Are you confident that the future still looks bright?

Might not be true but possibilities or chances cannot be avoided....but in second thought which has not yet happened cannot be true.....well the fact is that Human mind if don't get WAR or war type of situation will became mad....thats the reason the time of war no suicide and madness happens to it....so on other angle you can ask are we so desperate to commit suicide or become mad....if yes then war is must needed if not then it can be postponed........might be foolish thought but in deeper if oneself can look inside within him/her will found this fact....because we are those people who fight for peace.......

Regards,
Anil

El_Jost wrote:

A lot of news commentators are telling us that the world is heading for a big bust up soon - the economy, the money we use, and even political and social breakdown, maybe with wars being fought.
At least the alternative media is telling us this. The mainstream media generally try to paper over the truth to try and keep things going while the actual problems are not discussed.
The only thing that still seems to be running well these days is the military forces of the world's countries.

What say you good Expat Cafe members?

Hello Jost,

1). Masses must be controlled by fear.

2). There are many good news out there.  Why follow only the bad ones?   

aryavrat wrote:

Might not be true but possibilities or chances cannot be avoided....but in second thought which has not yet happened cannot be true.....well the fact is that Human mind if don't get WAR or war type of situation will became mad....thats the reason the time of war no suicide and madness happens to it....so on other angle you can ask are we so desperate to commit suicide or become mad....if yes then war is must needed if not then it can be postponed........might be foolish thought but in deeper if oneself can look inside within him/her will found this fact....because we are those people who fight for peace.......

Regards,
Anil

An interesting, if unexpected answer...
Seldom in this day and age will one see someone saying something even remotely positive about war. In the West all young people have been conditioned in their schooling to ONLY make negative comments on the subject.
Your answer reminds me in a way of the book I read some years ago by Julius Evola entitled “Metaphysics of War – Battle, Victory & Death in the World of Tradition”. I should still have it somewhere in my shelves.
For those who don't know Evola his books were written in the 1930s to 1950s in Italian so I was reading the English translation.
Being Italian he is mostly is talking about what he thinks made the Roman Empire tick but he also deals with the Islamic fighter and explains well the significance of the warrior willingly dying in battle as well as Japanese kamikaze pilots.
In his book he describes the world of "heroism", i.e. the qualities of the “warrior” and the justification for war providing a deeper meaning of life.

John C. wrote:

Hello Jost,

1). Masses must be controlled by fear.

2). There are many good news out there.  Why follow only the bad ones?   

Why talk about bad news you ask.
I'm surprised that you of all people, who in earlier years left your native country which was still practicing Communism, should ask that question.
If the world is becoming more crisis ridden as I think, then there will be more motivation than ever for people, who are still 'captives' of their own countries to make plans and escape to be an expatriate in their new chosen land.
In such discussion maybe those among the forum who have experience could talk about concepts and tactics for either formulating ways and means of getting out or staying at home and surviving in an environment that becomes more hostile.
Listening to 'good' news only is tantamount to standing around in a circle holding hands and singing hymns or hugging trees. 

Hi All,

Well I don't put a lot of faith in the gloom and doom predictions of newspaper and magazine journalists, they're just writing some sensationalized BS that is going to sell and guarantee their jobs. The US seems to have survived their worst financial crisis since the 2008 sub-prime fiasco. Europe hasn't self destructed due to the credit crisis and despite all the sword rattling (mostly by the Americans) over the Crimea I don't think we're ever going to see WWIII.

I'm sure that if we (so-called human beings) creatures that inhabit this planet somehow, by some fortunate twist of fate don't manage to destroy it with our own hands the future will be much better than it is right now. However, that eventuality will take a lot of hard work and depend on LEARNING how to live in harmony with the planet and with one another too.

We're going to have to learn to stop destroying this planet with our greed for natural resourses and our slovenliness with throwing our trash everywhere, pollution, etc. We're also going to have to learn to start living in harmony with one another and stop senslessly killing each other off in the name of one unseen God or another, who we all seem to give different names, preach to all who will listen is a God of love. peace and forgiveness, then we all go about doing exactly what we say this God opposes most.... killing! The stupidest logic I've ever seen!

