Opinion: (Michael Khazin, an economist, from newsland.ru): “I am confident that the crisis will last a long time. Here is why: Crisis is a change of a certain parameter that transitions from an unnatural state into a natural one. Until this process is over, the crisis will continue. Our modern day crisis is related… to credit-based demand stimulation, that is, people lived on credit. As a result, huge amounts of debt have been accumulated. In and of themselves, debt is not deadly… but it cannot be increased any more. And if so, it is impossible to maintain a high level of demand.

“This is the reason why the world economy will decline by 30-35%, …while the American by 55-60%. In a country like the U.S., this will cause a socio-political catastrophe.

“The crisis will persist until world demand will continue to decline. The collapse will end when demand stops exceeding the real income of the population.

“Ordinary people will experience the crisis through the growth of unemployment, lower standard of living, smaller salaries, increasing cost of goods, the transition of many goods that we currently consider ‘common’ into the ranks of ‘luxury’ items, and so on.

“For the last 30 years the middle class in the West was sustained only by credit. The reduction of credit will force many people into poverty; they won’t be able to afford a car, an apartment, or medical services. Fifty percent of Europeans belong to this pool of population, and forty percent of them will fall into poverty.

“Prices will grow faster than wages, and hence purchasing capacity will drop.

“The price of gold will continue to grow… and eventually gold will replace the dollar as a measure of value.”

My Comment: Slow movement towards rational consumption would be a bliss, but it won’t happen because Nature doesn’t plan simply to return us to balance. Instead, it wants us to unite into one system similar to Nature itself. No tricks will help until we go through change towards reciprocity and unity, in similarity to a unified system of Nature, and stop being a cancerous tumor in it.
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