US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive

dopester

nearlynew wrote: »

All the p1sstakers on this thread, in their ignorance have failed to grasp a simple fact.............

INFLATION IS THEFT

It's like being pickpocketed and never noticing.............

ever

There have been reasons to tolerate that inflation, by creditors and those in money.

Here is some explanation for the incredible period of inflation since WWII... and with it... a glimpse in to a deflationary future. Even if Afghanistan and Iraq kept the inflation party going... the debts in the system have been taken to unmanageable extremes.

Rising debt levels create economic feedback that forces a deflationary reaction. Debt cannot indefinitely compound faster than income.

The Cold War Was War in Economic Term

The current inflation is the one episode in five centuries that has seemed different. It was launched at the time of the Second World War and has not come down yet. Why? Continued high military spending may explain the puzzle. After previous wars, military spending returned to trivial levels when the fighting stopped. This time, it subsided briefly, only to surge again. It was still 10 percent of GNP in 1960 - a level previously unprecedented except in war.

In economic terms, the period since 1940 has been the equivalent of constant war. Over a half-century of unprecedented military outlays for weapons of destructive might.

The Bomb and Inflation

In the early years after World War II, the United States became the predominant power in a new world order, taking over the role previously performed by Great Britain.

Technological change required "front-loading" of military effort. The technological shift of advantage from the offence to the defence dramatically raised the costs of conventional weapons. Thus it was relatively more costly for the United States to maintain a military power advantage equivalent to that enjoyed by Great Britain.

The advent of nuclear weaponry appears to have had a more decisive impact. The bomb made monetary and fiscal rectitude a smaller factor in the preservation of state power than it had been in the past. Part of the impact of nuclear weapons has been to shorten the expected duration of any new great war.

In the past, a strong credit rating and low bond yields were among the more important factors in securing victory in protracted conflicts. Strategic missiles and hydrogen bombs implied that there would be no protracted wars among the great powers, They therefore seemed to necessitate a strategy of deterrence - spending a lot of money immediately - in order to deter attack. Even if high military spending were known to be ruinous in the long run, it seemed preferable to running greater risk of near-term annihilation.

U.S. Wealth Cushions Costs

World War II was one of history's rare profitable wars for its chief victor, the United States. The fighting was almost entirely on foreign soil. It resulted in massive liquidation of the plant and capital of most of America's competitors. As a result, U.S. financial resources after the war were overwhelming enough to sustain an otherwise crushing burden of military spending without serious trouble for decades.

Communism Increased Tolerance of U.S. Inflation

When monetary and fiscal trouble began to surface around the time of Vietnam, the United States had help in exporting inflation to its allies because of the menacing character of Soviet ideology. The hostile attitude of Communist leaders towards capital assured that foreign investors would not peel away from the United States and side with Russia as U.S. bond yields rose.

American allies, especially Germany and Japan, were willing to coordinate central bank policies and use of other devices to finance U.S. budget deficits and import American inflation as preferable alternatives to actually assuming the costs of defending themselves. Japanese insurance companies, for example, could be persuaded to buy American bonds. They were then compensated through roundabout mechanisms for their capital losses. The allies knew that an American credit crisis would necessitate budgetary contraction and, more likely, a reduction in American defence subsidies. Prior to the death of the Soviet Union, the menacing character of Communism was a powerful inducement to cooperate in extending the inflationary Cold War status quo.

Taken together, these factors and others allowed the United States to continue spending for several decades at levels that would have been more rapidly ruinous in the past. Eventually, however, the burdens of military spending did become ruinous. Among the results has been the most extreme and persistent inflation in modern history.

As military spending is cut in real as well as relative terms, U.S. industrial competitiveness will increase, and so will output. The sudden dampening of conflict and trends to lower military spending are deflationary. Prices fall when fighting stops and personnel are demobilised.

dopester

penguine wrote: »

Thanks for that link. Those photos are really amazing -- like a city after a nuclear war.

It looks entirely natural to me. Those buildings served their purpose during their own economic eras, some of them having prolonged life by the credit-expansion.

Wherever prosperity exists, it is natural for people to expect prosperity to continue. For this reason, much of the history of human society is a record of astonishment.

Time and again, people have marginalised their affairs, rendering themselves increasingly crisis-prone. They have gone into debt, extending their claims on resources to an extreme that could only be supported only if current conditions were sustained uninterrupted into the future. Time and again these hopes have been disappointed.

Wouldn't surprise me at all to see many areas of the UK with lots of towns having abandoned buildings like that, over the next couple of decades. Now is not the time to be buying in an area heading for decay and limited opportunity.. nor to wait-it-out either if you already own.

There are already many examples to be found on the UK Urban Exploration Forums... with adventurers exploring (and taking many photos) of decaying/abandoned factories, warehouses, cinemas, holiday sites, churches, schools ect ect ect.

Snooze

DKLS wrote: »

Can I volunteer Huddersfield as the first town to be bull dozed?

That place would look good with a mushroom cloud over it.

:huh:

As someone who lives in Huddersfield can you please explain why you have singled out this town out of all the others in the UK ?

Rob

DKLS

Snooze wrote: »

:huh:

As someone who lives in Huddersfield can you please explain why you have singled out this town out of all the others in the UK ?

Rob

You poor thing you have my empathy.

I would put it down to the valley mentality, which is predominant in the in-bred populace that inhabits the colne and holme valleys and the fact the town is under the shadow of mount doom (castle hill)

Snooze

DKLS wrote: »

You poor thing you have my empathy.

I would put it down to the valley mentality, which is predominant in the in-bred populace that inhabits the colne and holme valleys and the fact the town is under the shadow of mount doom (castle hill)

:rolleyes:

ceridwen

O.P. DOES make sense...very good sense. If some buildings/a whole neighbourhood arent being used and cant be converted to other uses...then it does make sense.

Hopefully.....there will be a natural decline in populations soon and then many of our current buildings/neighbourhoods will be "surplus to requirements" and it would make sense to demolish them - to ensure that whats left is nearer to the countryside.