gloopy

lol no no no no no no lol!

Never thought about running for anything. I'm just a

Andy

? You think that the worldwide economy is going to deteriorate in the short term? I'll take the other side of that bet.
The worldwide economy may continue to sputter along with low growth for quite a while as we work down debt levels (or more correctly, slowly grow into debt levels), but I'm not seeing economic contraction.

gloopy

There is no way we're going to grow into exponential debt like we're piling on. Even the most "right wing radical" plan on paper (that has zero chance of materializing in a legislature that thrives on "from each according to their ability to each according to their need" and flat out buying votes) doesn't come close to growing into the levels of debt we have. We can't even have a serious discussion about reducing the rates of increases of unsustainable expenditures without borderline cries of nazi (which is funny because they were among the ultimate socialist top down central planers) and economic genocide being thrown around.

The real question is how long can the large governments keep getting away with kiting checks to pay the ever increasing bills? Interest rates will have to go up (a lot…a LOT) and when that happens our soon to be 20T in debt will carry interest alone that will consume an unreal, permanent, part of our budget. The EU and China (among others) isn't much better off either.

Short to medium term, however, the wave of phony free stock market money can indeed pump the bubble up some more. Maybe even a lot more. But it doesn't change the reality of the math behind it.

Andy

I'm not trying to gloss over debt problems, but the exponential rate of growth in debt has ceased. That's so 2010. The rate is now geometric.

As far as governments kiting checks, can you cite any country in the world that is debt free?
How about the last time that the US had zero debt? Early to mid 1800s?


Interest rates - what do you see driving up interest rates? We've got multiple countries around the world where the 10 year rate of return on government debt is negative or barely positive. Check out Swiss, German, and Japanese government debt yields. We're stuck in a liquidity trap that will probably keep worldwide (not universal, but most countries) interest rates very low for many years to come.

Edit: Gloopy, I remember a conversation I had with my navigator back in the 1990s when mortgage rates were below 8%. He said that interest rates would never be lower in our lifetimes. I responded that he was only looking at mortgage rates with only a few years' experience (much like globull warmers with their data) and that 7% mortgage rates were historically HIGH when one extends the lookback period 200 years.
I look at current economic data and it reminds me of post-WWII economic conditions. I anticipate several more years of slow growth. However, I'll invoke the same caveat as Lord Keynes: 'When my information changes, I alter my conclusions.' (That's supposedly the actual words he used, not 'when the facts change ...')

Wilbur Wright

Although you're correct about 757s, it still looks like to me like Delta is planning both NB and WB growth.

Wilbur Wright

Although I would like to see more WBs, it's still not doom and gloom.

scambo1

Wilbur,
At the bottom of your chart, it says on order, 10 a350s and in the column it says 15. Anyway, more wide bodies are certainly desireable.

sailingfun

There are 25 A350's on order. The first 15 are scheduled for delivery in 18 months starting mid 17 or by the end of 18. That leaves 10 left on order.

scambo1

Thanks Sailing, I had forgotten the final number.

Wilbur Wright

SF nailed it. The first 15 of the 25 A350s are expected to arrive by the end of 2018.