Maxed Out Documentary

[Ponzi]

The film Maxed Out, which deals with a growing crisis of record debt; foreclosures and insolvency in America is creating quite a stir.

But while the Americans are heavily indebted, the most indebted consumers in the world are in fact the Irish.



<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6borpDebEHc"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6borpDebEHc" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

[Edo]

Ponzi - you must have read my mind! - in a way

Does Debt matter anymore?

I've been ruminating over this issue the whole morning - (inventory counting - great conditions for ruminating!)

It would appear that the economies that are posting the greatest growth in GDP - growing economic activity etc etc - are the ones that are charging into Debt on a personal level - as consumer activity as opposed to industrial activity appear to be the drivers behind the US, British and Irish economies - not withstanding some promising export figures in the latter 2 for the first 6 months of this year.

Im not saying that this is wrong or right or good or bad. Yesterday I listened to an excellent discussion on the BBC about the German economy and they were commenting that while the German export industry , in particular the Mittelstaff ( SMES to us) is still the world standard - their unemployment rate is steadily going down ( approx 6.4% at the mo - not as low as ours -4.2-3% but not the 11-12% of only 2-3 years ago), the German consumer is still reluctant to splash out - one German commentator mentioned that this thriftiness is ingrained in German society in light of the traumas of the 20th century and can't see it changing radically in the short to medium term future - in essence the Germans dont spend what they don't have - they'll invest heavily but they are not great consumers - so german economic growth is intrinsically linked to industrial and export production.

Contrast that with the Anglocentric ( with due respect to the more republican elements of the site - but we are part of it) economies where our economies have been driven on the expansion of credit and credit industries where the collective private debts of our countries have reached such dizzying heights as to be incomprehensible to the average punter.

But does it matter anymore?

Despite all the excitement over the "credit crisis" recently - the effect on the average citizen of this country , both psycologically and monetarially ( unless you happen to be an account holder in Northern Rock , or hold shares in the banking sector) has been remote.

I earn above the average industrial salary level - I use my credit card like a charge card - pay it off every month , am currently completely debt free - finished paying off a 6 month loan for my car 2 months ago. I rent here in Ireland - the one house that I own - abroad - was bought with 50% cash ( I have the bank records and salary slips!) and a 10 year mortgage which was paid off 2 years ago - I hate debt - if I have to go into it - it will be for the smallest amount over the shortest time possible - I prefer to purchase out of savings - apart from techiques and gizmos to improve my golf swing Im pretty much impervious to advertising and my idea of hell is to be stuck for a day in Shopping mall/centre.

In short - Im a consumer societies worst nightmare - I look at several friends and colleagues who earn the same or even less than me , yet if you compared us on the amount of material possessions and lifestyle - you would assume I was a refugee from 1960's USSR - The credit options available to fund the lifestyle of your choice is astounding - as long as you can meet the min repayments - no worries - and good luck to them - welcome to the repayment society

Im wondering am I being unpatriotic and endangering employment by not fully utilising the credit options available to me - not really a fully paid up member of the consumer society and ultimately endangering my own employment? - or should I just move to Germany.

Sorry for the meandering , not fully formed thesis - but it is something that intrigues me - does debt matter any more in a full on credit society? - or were people thinking like this in 1928 aswell?

Im not passing judgement , saying it is right or wrong, more a philosophical question - what do others here think about it?

any rebuttals, arguments, insults or ideas of your own welcome

[ivnryn]

Im wondering am I being unpatriotic and endangering employment by not fully utilising the credit options available to me - not really a fully paid up member of the consumer society and ultimately endangering my own employment? - or should I just move to Germany.

You are still working just as hard. Leaving money in the bank means that there are more goods for everyone else.

Working puts stuff into the pool of goods created and spending means taking your fair share. Skipping the 2nd step just means that everyone else gets a larger share. You are pushing down interest rates making it easier for everyone else to get loans to get what they want.

Scrooge was actually a good guy, contributing to his society as he didn't spend his money.

The market doesn't care what you do, it is just sudden/enexpected changes in consumer demand means that money is badly invested. This means that the max gain from the capital is not achieved.

[irishpeoplearewhingers]

certainly worth a viewing....i wonder when it will arrive in Ireland.....

[Ponzi]

Edo.

The situation where we have a 'financialisation' of the economy/(society), where productivity falls, manufacturing declines and speculation and debt grow, is not (unsurprisingly) a new thing. The Anglo-sphere is dominated by The United States and many commentators believe that the current financialisation episode mirror's similar historic events.

Kevin Phillips’s Book American Theocracy describes the current situation in the US economy as 'substituting the movement of representations of cash for the manufacturing of goods'. He offers some historic precedents, including those of the Spanish and British Empires, along with some choice quotes.

A seventeenth-century Spaniard enthused: “Let London manufacture those fine fabrics, … Holland her chambrays; Florence her cloth; the Indies their beaver and vicuna; Milan her broaches; India and Flanders their linens … so long as our capital can enjoy them. The only thing it proves is that all nations train journeymen for Madrid and that Madrid is the queen of parliaments, for all the world serves her, and she serves nobody.”

Here’s a British version of the sentiment.

The plains of North America and Russia are our cornfields; Chicago and Odessa are our granaries; Canada and the Baltic are our timber forests, Australia contains our sheep farms, and in Argentina and on the western prairies of North America are our herds of oxen; Peru sends her silver, and the gold of South Africa and Australia flows to London; the Hindus and the Chinese grow tea for us, and our coffee, sugar and spice plantations are all in the Indies, Spain and France are our vineyards, and the Mediterranean our fruit garden.

The Americans and British run growing deficits both fiscal and trade, they have lost their former manufacturing supremacy. Their economy's and currencies are particularly exposed to a contraction in the supply of cheap money, cheap oil and cheap imports.

There seems to be a growing awareness that this trend is harmful.

Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson published a book this year called Fantasy Island which examines the state of the UK.

In 1996, David Puttnam took up the theme, writing that Britain was no longer the "island of coal surrounded by fish" that Nye Bevan had talked of. More questionable, however, was the second part of Lord Puttnam's analysis - that Britain was now "an island of creativity surrounded by a sea of understanding".

Still, the fantasy lives on that even if Britain eventually outsources all its manufacturing to cheaper countries abroad it will still be able to do the tough and lucrative bits - the design for new products - at home. In the days of Cool Britannia back in the late 90s, Blair called the UK the "design workshop of the world", while three years later, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport noted that "Britain is a top exporter of design worldwide and many design consultancies earn a significant portion of income from work outside Britain".

Not, however, as much as they did. Overseas earnings from design fell from £1.4bn in 2001/2 to £699m in 2004/5, while the number of people employed in the design workshop of the world fell from 82,000 in 2000/1 to 71,000 four years later.

One way of looking at the British economy of today is to say that there are clusters of excellence around science, finance and the arts. Another way of looking at the economy is to say that the pharmaceutical industry will eventually migrate to the United States, where the money is; that big finance would come a cropper in the event of a bursting of the debt-driven speculative bubble; and that Bull************************ Britain reaches its apotheosis in the lionisation of the cultural industries.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts...082838,00.html


So in essence the problem in the Anglo-sphere is laziness, arrogance and myopia which in economic terms results in indebtedness, deficits and industrial decline. Not the model we should imitate in the long term.



irishpeoplearewhingers.
I think Maxed Out is available on DVD