The End Of America

The very idea that the U.S. economy will collapse is ridiculous. Who’s going to repo on the US? No one. Who’s going to foreclose on the US? No one.

As for the Europe war ad, that’s farsical too. First of all Germany doesn’t have the manpower or military assets to invade Greece. Germany has literally been emasculated. The US bases there wouldn’t allow it. Second, Greece would simply be kicked out of the E.U. Period. End of story. The only war in Europe will be the one between the third world immigrants flooding into Europe. In particular France, where it has seen years of riots caused by these growing populations.

Time for the counter trend play.

Some one is going to smash it with “The Coming Boom!”

I created a post on “7 reasons America’s economy would boom in next 2-3 years and created a lot of buzz/argument/hope.

Great post. Off to start storing food and building my bomb shelter!

Nice find, Lawrence. Leave it to you to be right on top of things. Dominic might want to consider changing careers. I’m sure Martin and Porter could always use another up and coming copywriting superstar.

Lawrence,

So WHY did they bother sending the piece out if it doesn’t sell anything? That seems like an incredible waste of a well-planned, well-written article.

I mean… sell something!

LOVE this!

Marketers are not swayed by geo politics

They are pure realist, “will it sell” well the demise of America is selling well.

The EU demise is already the topic of conversation in my post box

Neil

@Markus: We’ll see.

Nothing is impossible… and no one is so big they can’t come down a peg or two.

And that includes the US.

Don’t forget, Russia was a super power, too.

@Markus:

Apparently you didn’t get the news that “too big to fail” is a fallacy.

The biggest joke in your response is this one: “First of all, Germany doesn’t have the manpower or military assets to invade…”

Are you kidding? Germany practically OWNS the euro, OWNS the European Union, they are the MOST POWERFUL country in Europe, have an outstanding economy, and here is something else very interesting…

Germany wasn’t supposed to have a military again. But they do. It’s called NATO… check it out sometime, their military rivals ours. And this time around, everybody has nukes.

You need to wake up.

Lawrence,

Thanks for the post. As money is a highly emotional subject, my impression is that the financial market is particularly susceptible to the prevailing social mood / zeitgeist. I find Bob Prechter’s “Socionomics” idea fascinating and was intrigued by this article about the success of “Game Of Thrones” http://www.socionomics.net/2011/10/socionomic-book-review-a-game-of-thrones-2/

I guess you always need to test themes, but I suspect the “fear” driven themes will outperform in the financial market for the forseeable future.

The “End of America”? Nice controversial subject line to grab out attention! I confess I’m old enough to remember the recession of the early 90s, when the “America is finished” meme was last running wild! We might be getting to the end of a particular era but I’m never one to bet against the resilience of the American people.

Thanks again…definitely one of the best DM and copy blogs on the planet!

Kevin

@Markus: I bet if you tried to persuade people 100 years ago that a Serbian assassin would set a chain of events in motion leading to World War One you might have been seen as a deluded crackpot !
Why think about tanks and missiles when tremendous debts can cause nations damage for years to come — without any radiation!

Chris

I started to read the Daily Mail article the day it was released. But stopped after a couple of paragraphs. Complete dribble.

And a shameful attempt to get attention. However, the Daily Mail has never made any secret it wants Britain to leave the EU.

But with so much bad economic news in the headlines each day, the punter has heard enough. And switched off. Everyone is regurgitating the same message: “doom”… “catastrophe”… “contagion”…

And since Lehmans, every man and his dog has queued up to tell the consumer this is the end game… the end of capitalism… blah blah blah.

But society has not collapsed. China does not rule the world. And the US is not in a ’30s depression.

And the punter is starting to notice that none of these high profile predictions have materialised. Slowly and surely, they are becoming desensitised to fear-mongering headlines.

The consequences of a Eurozone meltdown dwarfs the crisis back in 2008. But despite this, consumer spending figures are higher today, than during the Lehman’s crisis. And many other financial indicators are much better today also.

A better approach (in my opinion) is to exploit fear and greed using economic facts in a true context – which are explained simply to the prospect.

A new book: “The American Pheonix” by Charles Dumas from Lombard Street Research intelligently argues (with decent figures) that the real losers from the financial crisis will be surplus countries such as China and Germany. And that within a few short years, America will regain it’s dominance.