I'm really much more concerned about the possiblities that the latter is going to be mankind's ultimate demise and not some major global financial collapse. The latter, unfortunately, is far too predictable, the former pure speculation.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

El_Jost wrote:

aryavrat wrote:

Might not be true but possibilities or chances cannot be avoided....but in second thought which has not yet happened cannot be true.....well the fact is that Human mind if don't get WAR or war type of situation will became mad....thats the reason the time of war no suicide and madness happens to it....so on other angle you can ask are we so desperate to commit suicide or become mad....if yes then war is must needed if not then it can be postponed........might be foolish thought but in deeper if oneself can look inside within him/her will found this fact....because we are those people who fight for peace.......

Regards,
Anil

An interesting, if unexpected answer...
Seldom in this day and age will one see someone saying something even remotely positive about war. In the West all young people have been conditioned in their schooling to ONLY make negative comments on the subject.
Your answer reminds me in a way of the book I read some years ago by Julius Evola entitled “Metaphysics of War – Battle, Victory & Death in the World of Tradition”. I should still have it somewhere in my shelves.
For those who don't know Evola his books were written in the 1930s to 1950s in Italian so I was reading the English translation.
Being Italian he is mostly is talking about what he thinks made the Roman Empire tick but he also deals with the Islamic fighter and explains well the significance of the warrior willingly dying in battle as well as Japanese kamikaze pilots.
In his book he describes the world of "heroism", i.e. the qualities of the “warrior” and the justification for war providing a deeper meaning of life.

Even i too listen it through someone telling the story of World War I and II...describing of books and research done by the psychologist just after the wars....and research says these facts.........

wjwoodward wrote:

Hi All,

Well I don't put a lot of faith in the gloom and doom predictions of newspaper and magazine journalists, they're just writing some sensationalized BS that is going to sell and guarantee their jobs. The US seems to have survived their worst financial crisis since the 2008 sub-prime fiasco. Europe hasn't self destructed due to the credit crisis and despite all the sword rattling (mostly by the Americans) over the Crimea I don't think we're ever going to see WWIII.

I'm sure that if we (so-called human beings) creatures that inhabit this planet somehow, by some fortunate twist of fate don't manage to destroy it with our own hands the future will be much better than it is right now. However, that eventuality will take a lot of hard work and depend on LEARNING how to live in harmony with the planet and with one another too.

We're going to have to learn to stop destroying this planet with our greed for natural resourses and our slovenliness with throwing our trash everywhere, pollution, etc. We're also going to have to learn to start living in harmony with one another and stop senslessly killing each other off in the name of one unseen God or another, who we all seem to give different names, preach to all who will listen is a God of love. peace and forgiveness, then we all go about doing exactly what we say this God opposes most.... killing! The stupidest logic I've ever seen!

I'm really much more concerned about the possiblities that the latter is going to be mankind's ultimate demise and not some major global financial collapse. The latter, unfortunately, is far too predictable, the former pure speculation.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

If there is a GOD and this earth is his creation and also the human being too his creation then its His job to save or destroy ...we can only plan and act and the destruction we have planned by developing Nuclear Energy and best of it is only VETO have the rights to have it others has to destroy...so thier being superior will make others to became inferior and thats the reason this type of situation arises...We talk much about Humanity but what we cant create, do we have the rights to destroy it...if No then the world must think on it....destruction of Iraq,Afganistan,Libiya and now Siriya....it shows that people love War....But as you said i believe in that it will not happened,  Peace Harmony and Love will be maintained  ......Mankind will survive....

Regards,
Anil

The future belongs to a few bright men: the originals.
The is no or little future for the many, many imitators. 

Apparently the Japanese have a better idea of what is coming down the pike.
It was reported yesterday that people in Tokyo were queuing for up to 3 hours to buy gold bars. On Thursday in Basel I queued for exactly 0 (zero) seconds at UBS to buy 100g. I was the only person far and wide.

