It's one thing to read tin-foil hat blog posts about the impending collapse of the global economy. It's another to watch the same message from James G. Rickards, a (seemingly) intelligent and credible source.
I liked Rickard's approach of using dynamic systems theory to analyze global markets and economies. The technique changes the conversation from a philosophical one (i.e. Keynesian vs. Monetarists vs. Austrian) to a scientific, empirical one.
To summarize, Rickards says we're screwed. Decades of deficit spending and the bailout have led to the accumulation of an unsustainable amount of debt - no combination of growth and taxes that can satisfy the liability. Rickard's makes the point that this debt can't magically disappear, it has to be flushed from the system either through default, inflating currency, or debtors and creditors going to war. This sounds sensational until Rickards explains how this happened multiple times in the 20th century alone.
Scary stuff but worth watching. Wishful thinking isn't going to fix the current economic situation. I much prefer a data based approach to understanding and solving the problem. I hope Rickard's is wrong but, if not, I hope someone is listening.