The book is heavy reading without an understanding of economics…

But for me it is a gem! Because I write financial copy to generate leads. And I’m always looking for an edge to stay ahead of the curve.

Right now, we are getting more response to positive economic headlines – which are intriguing. And satisfies a human need: Hope!

People want hope now. And seem to be willing to read hope messages.

However, belief is subject to a credible and logical argument. And there is a mountain of information out there which provides hope for the near future.

@Justin Quick:

I know Germany is the engine that drives the EU. They have perhaps the strongest economy. However, they are in no position to fight a war. First, they simply do not have the will to fight which is the most important thing. Their country is aging, and being overrun by third world immigrants. The strong alpha male stock that fought in WWI and WWII has been mostly wiped out. So the demographics for Germany are awful. Yes, their population is around 80 million but that’s mostly an older population.

Second, Germany has excellent technology, yes, but they do not have much of a military. Reports have come out showing the German military is in sad shape, many of the personnel are considered out of shape or even overweight. To wage war, you need military assets, lots and lots of them. They don’t have the tools to do the job. Regardless, it’s doubtful nations like France or Poland would sit idly will Germany rolls into Greece. Besides, there isn’t much worth taking in Greece anyways. It’s not militarily nor economically worth the risk.

NATO is mostly run by the US and the UK. The libya conflict was mostly US, FRance, and the UK. Germany wanted to sit it out. They wanted to sit out the Iraq/Afghan wars too but were pressured by the allies to send some troops in despite the German public being against it.

@Justin Quick:

As for the United States going into full economic meltdown — I’ve seen the videos on Youtube and read the blogs explaining why this is a “mathematical certainty.”

It’s not. People are trying to relate what happens to a family that overspends to the US. The family can be foreclosed on, but no one can foreclose on the US. The US has the greatest military assets in the world, hence if we needed oil, we could take it, or pressure or way out of the situation. I’m not saying that’s ethical, I’m just saying it is what it is.

If the US economy goes down, the Chinese economy goes down, as does much of the world. However, the US is still the best place to invest money and people across the world know that.

@Lawrence Bernstein:

Lawrence,

The idea that Germany is going to turn into some tyrannical military super power is not remotely realistic. That’s WW I and WWII fantasy talk which paints Germans as evil people who need to be kept in check. WWI was a total farce of a war. Entirely pointless.

Incidentally, probably the most war mongering nations were Spain, France, and England. In particular England which killed many Scots, Irish, then they fought with France, Spain, dabbled in other Euro conflicts, they fought Americans – twice, and they were busy fighting Indians, people in India, people in Pakistan, people in Africa, people in Asia, and people in South America and the Carribean as well. And just recently they demanded war in Libya.

My point? I love England. Love them, love them, love them. But to paint Germany as this brooding nation of people who about to rise to power is fatuous.

@Markus:

If the American Economy truly was recovering then how do you explain all the Wall Street protestor groups that are are virtually occupying every major city around America?

http://occupywallst.org/

Now if you’re targeting the mass affluent then that’s a different story all together. I even see this demonstrated in my business.

You can say all the positive affirmations you want but that’s the reality of the outer world. Now are the US politicians lying or giving hope? Or are they merely telling people what they want to hear?

Most copywriters write like politicians that can’t deliver on the promises. A few can because of their integrity like Joe Sugarman etc.

you should hear the numbers for Agora’s promo. just insane.

Like Rezbi said, “nothing is impossible.”

Could hit the fan and probably will one day.

@Lawrence Bernstein:

The next real war in Europe (outside of economic manipulation actions) will be between the indigenous Europeans and the third world immigrants there. Read up on the riots in France, the no-go zones in France, and the changing demographics in Europe. With all due respect, stop thinking in terms of WWI or WWII or even the cold war.

Examine the demographics, and the actual, on-the-ground tension (don’t listen to their media propaganda) that’s where the real tinderbox is. The first area likely for that war to start will be in France and it will likely ignite conflicts within Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and perhaps England as well. Internal conflicts. It will be a scenario with arms being smuggled from Africa and the M.E. to aid the immigrants, and arms/personnel being smuggled from probably Eastern Europe to aid indigenous Western Europeans. Think Lebanon or Yugoslavia across much of Western Europe.

