39 replies to this topic

[PWAIN]

The upward trend for house prices appear to have gained most of its momentum in the 70's when the baby boomers were new home owners. The baby boomers are now selling up their houses and moving into smaller places, to later move into retirement villages and graveyards just like their parents are now.

http://reiwa.com/res...aph-display.cfm

The gen X and gen Y ers aren't going to keep artificially pumping up the housing market even if they willing used all their effort to do so. Those that didn't get sucked in by the first home buyers grant and take out loan they otherwise wouldn't have been able and end up in more a magnitude more debt that the buyers grant gave them won't be fooled by the dying baby boomers telling them "how houses are such a good investment".

Caston,
The recent prrice rises in Australia (REIWA being an Australian company) have been due to population changes. If everyone wants to live within 10 Km of the city centre and there is enough land ot accomodate it, then no need for higher prices. When the population grows so significantly that only 5 or 10% of the population can live within 10Km of the city centre, then the value of the property close to the city rises as the competition for the limited resource builds up. Higher density becomes an option to try release some of this price rise but comes at the cost of standard of living. Population increase in Australia is likely to continue for some time either with or without immigration. The baby boomers are largely irrelevent to todays property market. Downsizing isn't happening nearly as much as RE agents would have you believe and most baby boomers are in 2 and 3 bedders unlike the new build 4 and 5 bedders.

Property may fall slightly, even quite a bit if things get really hairy, but short of total collapse of the economic system, i think it should hold up quite well and recover in good time. I am not saying rush into property now but don't rush out either - there is just not enough evidence to support it.

On another topic, most of the money being spent by the US government is being used to cover debt. This means that it does not get into the money supply and so has little effect on inflation. What little is going into the regular economy has little impact in that it simply makes up for money lost due to the downturn. When inflation does start to rise, the US gov will likely soak up cash by paying off more debt.

Finally as for the jumped up PhilOssifur, can you please suspend his account. He has made 17 posts (16 in this thread alone) as of my reply which from start to finish have had an underlying agressive tone. He has made personal attacks and attacked a whole nationality. I don't really know or care why he behaves this way, I just prefer not to read his abusive, self righteous comments about how incredibly stupid we all are. He clearly hasn't stopped after being warned by a Navigator.

[niner]

Good Lord. The suggestion from the G20 to create a "basket of currencies" was mainly a poke at the US telling them to get their act together and be more responsible. Even if we do witness the end of USD hegemony, that is in no way the "end" of the Dollar. The idea that environmentalism is going to bring about the next Dark Ages is so far off the mark as to border on insane. PhilOssifur, you will not get banned for expounding on what some may consider crazy ideas. You will only get banned for being a jerk, and you've been nicer lately so I don't see a big problem there. It would be nice if you would refrain from calling us "immoral" because we don't all add noise to this thread. That's just not the way it works around here.

[PhilOssifur]

WERE POSTS REMOVED FROM THIS THREAD?????

[PhilOssifur]

There are two views on the USDollar. One view is that its destruction won't affect cryonics. The other is that it will destroy cryonics. Should the collar be defended? How?

A sudden devaluation of the dollar will have the effect of shutting down civilizaton-- sending us into a dark age for generations. We're vulnerable. Cryonics would not survive.

http://www.google.co...amp;btnG=Search

http://www.larouchepac.com/node/9861

[niner]

So who deleted all those posts, anyway? It wasn't me. At least one of my posts (containing some quality sarcasm) was deleted, along with PhilOssifur's helpful commentary regarding my own mental state and other issues. Someone shall pay for this abomination!!!

[Matthias]

So who deleted all those posts, anyway?

WERE POSTS REMOVED FROM THIS THREAD?????

Yes, I split the thread into two parts. Cryonics in times of a financial crisis is an important topic, thanks for bringing that up for discussion. But all the troll-style parts of it - along with personal attacks, suspicions, accusations and insults, textual shouting - and the replies to these posts are split off to another thread.

Edited by Matthias, 07 April 2009 - 09:20 AM.

[cryofan]

So who deleted all those posts, anyway?

WERE POSTS REMOVED FROM THIS THREAD?????

Yes, I split the thread into two parts. Cryonics in times of a financial crisis is an important topic, thanks for bringing that up for discussion. But all the troll-style parts of it - along with personal attacks, suspicions, accusations and insults, textual shouting - and the replies to these posts are split off to another thread.

yeah, well, um, in order to keep you from subjecting all of my posts to your censorious content analysis, I think I am just gonna start posting exclusively in the Other Conversations and Free Speech Forums, mmm kay?

Edited by cryofan, 07 April 2009 - 11:04 AM.

[Mixter]

I do think Cryonics must be concerned with this. Even a 5% annual devaluation would mean up to 50% value loss in a decade.

My suggestion would be new terms of service for new cryonics patients and living patients able to agree on a TOS change, which could be something like this:

I hereby agree with C.I. to have (all / xx%) of my preservation fees converted/invested into non-speculative investments in the form of different currencies and/or precious metals and other commodities in the event that this may be deemed necesary to uphold the financial requirements necessary to assure long-term preservation.

With that provision, an institute might chose to currently convert 100% of the new/living members funds into different currencies/gold/commodities as to achieve a certain percentage of $ vs. non-$ assets for long-term preservation needs.

PS: Something just crossing my thoughts, if we assume a bailout of 3 trillion, then if we just take 10% of that we could have cryopreserved 3 million people, assuming costs of up to $100.000/patient, 10 million people with C.I. neuropreservation (probably much more; if some thousand initial cryopreservations are made, technology and cost-efficiency would be expected to skyrocket).

[niner]

I do think Cryonics must be concerned with this. Even a 5% annual devaluation would mean up to 50% value loss in a decade.

My suggestion would be new terms of service for new cryonics patients and living patients able to agree on a TOS change, which could be something like this:

I hereby agree with C.I. to have (all / xx%) of my preservation fees converted/invested into non-speculative investments in the form of different currencies and/or precious metals and other commodities in the event that this may be deemed necesary to uphold the financial requirements necessary to assure long-term preservation.

With that provision, an institute might chose to currently convert 100% of the new/living members funds into different currencies/gold/commodities as to achieve a certain percentage of $ vs. non-$ assets for long-term preservation needs.

What you are looking for is simply professional money management. When you buy an annuity, for example, you get a guaranteed (typically not very high) payout, while the money manager invests the funds and pockets the difference between what he makes and what he has to pay you. There are lots of other ways in which the management can be structured. Guarding against dollar inflation is only one of a number of kinds of risk that one needs to consider.

[Mixter]

What you are looking for is simply professional money management.

That's true. If the existing cryo contract provisions already allow that (and I don't know), it would be great. If not, it really needs to be in there. Also, same as with life- and other insurances: It definitely needs an exclusion of money management strategies involving things like CDSs and CDOs