John C. wrote:

The future belongs to a few bright men: the originals.
The is no or little future for the many, many imitators. 

To re-phrase:
The future belongs to people the size of Bill GATES.
Those folks who play with Blackberries and iPads are in fact losing their last chance to make the future come to them.
If they lost the past and are fast losing the present, how will they be inspired in the future? 

Santa Claus goes only to good children ... once a year ...

wjwoodward wrote:

We're also going to have to learn to start living in harmony with one another and stop senslessly killing each other off in the name of one unseen God or another, who we all seem to give different names, preach to all who will listen is a God of love. peace and forgiveness, then we all go about doing exactly what we say this God opposes most.... killing! The stupidest logic I've ever seen!

James. Most gods (I mean Gods, excuse me) only oppose the killing of their own believers. Killing outsiders (heathens, heretics, and wogs in general) is not forbidden, and usually encouraged. The Ten Commandments of the Jews, Christians and Moslems, was never intended to apply to outsiders. They (the Commandments) were only ever a set of tribal rules - from the very beginning until now.

El_Jost wrote:

Apparently the Japanese have a better idea of what is coming down the pike.
It was reported yesterday that people in Tokyo were queuing for up to 3 hours to buy gold bars. On Thursday in Basel I queued for exactly 0 (zero) seconds at UBS to buy 100g. I was the only person far and wide.

Hi Jost,

Oh my, did you buy physical gold? 
Why do you trade gold futures instead?   
No inventory, no fears, no storage, no nonsense, no waiting in line to buy (or to sell), no cheap talk, only and only pure intelligence. 

How about silver?

John C. wrote:

El_Jost wrote:

Apparently the Japanese have a better idea of what is coming down the pike.
It was reported yesterday that people in Tokyo were queuing for up to 3 hours to buy gold bars. On Thursday in Basel I queued for exactly 0 (zero) seconds at UBS to buy 100g. I was the only person far and wide.

Hi Jost,

Oh my, did you buy physical gold? 
Why do you trade gold futures instead?   
No inventory, no fears, no storage, no nonsense, no waiting in line to buy (or to sell), no cheap talk, only and only pure intelligence. 

How about silver?

If possible, I don't want to this thread turn into an appraisal of different investment methods. The purpose of my post was to illustrate how, in times of crisis, Asian people think and act differently to most Western people. For reasons of tradition and possibly an innate form of intelligence they automatically turn to gold when disaster threatens. In the past continental Europeans have also learnt this lesson but it seems many have forgotten it, or maybe they listen too intently to the absurd stream of clap trap from the mainstream financial media.
The point is that gold (and partly silver) have historically retained that function of "money" that fiat paper currency only does very inadequately, that is the long-term store of value.

El_Jost wrote:

John C. wrote:

El_Jost wrote:

Apparently the Japanese have a better idea of what is coming down the pike.
It was reported yesterday that people in Tokyo were queuing for up to 3 hours to buy gold bars. On Thursday in Basel I queued for exactly 0 (zero) seconds at UBS to buy 100g. I was the only person far and wide.

Hi Jost,

Oh my, did you buy physical gold? 
Why do you trade gold futures instead?   
No inventory, no fears, no storage, no nonsense, no waiting in line to buy (or to sell), no cheap talk, only and only pure intelligence. 

How about silver?

If possible, I don't want to this thread turn into an appraisal of different investment methods. The purpose of my post was to illustrate how, in times of crisis, Asian people think and act differently to most Western people. For reasons of tradition and possibly an innate form of intelligence they automatically turn to gold when disaster threatens. In the past continental Europeans have also learnt this lesson but it seems many have forgotten it, or maybe they listen too intently to the absurd stream of clap trap from the mainstream financial media.
The point is that gold (and partly silver) have historically retained that function of "money" that fiat paper currency only does very inadequately, that is the long-term store of value.

Hello Jost,

1). No, you cannot turn this thread into investment discussions.  You do not have the audience for that.
Here, potential expats look for jobs and talk about rental prices.