@Mark:

The OWS have no semblance of credibility. You can’t base the state of the US economy on fetid smelling people who literally walk around with feces bags.

If you’ve reviewed their website, as I’m sure you have, it’s pretty much the same sob story repeated hundreds of times. They’re outrageously in debt. They can’t find employment, or they can’t earn enough to cover their costs. Yet they blame the CEO of Exxon for their situation. The real issue, is these people graduated with an egregiously priced college degree, probably something as inane as sports team management, or ethnic studies.

They really should be protesting colleges for beguiling them into paying over 20 grand for a worthless degree. College is one of the biggest rip offs of modern time. Schools shift things so college students end up there for five years in lieu of four for a B.S. or B.A. They talk students into getting worthless degrees. Or the students have no clue what degree they should get and so they opt for something worthless like art history.

High School students need to be taught to identify which college degrees will be in demand by they time they would hypothetically graduate college.

And the colleges shouldn’t be charging 20k. Ironically, the professors at those universities spout socialism and economic equality and all that tripe, yet those professors probably wouldn’t agree to a huge pay cut so students could afford college.

For everyone saying “Who would foreclose on us”, that’s not the point.

If tomorrow the Chinese decided “You know what? We’re not going to buy Treasuries anymore.” then in one fell swoop we would be Greece, and then we’d have the option of either hyperinflating ourselves into oblivion by having the Federal Reserve monetize all the debt or cutting spending so dramatically that it would make your eyes spin.

Unless we decided to cut all spending besides military, and still that wouldn’t work since the whole world would dump dollars immediately, we’d be screwed.

And to think “We can just take the oil by force”, again, who pays for our military? The Chinese by subsidizing our debt. If it weren’t for the Chinese, we would have been forced years ago to cut spending or have runaway inflation. Get your heads out of your asses, America isn’t going to go to hell in a handbasket like Rome but we are definitely not going to be a superpower in 5-10 years.

Lastly, the U.S. is NOT the best place to invest anymore. Over regulation and high taxes make it a very unfriendly place for business, and if you really think that Asia cannot consume what it produces easily then you’re nuts. It’s going to be easy for them to say “Fuck the U.S. let’s sell our stuff to each other”.

Asia doesn’t need the West, don’t get it twisted.

Also, read some stuff by Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Peter Schiff, Detlev Schlichter and others.

Lawrence,

You’re very correct about what you said, but the reason the Chinese don’t have a thriving middle class was because of the currency peg. Once they really break from the dollar, the middle class will rise. If our currency falls by 90% (highly likely during the coming hyperinflation) and the RNB goes up 10 fold then their $250 per month salary becomes $2500. Oil prices in dollars will be $1000 but in RNB they’ll have fallen by 90%.

On the bright side, we’ll cure our obesity problem since few americans will be rich enough to drive, we’ll all be biking like the Chinese

I agree that truthfully Russia is the most important place on earth since it has an immense amount of natural resources and they’re buying gold left and right, plus they are very friendly with the Chinese and are increasingly hostile towards the west. In Jim Rickards book “Currency Wars” he describes how he was asked to be a part of a “war game” in economics for the CIA and he showed how in one fell swoop, China and Russia could open a bank, back their currency 100% in gold and refuse to sell oil or any goods except in that currency. It showed the U.S. how little power it really has because in one instant, all economic might transferred east in this scenario.

I understand what you mean about China committing some terrible crimes but Asia in general is going to be a place of immense wealth creation over the next 10-20 years. Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and other places have incredible economic freedom and opportunity for entrepreneurs, as does Eastern Europe.

Btw, can you explain about Putin’s wealth, I’ve never heard that, I’d like to learn more. And I’m sorry about your wife’s alma mater but man is Nouriel Roubini a moron, he said the gold standard is a “barbarous relic”, he probably loves government and statism.

Lastly, I love your swipes and I’ve been studying mandarin and direct response marketing because I know if I can write copy in Mandarin then its very possible I become a billionaire before I’m 40

You should also checkout the book by Detlev Schlichter called “Paper Money Collapse” and what will happen to the world economy after this global financial reset.