It means that the next recession will gobble a lot of people up into a free fall who managed to avoid that in the last one. Most barely now hanging on while continuing to borrow that which they really can't cover. You really need to watch the show. It's a short time during the first segment that an economist and Rick cover.

But yes, of course, we will pay, not the elite, they will benefit as always.

@William_Mary So the government will bail them out again and you seem to be implying many will starve or be forced to crime or go to debtors prison.

@rogerbenham does America still have debtor's prisons? How come Trump isn't in one?

@FrayedBear Negative interest rates are already being charged on deposits over 500,000 Euro. If they were to happen here we'd all withdraw money from savings accounts and banks would pay interest to mortgage borrowers. The banks would rapidly stop lend money.
This in turn could lead to an enormous fiscal correction. By my reckoning the Dow Industrial should be around 4000 and a huge amount of money invested in the past 30 years has been above that so millions are going to lose their shirts. Too bad, eh?

@rogerbenham I doubt there would ever be a debtors prison again. There isn't one now, but it's unrealistic to think they would start it up again. The population is much too large and most of it has debt. How do you run a debtors prison at much more than 100% capacity for possibly hundreds of millions or billions of people? Where does the money, space, and manpower come from?

@Piece2YourPuzzle Well you call it by another name. What is the figure? Is it 25% of the the people in prison in the world are in the USA. You put people in prison for such minor offences. I have heard that you are even building concentration camps. Why?
Would banks stop giving credit? Yes if negative interest arrived. How is the world to handle the USA debts? Surely the value of the dollar must be going down as the debt increases?

@Piece2YourPuzzle @rogerbenham exactly why Russia, China & a few others want to get away from $US strangulation

@rogerbenham I learnt 50 years ago that the stock markets are merely huge legalised casinos corruptly manipulating share prices.

@Piece2YourPuzzle, @rogerbenham on - ve rates: for the banks as 9/10 of what they lend is invented money it does not matter what the rate is. As someone stated " if you have a gold bar stolen from you do you get upset about it? Yes if you dug the gold out with your own hands. No if you stole it from someone else and were never caught nor had to do time for it!"

@FrayedBear I seem to recall that Iraq's greatest crime was wanting to trade oil in dinars.

@FrayedBear Well not exactly. They are a place to put your money. The Casino aspect is that you presume that you will get a better return than buying bonds.

@FrayedBear Yes it is invented money created by the big banks and loaned to the government with interest charged. Pretty weird but they have been doing it since december 24th 1915 I believe. The governments never cared because they were not paying the interest.

@rogerbenham Because of liquidity rates required by law being less than actual debt for every dollar deposited a bank can create nine dollars to lend. Goverments & politicians seemingly think that they can print money without asset backing and the world has cottoned on with demand for -ve interest.

@rogerbenham On stock market gambling - whilst long term profit is hoped for most investors lust for Poseidon style profit. [en.m.wikipedia.org]
Usually they are created not by reality but by human greed and ignorance driving prices up.

@rogerbenham Aren't you thinking of Gadaffi's Libya not Iran? And look what happened after the septics manipulated his overthrow.
[en.m.wikipedia.org]

@FrayedBear Poseidin + The South Sea Bubble

@FrayedBear Gadaffi wouldn't play the game the way the USA wanted. No Iraq not Iran. WMD's were "discovered" to prevent Iraq oil being sold in dinars. Saddam was inconvenient and had to go. The USA would never tolerate a country behaving like the USA.

@rogerbenham they taught him

@Piece2YourPuzzle actually I'm seeing on about a weekly basis of people being arrested and jailed for bills they can't pay. If what little I'm seeing, what aren't we seeing?

@William_Mary It is just that the prison to which they go is not exclusively for debtors.

@rogerbenham Yes, the U.S. jails non-violent drug "offenders" at an alarming rate, and most of them are minorities. It's a deep issue rooted in the system that is telling of our economic disadvantages for minorities and even just poor people whether they are white or not. It's obviously also rooted in racism. I still think it would be pretty impossible to bring back debtors prison unless there are stipulations where only a portion of debt offenders were jailed. There would just be too much pressure on the prison system to sustain jailing everyone in debt. Maybe people would have to work off their debt? I'm sure it wouldn't be an accurate system though. As far as the world economy, we live in a fiat system and debt will always go up no matter what. It's the nature of the system. The U.S. is just accelerating it. They want to hold on to their power for as long as the system exists. The truth is nobody will benefit from the crashing of this system though. It's like an asteroid. Those within the blast range won't suffer as much as those not in the blast range. Over the years, the effects from the blast are going to make those alive suffer more than the people who died initially.

@rogerbenham, @FrayedBear It's such an obvious issue. Which is why I don't understand why a lot of people are believing all the hype about the U.S. demonizing Russia (Russiagate), Iran, and China. It's all just the economic game.

@Piece2YourPuzzle "The truth is nobody will benefit from the crashing of this system though. It's like an asteroid. Those within the blast range won't suffer as much as those not in the blast range. Over the years, the effects from the blast are going to make those alive suffer more than the people who died initially."
Yes I fully agree with what you say here. When these financial crooks finally push it too far and the Dow reverts to 3000 I fear that all money will become worthless, the governments will forgive the criminals who have not jumped out of high buildings and all the rest of us will be penniless. Gold will be confiscated and banks forced into 1000% inflation, savings into 1000% deflation.

Yes just an economic game. Iran - well they want to have the oil, China - gotta hate a country that is displacing yours and Russia - well people are used to blaming them even if they have no guilt. Gotta have scapegoats.

@William_Mary, @rogerbenham, @Piece2YourPuzzle I suspect that people are technically not being gaoled for the debt but for so called contempt of a court that has orddred that they pay a debt particularly a fine or pafking inffingement type bill. In some places local councils & governments are effectively criminalising non payments of debts owed to them.

@rogerbenham, @Piece2YourPuzzle, @William_Mary - its all flim flam for a goose's bridle of course but not satisfactory for those gaoled and of course in America gaol is a massive industry & part of the GNP in its own right.

@Piece2YourPuzzle, @rogerbenham @William_Mary I just picked up from someone on fbuck the following information about W. Australian law: and for some it is probably the highest rate of pay received in their lives.

@FrayedBear They also can dock up to like 10% of your paycheck for each outstanding debt you have. I had that done to me one time with a previous job.

@FrayedBear Could one ever get out of prison at $250.00 a day?

@rogerbenham The case in point was an aboriginal with $4000 parking & traffic infringements so presumably 16 days would wipe his fines at a further cost to society of $1600 less his welfare cheque to pay for his incarceration. (assuming $100 per day per person prison cost).

@Piece2YourPuzzle I noticed that magistrates here are very csreful to get you to agree that you can afford the payment. I suspect that is how they then subsequently gaol you in that you are committing contempt of court.

@FrayedBear $100 / day prison cost? That suggests a concentration camp with tents as buildings and guards would easily push that cost higher.

@rogerbenham lol. Probably. I used it for illustrative purposes. First year officers earn about $25 /hour but 20% more in WA presumably because they have more deaths in custody and aboriginal inmates - particularly ones not paying fines?

@rogerbenham [payscale.com]