2). Asians, as you know, are the people with the highest IQs in the world.
So far, they did not dilute their IQ by inter-mixing with other races like Europeans are doing.  (Did you know that European IQ is declining for that reason?)
The Asian IQ situation begins to change.

3). Yes, the fact that Asians buy gold en masse could be as an alert, but it needs to be confirmed with other analysis tools to which most people do not have access, or if they do have access, they do not know what to do with them ... 

4). There are changes coming.  The US Dollar will cease to be the world's currency and Bitcoin (together with the other 80 crypto-currencies nobody talks about) is rising.  There will be many changes because intelligent men work on different innovations in the background.
The changes will be painful to those who never understood what life is all about.

The future looks exciting to people with cash to invest, but no so for people without cash who will have to continue living from hand to mouth.  Just like the past 6,000 years, everybody will continue sleeping only as they laid their bed.

Is the fact that when you bought gold there was nobody at the counter a sign that everybody bought and left already and you were late, or a proof that nobody heard the news like you did and you were the first to start the buying spree?   

Today I received a kindle copy of James Rickards' book "The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System".
He is a competent writer but since he is close to US Govt sources he is a shill for their propaganda. That means some things he says is to be taken with pinch of salt.

aryavrat wrote:

If there is a GOD and this earth is his creation and also the human being too his creation then its His job to save or destroy ...we can only plan and act and the destruction we have planned by developing Nuclear Energy and best of it is only VETO have the rights to have it others has to destroy...so thier being superior will make others to became inferior and thats the reason this type of situation arises...We talk much about Humanity but what we cant create, do we have the rights to destroy it...if No then the world must think on it....destruction of Iraq,Afganistan,Libiya and now Siriya....it shows that people love War....But as you said i believe in that it will not happened,  Peace Harmony and Love will be maintained  ......Mankind will survive....

Regards,
Anil

Hi Anil,
I have a lot of respect for people who put their trust in God and truly believe 'peace, harmony and love will be maintained'. You are a good person Anil.

One problem, however, is the knowledge that the Earth's population is increasing exponentially but Mother Earth's recourses are limited, indeed with climate change, if it's to be believed, are even falling. That cannot continue ad infinitum.

This is at least one of the crisis problems facing our planet and its peoples. We cannot completely ignore that we are approaching a calamity of biblical proportions and that no one in the political classes if offering solutions. I assume they think there is nothing to be done but to let it happen and hope for the best.

El_Jost wrote:

aryavrat wrote:

If there is a GOD and this earth is his creation and also the human being too his creation then its His job to save or destroy ...we can only plan and act and the destruction we have planned by developing Nuclear Energy and best of it is only VETO have the rights to have it others has to destroy...so thier being superior will make others to became inferior and thats the reason this type of situation arises...We talk much about Humanity but what we cant create, do we have the rights to destroy it...if No then the world must think on it....destruction of Iraq,Afganistan,Libiya and now Siriya....it shows that people love War....But as you said i believe in that it will not happened,  Peace Harmony and Love will be maintained  ......Mankind will survive....

Regards,
Anil

Hi Anil,
I have a lot of respect for people who put their trust in God and truly believe 'peace, harmony and love will be maintained'. You are a good person Anil.

One problem, however, is the knowledge that the Earth's population is increasing exponentially but Mother Earth's recourses are limited, indeed with climate change, if it's to be believed, are even falling. That cannot continue ad infinitum.

This is at least one of the crisis problems facing our planet and its peoples. We cannot completely ignore that we are approaching a calamity of biblical proportions and that no one in the political classes if offering solutions. I assume they think there is nothing to be done but to let it happen and hope for the best.

It's nice to say nice words, but it's even nicer to do what it takes to make nice ideas work.

No other earthly creature than man has the in-built capability to self-destruct systematically.  If Mayans knew about this, we – space travelers – must know it too.

It does not take a Harvard graduate to understand that people simply cannot multiply nonstop.  Something somehow sometime has to give.

Crime and wars are just one way of Mother Nature trimming down the numbers of individuals, a process which can turn out to be useless when populations increase much faster than dwindling populations.

