[werkeeque]

one thing that never seems to get mentioned in discussions of the potential collapse of the world economy is inertia. the first i can remember hearing this was in the interview of pete peterson on project camelot that just came out. he commented that it was a mystery to insiders why the economy didn't collapse in 2001, and why it is not collapsing now. he said the general thinking is that the economy is so big that its inertia has kept it going through stresses that should have brought it down.

as i heard his comments on that, it came to me that the collapse actually is happening, and has been for quite some time. the reason it is not obvious is because it is happening in very slow motion. whatever evidence we see of recovery in the economy right now is simply the fluctuation, or perhaps the spasms, of the system under catastrophic stress. the system is so huge that we cannot see the collapse from our vantage point within it.

in fact, i suspect that collapse might have been going down hard since 2001, even though there was an apparent boom period since then. think of the way a slab of ice falls off a glacier into the arctic sea. because of it's size, it looks very slow, and at first appears to be barely moving at all, even though it has broken away and has nothing to support it.

the market fluctuations are deceptive and superficial. with all the trillions and trillions of dollars that have been created out of thin air, and that exist only in the virtual world, we may well be beyond the point of no return on a crash that is running long, slow, and very very heavy.