yep...it's a giant house of cards. At least most artist can go back to painting ! And then when the paint manufacturers collapse, we can draw with charcoal sticks made in our cave fires.

That happens when you push up the standard artificially and still you've got the eastern europe syndrome of stealing EU funds on all levels... On top of that the greeks want to retire with 54 years... It is not all politics, ... Greeks get three times the salary one gets in Bulgaria, still the prices are equal. And really don't get that about the 'cold' there - it is 14C in Athens at the moment...

an alternate viewpoint. If you have the cash, buy your gear now while you still have money. Don't wait. Someone will come and take your money away: the wife, the government, whoever.

That's what I did and I have 0 future hope of getting any position of consequence, Just assuming you'll have money later never seems to work out.

You need a camera to film the world burn.

I think it's a real possibility in the next decade that many non-utilitarian industries will simply be forced out. At some point consumerism with smaller benefits in increased quality will meet the reality of reduced incomes i.e with uhd and 4k. The masses will either keep what they have, buy very reduced older models, or bow out entirely of technological consumerism. Then the companies will begin shutting down.

Both Europe and America are headed for economic armageddon . Their currencies have no real value. When Germany asked for the US to return it's gold , the US declined. That's been reason enough for war in the past.

We're at a turning point. You can now have unbelievable quality for little money, if you wait for product replacements. I'd love to see a graph of new adopters decline over the last decade. I imagine it's a drastic fall.

I know personally I wait to buy, and then wait some more. I just bought the g6 when it dropped. The only reason I didn't wait more is my gh1 is hobbled. As well there's no money to be made, at least as a photographer. Every tom and dick who owns a digital camera can call himself a photographer. The gallery where I show, which is world-class, won't even bother with traditional photography. I imagine cinematography is worse....and I refuse to do weddings and have whining clients !

So one day , soon or near soon, don't be surprised when big manufacturers begin offering less, and then none. I expect sony, olympus and panasonic to drop first. Last one in....first one out !

You can't get any more fundamental than currency.

really ?? ...study the weimar republic. That's close to home. History always repeats itself, with certain surprises.

study the weimar republic

Notwithstanding the stories about the wheelbarrows of money you needed to buy a loaf of bread in Weimar Germany, it was deflation that did the real damage to the German economy during the post WWI period. But since deflation doesn't have the same melodramatic appeal to the dreamers who think restoring the gold standard and banning fiat currency would solve all our problems make them fat and happy and punish the wicked, they ignore it.

Similarly, what's happening in Greece is completely unnecessary. It doesn't reflect core reality. It's just the stupidity of European technocrats whose fiscal policy is a mixture of voodoo and morality play (for other people).

Sorry, but I don't buy the energy explanation. The proximate cause of distress in Greece and Spain is the interrupted flow of money, and a lot of reckless investment, from northern European financial centers, when the financial crisis hit.

Once that money spigot was turned off, and being unable to depreciate their currencies, and/or get real support or real debt relief from the EU, things went to hell. You can argue the energy thing for the long term, but the immediate causes of what's happening now aren't a mystery.

Few more positive charts

One more picture of the future

Indoor tents are all the rage in South Korea this winter. Apparently they keep you really warm and save electricity as well. In fact, some tent-users say their heating bill has been reduced by half. While the temperature in rooms gets as low as 19 degrees Celsius, the 40,000 won tents are quite cozy at 23 degrees.

Given their multiple benefits, these tents are flying off shelves in South Korea. One tent maker claims to have sold 4 million in just a couple of weeks. Thousands of tents are on back order, and manufacturers are rushing to make more. We don’t know who came up with the ingenious idea, but it looks like almost everyone has caught on.

This winter has been pretty harsh for the South Koreans; they are facing power blackouts and surging energy costs with six of 23 nuclear reactors being shut down. People have been looking for cheaper heating methods that save electricity, and the tent is apparently working wonders for them. Families are sleeping in tents setup within their homes to keep themselves warm. Some of them have placed tents on top of beds for extra warmth

I don't think energy is the whole story, I think @jrd's explanation is right. But Vitaliy's is as well. Energy is a huge factor, but money itself is huge, a bigger factor than energy sometimes, as it influences the price of energy depending on random whims of market forces.

Money can change distribution of real things, they can artificially prevent production sometimes. But they can't make gold from fart. And making gold from fart is exactly the idea of using money to somehow "improve" things.

At some point, say if Vitaliy's doomsday scenarios come true, then energy and the facts of daily life become more important and money loses all value, but we're not there yet.

Btw, I do not have any "doomsday scenery", quite reverse. I am telling that elites use carrots, TV and sports to distract hampsters from understanding real trends. It is like pirate captain on the desert island who do not want to tell his mates that water and food supplies are ending (and that he personally want to eat 80% of remaining ones :-) ).

If you cut off monetary supply, you stop everything pretty much. All governments as far as I know rely on short term debt to finance whatever they do the next month. If support is withdrawn then then the governments have to rely on insanely high interest to keep the economy running, and it becomes untenable to do even some of the basic things. If you can't take care of even the basic things, or look like you aren't going to be able to, then all the investors that might create new business pull out and you are fucked.

And I know governments who did not use debt (in your understanding) at all. And lived happily.

Debt, as we know it, came to an end. Just another failed mutation as Carlin would say.

I also know personally that even if you cut monetary supply people will invent many measures how to make exchanges of real goods. Btw, you can read about them in any good economics book.

Are you saying that energy resources are running out? This does not seem to be the case, as of yet there isn't a shortage of oil and there is more and more natural gas coming from the US and elsewhere. Certainly food is not running out, and water -- well water is a problem in many parts of the world, but not in the EU yet. So if there is a ton of natural gas, more than ever before is probably the truth of it, why should poor greeks be freeing their butts off? It's not because there is a shortage, it's because they've got no money.

Huh. How about just go back and check facts, reports and charts that proof all your statements false. You can start from this blog.

Again, money plays zero role in all current trends. And if you check latest economic conferences speeches elites even started proclaiming it, not in mass media yet, but between them. EU, UK, US and Japan make huge monetary invasions and it did not help much. With EU, UK and Japan big amount of them are used to finance energy and resources they buy, btw :-) US use money to finance resources, oil and gas projects that are otherwise financially not viable (say, with negative income if government do not present you piles of money).