moaning about a downturn and recession coming and another dot-com crash, and it *doesn’t* happen like the last one, it’ll seem to me more that people are just shaking their heads and continuing doing what they’re doing rather than squealing like scared piglets and burying their noses in the sand.

What’s going on today doesn’t even compare. In 1999, the average Joe was trading shares of eToys and Book-A-Million. Today, the average Joe has absolutely no clue what Twitter or Facebook even are.

Just because there is some froth, doesn’t mean we’re experiencing a bubble.

Pollyanna wishful thinking isn’t going to change the facts. The economy is in serious trouble and has been building up to the current state of affairs for quite some time. The housing market crashing, coupled with the continuously free falling dollar and ludricous trade imbalances with China are a disaster waiting to happen. You think 88 dollars a barrel for oil is bad, you wait until you see 150 and the cost of your everyday necessities doubles or triples as a result.

Forget about websites. You”ll be wondering where your next meal comes from as they continue to elminiate corn crops for livestock feed and food use and turn to ethanol in the vain hope they can continue infinite growth and infinite expansion on limited resources.

Enjoy your iPods and iPhones now before you need to hock them to buy your next meal.