Chickennights

Punk rock and ballet.

No, not the big hairy guys, the economists who are pessimistic on the economic future in one way or another.  Since the world seems to have avoided an economic catastrophe and things are starting to shape up again, I thought it would be a good time to check in on what some of the bears are now saying, now that we dodged the bullet.  Are they changing their tune?  Well, yes many of them have changed their tune.

Ok, but what about some of the guys who still are bears?  I checked a little on the internet to see, confining it to a few well known guys.

Roubini (Dr. Doom) is no longer really technically a bear, however he sees a 25% chance of a double dip recession.  Also he sees risks for the dollar:

http://video.forbes.com/fvn/business/roubini-is-the-dollar-safe

Next we have Jim Rogers.  He’s pretty pessimistic about America and the dollar.  He says the dollar will fall soon and that commodities are still a good investment.  He likes Asia.  Here’s a few recent comments of his:

http://jimrogers-investments.blogspot.com/

Then there’s Marc Faber.  He’s the most pessimistic of all.  He predicted the market crash and the recent 6 month run that just occurred.  He sees a couple years of good growth for the stock market, followed in five years or so by huge inflation and the total collapse of the dollar and the American standard of living causing the majority of the population to fall into abject poverty, because “nothing has been solved”.  He says to get into equities, because the dollar will continue to gradually lose its value.  According to him, the current decline of the dollar is for one reason: it is a symptom of inflation.  It is inflation that is already occurring now, but if you buy equities, you avoid the downward trajectory of the value of money during this inflationary period:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/162845-faber-doom-gloom-or-boom-how-about-all-three?source=article_lb_author

These guys are all pretty smart, but in the minority among economists.  Well, obviously – I mean to claim the total collapse of the world economy gets us into kooky Mad Max territory.  I sure hope they are wrong.  But just in case, I am going to stock up on guns and ammo and build me an underground hideout in the backyard.  Sweet dreams.

From the article: “Although it has been strangely ignored in the Western press, one of the most destructive wars in modern history has been going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s third-largest country. During the past eleven years millions of people have died, while armies from as many as nine different African countries fought with Congolese government forces and various rebel groups for control of land and natural resources.”

For more see here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23054

I know, you just don’t care.  Or rather you “care”, but what good would reading the article do for anyone?  And, yes, it is hard to relate to something happening far away in a place and culture that have absolutely no relevance nor any interaction with what happens in your own life.

I mean, honestly, what am I going to do about it, now that you mention it?

Uh, nothing at this moment, but I can start by telling all of you.  (Is there anyone listening?  No, I thought not.)

I will just also say that it is sad that nobody even bothers to know that this is happening.  I fault the media, and I fault those who would not buy the magazines if they replaced the sexy bikini girl on the cover with someone’s skull splayed open in some killing field in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ok fine, I’ll take some blame too, happy?

Three things.

1.  Here is a photo series about a guy walking down the street with some groceries:

http://thiswebsiterules.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?106.last

2.  Here is a down-syndrome last supper created by some “artist”.  I am not sure what to think about it:

http://www.jamesmaybe.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Raoef_Mamedov-The_Last_Supper_Down_Syndrome_Full_Large.jpg

3.  Finally, I surfed on over to some K-POP websites.  As a foreigner, I find it kind of weird.  I don’t much care for American pop music, and Korean pop music seems just as terrible, but it is more interesting, to me at least, today.  Here is a vid of G-Dragon:

Can a chicken also be a phoenix: reborn as something new?  I got sick of this website in its old incarnation, it was a writing exercise which I was experimenting with for a while but then it bored me.

So I deleted all the old posts to create a tabula rasa for something probably equally bad to follow, but at least it will be bad in a different way.

BTW, in writing this post, I have discovered that actually the Phoenix IS a kind of chicken, bred in Japan for a thousand years according to the internets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(chicken)

And here is a picture of this noble fowl:

But here is what the Phoenix looks like when it is in the oven at KFC:

Now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ ’bout!

From now on my new motto is:

“Don’t be a chicken, be a Phoenix! (which is a kind of chicken)”.