My strongest argument is this: scientists say that there have been many climate changes in Earth’s history.  I agree, but nowhere on the Internet did I see the statement that all the previous changes took place when 7B+ people like today have not existed …

If I alone I am right on this one, I have what it takes to find other explanations which could be right.

The situation is as such that finding the solution is not the immediate issue.  The issue is to formulate the problem well first.

On another line of thought, many folks talk about ‘humanity’.  Excuse me, humanity has nothing to do with Tom, Dick and Harry (who have been nothing more than failures in progress all their life for hundreds of thousands of years) and has everything to do with all the great artists, inventors, investors and leaders of the past.
They are the ones who shaped who we are today, even if today we are as helpless as to watch our very own demise.

To show just one example how caveman mentalities still exist, I say this:
Today we use Internet, fast computers, e-mail and instant messaging, but is the quality of our communications better than when no computers existed, a mere 50 years ago?

I like to joke and say that people are a failed alien experiment.

How can the future from now on could be bright when what happens today not looking good at all is the future as it has been seen in the past?

We have been always told by our older generations that past was very good and people in the past were very good but if you see all the books and records available in whichever form Past was never better than today.....and definetly tomorrow will be better than today......why i said this because of human nature....Human mind will not stop on anything, it will keep on searching answers for the secrets of the nature and the secrets are so vast, it will never finished and research also will continue.....So my personal opinion is War's the way it is today going on will be continue for sometime but in real terms like WW is not possible for the moment.
There is saying Propoganda of War...means its not a war but false information about war and i found most of the war in today's date was due to this.....

Regards,
Anil

Motorcyclists shrouded in haze in Pekanbaru, Riau Province, Indonesia on March 7, 2014.

Comment: It's images like the one above that people considering moving to a new clean, sunny and warm environment in the Far East do not think about. As the picture shows "Global Warming" is everywhere.

BTW The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be meeting again soon to either improve things for us (optimistic view) or raise taxes (pessimistic view). Take your pick.
[The Working Group III (WGIII) contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report on mitigation of climate change) will be considered in Berlin, Germany, on 7-11 April 2014.]

Are you visiting there because you are nearby.....if you are visiting then inform us the eyewitnessed things of that meeting...........

El_Jost wrote:

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/i7dy1GnKdut0.jpg

Motorcyclists shrouded in haze in Pekanbaru, Riau Province, Indonesia on March 7, 2014.

Comment: It's images like the one above that people considering moving to a new clean, sunny and warm environment in the Far East do not think about. As the picture shows "Global Warming" is everywhere.

BTW The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be meeting again soon to either improve things for us (optimistic view) or raise taxes (pessimistic view). Take your pick.
[The Working Group III (WGIII) contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report on mitigation of climate change) will be considered in Berlin, Germany, on 7-11 April 2014.]

I have seen worse pictures than yours from China's big towns, and such pics are easy to be found on the Net.
People may want to move anywhere and everywhere, but there will be restrictions on the influx of expats.
Just think a bit: when an event grows into a mass phenomenon, an equal and opposite reaction kicks in.

Even i have seen that picture Sir and recently Paris smoke......

The present changes like quick sands, the future changes like passing clouds.
The only time which never changes is the past. 

John C. wrote:

The present changes like quick sands, the future changes like passing clouds.
The only time which never changes is the past. 

When I started this thread I mistakenly thought that with all your self-acclaimed market knowledge you might be able to contribute some useful general knowledge for expats (actual and would be) around the world.

Just heard an interesting audio download by Andrew Hoffman entitled "Calm Before the QE Storm".
It is of course his opinions but I consider well worth listening to and not only for those who are investing.

Calm Before the QE Storm

El_Jost wrote:

John C. wrote:

The present changes like quick sands, the future changes like passing clouds.
The only time which never changes is the past. 

When I started this thread I mistakenly thought that with all your self-acclaimed market knowledge you might be able to contribute some useful general knowledge for expats (actual and would be) around the world.

Market knowledge cannot be applied to persons who think they do not need it, and secondly, you said you mistakenly thought.

Open a new thread, perhaps it will work better.