"First residence is not an investment but a liability" .

What makes you think he will not sell it beforehand?

In britain the crown could declare the transaction illegal!

Again, you folks are missing my point.

Going on the assumption that we're about to go off the cliff into a bona-fide Depression on par or exceeding the one in the 1930's, literally tens of millions of Americans will be facing bankruptcy and/or foreclosure. Once enough people call it quits on their debt, there is simply no way out other than declaring a universal debt amnesty (sorry Mr Bill!). Of course, that means the end to all consumer credit, even mortgages, at least such time the US is able to forge a new financial regime along with the rest of the world.

It's either that or we fight a modern version of WWII - draft up all the unemployed youth to fight battles in faraway deserts and put the rest of us left behind to work. But either way, both money and credit is going to be very hard to come by in the days to come...

There's no way they will declare debt amnesty. If you think that they are going to all of the sudden declare you debt free after you go out and live beyond your means you're kidding yourself.

If 10 million people face the prospect of losing their homes, they will simply lose their homes. I'm sure there's lots of wealthy people who would love to buy up all these cheap homes and rent them out to families. You'll see slum lords spring up all over the place renting single family homes to groups of people just so they can keep warm.

When martial law is declared, unless you have an organized party, there's no way you're going to stop them from putting you in a camp. If you pull your gun out and kill a collector, you'll never see the light of day again.

Quote:
there is simply no way out other than declaring a universal debt amnesty

You're day dreaming.

A universal debt amnesty would bring the value of the dollar to absolute zero...it would bring all paper currencies to a value of zero...your 7 million dollars in cash wouldn't by you a can of spam...then what?

Why would you go to work? They can't pay you in chickens. Why would the doctors or firefighters go to work? They wouldn't. Why would truckers drive canned goods to the grocery store? They wouldn't.
In that situation...do you think the lowly farmer is going to give away the 21 tons of grain in his silos? Out of the goodness of his heart?

Debt Amnesty, whatever! So everyone gets the house they are living in FREE,,, NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Like chakra said, there are plenty of wealthy folks out there that don't give a damb about you, but will gladly buy your house from under you and recieve rent from you.

I think I will keep paying my house off as fast as I can.

Byron I think you underestimate, just how much money some people have, And how those same people don't give a rats A$$ about evicting anyone who is not paying

All of that economic disaster is precisely why off-shore money will be compelled to invest onshore. There will be no stopping it. The Chinese and the UAE are going to own a lot of what Americans can't.

Wasn't this partially the point of the Iraq/Afghanistan/Iran Sabre Rattling/911? Even Bush declared he was a "war president" and intended to keep the war machine moving.

This of course is crazy. If it got to this point, no one would loan money to anybody. Holders of capital would (correctly) fear that every time things got tough, the goverment would declare another amnesty, and they would end up holding the bag.

If you don't compensate people for their risk, they won't lend money.

News Flash! Nobody is lending any money ANYHOW. What's the difference? In this case, every time things get tough, the Goobermint prints more money, which just ends up devaluing the debt anyhow.

I also dispute the idea that there are Deep Pockets out there lurking in the shadows to buy everybody's McMansions and rent them back to them. Just like there are no Deep Pockets out there who will buy General Motors for Pennies on the Dollar. Its a WORTHLESS investment, you'll never get even your pennies back.

Anyhow, on the Debt Forgiveness thing, does this also go for some guy who bought Oil Futures on borrowed money? He gets to keep the Oil?

Face it folks, the monetary system is FUBAR. You could go round on this one until the next Big Bang, you won't resolve it. NOT without a period of massive anarchy anyhow. Just how long it takes to get to that point though remains an open question.

Reverse Engineer

If you got to a point of universal default (say more than 70-80% of those indebted defaulting within a time span of few years), I think there is little what government could do to preserve anything resembling status quo.
After all government officials, police, military and their families would be in default too.

Attempt to do whatever to coerce payments would result in immediate civil war with armed units rebelling etc, what would convert US into new Somalia.

So it is obvious that such situation would lead to to universal debt amnesty.
So credit system would cease to exist, money lending would die out altogether for few decades or a century and all businesses relying on credit would cease to exist.

However those who are hoping for such outcome are trading on hot iron.
What if only 30 or even 50% defaulted, but others would struggle and pay their debts with some heroic efforts?
Meantime those who defaulted would be demonized by state propaganda as causes of all the evil.
They could end up enslaved and no one would give a slightest damn about their fate.
Prevailing view would be that they deserve such fate and good for them.

This would be the situation you got.

So you can kiss off your dreams of enslaving young females with your marvelous ability to barter cigarettes.

You'll be lucky to keep your head.

Reverse Engineer

This remains to be seen.

I have no interest in that.
Young females are rather liability, not asset, in societal crash environment.

So they are actively seeking to stuff their ass into some sort of "safe haven" as per their perception and they are doing everything to get there.
No one need to enslave them.


Too dramatic and useless to comment upon further.

Not based on some of your prior posting. You meniton quite often how easy it is to get sexual conquest as a successful and relatively rich student when those who surround you are mired in poverty. You mention in this thread that people won't really care if the indebted are bought and sold as slaves. Put 2 and 2 together here, you apparently think its quite acceptable that people are sold into slavery because they are in debt. Sexual slavery would be one such outcome.

Reverse Engineer

This does not mean that they were any sort of slaves.

They were simply doing whatever they considered beneficial for themselves.

I have no sympathy to those stupid enough to take so much debt that they are done for good.

Like I have already said, if default levels will not exceed 30-50%, then situation will be contained and some sort of orderly retreat to less complex society may become possible with some draconian measures enforced.

And whats wrong with young women offering to serve someone nicely in exchange for covering their debt obligations?
Especially if a consequence of default could mean forced work in uranium mine?
I bet, you would prefer former over later, if you are a young woman...