How much does the World economy suck?

The world economy sucks so much that an ameoba looks more evolved than a Blue Whale.

And Greece and Spain aren't helping much either...

Predictions when the world will go back up, or should we do a flush and change our currency like Brazil?

BTW, let's not make this about party politics... general thoughts only please.

I expect that it will get significantly worse before it gets better...if it does.

I'm trying to work on a monetary system for one of my stories. As of so far... I have nothing. But this a recovered-from-the-apocalypse world, so who knows what I'll come up with? However, if after I come up with this system, and people start using it in real life, I'm finding the nearest bunker and hiding in their until after the Ogre race is born.

It's because the whole notion of economies is rubbish. I asked a smart alecky friend who works in finance how we could run out of money and he said it's like oil reserves. I pointed out that, no, it isn't. Oil is a real, physical, finite thing. It can run out, like the sugar in my sugar pot can run out. The whole world can't be broke, because money is something we made up. There should be some global reset button. Simples. But unfortunately smart, educated economic types can't grasp the concept of how we can run out of something non-existent, that exists only as numbers on computers (that we control) and shiny paper (that we made). Money is a concept. Anyway, I know it's not all that simple because there'd probably be no agreement on when to reset, I just find it weird that our lives and world are so governed by the amount of something we have or do not have, despite the fact we just made it all up.

Also, as for the Spain/Greece/Italy thing... My dad's Italian and we have a house there. Usually, I live in England. In England, everyone (the working people) are up early, do 9-5, sometimes well beyond that. In Italy, (at least in the south) are open in the morning, then late in the afternoon. In the mid afternoon, everyone is asleep. Seriously. I walk through the town, there is no one around doing anything. Want a chemist? Better be up early. That's an issue, I think. I mean, I love the country but it needs to pick up speed... Then again, part of the reason I love being in Italy is because England is tired and stressed and overworked.

My solution? SERIOULSY! CONSIDER THE RESET BUTTON!

:D

I agree with what's said above. That whole economy thing is a fluke.
Besides, if there really was that much of problem, then how come that large companies still can make billions of profit in these low economies?

So, when will it end?
I have no clue, but I'm sure it will end violently because can we really be that arrogant to believe that we could exploit the poverty of other states forever?

On a scale of "Happy Days are here again" to "Brother, can you spare a dime?" We're hovering around "How can a poor man stand such times and live?"

My reading of the situation is that pretty much all of the economic issues are due to the avaiability and inevitable abuse of easy credit on every level, from citizen to company to state.That can be linked to a combination of deregulation and the creation of the Eurozone credit market.

On the plus side, in the US both booze and firearms are a growth market, so it's not all bad.

In answer to the original question: a lot!

Economies, like other things that can cause all kinds of damage, run in cycles. We're getting into a peak and valley problem where the crash-soar-crash dynamic is going to become normal. The cycles are getting shorter lately and the crash segments are lasting longer. I don't see it stabilizing any time soon, but the good news is it won't go on like this forever.

Actually in the US all of our paper money is supposed to be backed by metals. I don't know if all countries started out that way or not. If you take out a dollar you will see that it is actually a Federal Reserve Note that is worth $1 of whatever metal we are using right now. When you print more "notes" than you have silver/gold/whatever to back up, that's what they mean by running out. It's not that the paper and the numbers in the computer are gone, it's that if every one decided to cash in their Federal Reserve Notes or demand the value of their money in the base at the same time there wouldn't be enough.

Angryman, have you considered starting on a barter system? How far past the apocalypse are you? In developing your money system remember that paper money (aka fiat) serves three purposes: store of value (worth so many nuggets of typlunium); unit of exchange (I don't have eggs to barter for your milk so I'll give you this instead); and measure of wealth (much easier than trying to get the goats to hold still for counting).

Money is, as we say, a medium of exchange. It's nice if it also has intrinsic value--it helps keep the issuing authority honest. But it functions adequately as an instrument of barter even if it has no intrinsic value and even if it's not as well backed as we'd like.