We are in a Depression. Read on.

[Pentegarn]

I love how he repeatedly throws out the 1.5 quadrillion figure out there when cars cost a fraction of what they cost now in the 70s and the average income was much much lower then. Inflation at work. An intelligent person would instead compare cost of living percentages, quality of life (no bread lines now are there? No masses of drifters moving from city to city looking for work?), and % of unemployment. 1.5 quadrillion world wide is not a big deal when even whopper floppers make 5 figures annually. In America alone there are roughly 200 million workers nationwide

So lets say for the sake of this illustration they all make 20000 per year

200,000,000 * 20,000 = 4,000,000,000,000

That's 4 trillion, by itself, before you take into account any variables like uber rich, business owners, and the like. One country, just one. We aren't even the top overall country when it comes to earnings. We are around 9th last I heard...

Multiply in all the other places that pull down that earning power (Japan, UK, France, Netherlands, Australia, etc) And that 1.5 quadrillion number is put into perspective

There's your numbers, but any high school level economics student could have told you that

[TheCoolinator]

Originally Posted by Pentegarn

I love how he repeatedly throws out the 1.5 quadrillion figure out there

That's a quadrillion dollars worth of global derivative debt. "Troubled assets"

Originally Posted by Pentegarn

An intelligent person would instead compare cost of living percentages, quality of life (no bread lines now are there? No masses of drifters moving from city to city looking for work?), and % of unemployment.

US living standards have been cut by 2/3 since 1960 and more austerity measures are coming (Death Panels), Don't need bread lines anymore if food stamps come on credit cards, drifters are in the form of tent cities (google it), we have an unofficially number of 25-30% unemployment...depression levels...

Originally Posted by Pentegarn

1.5 quadrillion world wide is not a big deal
......
And that 1.5 quadrillion number is put into perspective

Gotcha!

1.5 quadrillion dollars worth of speculative derivative financial instruments is many, many, many times larger then the worlds GDP.

That's the entire globes...GDP. Are things coming into focus now?

Originally Posted by Pentegarn

That's 4 trillion, by itself,

We've spend much more then 4 trillion on the bailouts.....and we are keeping that spigot running. Bleeding us dry.

Won't know what hit ya when it comes but I'm sure you'll rationalize it like everything else.

[The Leader]

Originally Posted by TheCoolinator

Won't know what hit ya when it comes but I'm sure you'll rationalize it like everything else.

Are you jealous that he is capable of such things?

[TheCoolinator]

Originally Posted by The Leader

Are you jealous that he is capable of such things?

Jealous isn't the word. More like Pity.

[Colonel Flagg]

Originally Posted by TheCoolinator

[...] drifters are in the form of tent cities (google it) [...]

Sad to say that I took the bait and "googled it" - and here's what I found:

Tent cities are a growing phenomenon around the country, mostly located in the inner cities of Detroit, Philadelphia, Camden, New York, etc. where there is a large homeless population. They are considered "holding patterns" for the many thousands of people who for one reason or another are out on the street without durable shelter.

But here's the thing - homeless people have been around for as long as we've had a society. Sometimes they stay in shelters, sometimes they stay in bus terminals sometimes on steam vents .... and sometimes in makeshift tents.

Saying that the derivative financial crisis caused tent cities is like saying that the present day greenhouse emissions caused the Medieval Warming Period. They are perhaps distantly related, but in no way does one have anything to do with causing the other.

There you have it. In order to disprove Coolie, just follow his instructions and "google it".

Next.

[TheCoolinator]

Originally Posted by Colonel Flagg

Tent cities are a growing phenomenon around the country, mostly located in the inner cities of Detroit, Philadelphia, Camden, New York, etc. where there is a large homeless population. They are considered "holding patterns" for the many thousands of people who for one reason or another are out on the street without durable shelter.

But here's the thing - homeless people have been around for as long as we've had a society. Sometimes they stay in shelters, sometimes they stay in bus terminals sometimes on steam vents .... and sometimes in makeshift tents.

Quoted.

This is just a small example of the amount of mental gymnastics which have taken place here. Denial isn't a strong enough word to describe what's going on in this thread.