US Dollar Faces Collapse In 24 Months

[maxpowr9]

Reckon this is just a crackpot theory, but I wouldn't be surprised if (and that's a BIG IF) republicans gain control of congress and the white house, that they would seriously entertain going to war with China just to clear our debt.

 

[JB3]

Reckon this is just a crackpot theory, but I wouldn't be surprised if (and that's a BIG IF) republicans gain control of congress and the white house, that they would seriously entertain going to war with China just to clear our debt.

Nope. How would they scare people into voting for their reelection?

 

[MoltenRock III]

It wouldn't necessarily mean defaulting on the debt -- depends how rational Congress is.

I know, it's Congress. So yeah, panic.


We need to get NASA designing probes to find us some nickel-iron asteroids, then a means to tow them back here. I forget the figures -- did them once -- but it wouldn't take an excessively large asteroid, just a handful of klicks across, to make a serious dent in the debt. Some refining could be done in orbit, then you bubble the metal into spheres that will float, coat the outside with slag, and just drop them into an ocean.

Yeah, watch the market in those metals plummet. It would lower prices on all sorts of manufactured goods, so call it good.

And if we could find an asteroid with rare earth elements....

You surely are joking aren't you?

 

[Kulindahr]

You have the stuff in the ground - it just hasn't made sense to mine it when the government of China is stupid enough to give it away at less than cost.

China has announced it's slashing exports by 40% over the next year, to supply its own needs. That's going to drive the price up. And the Center of Strategic International Studies is concerned the demand -- just about every new electronic technology needs them -- is going to soon outstrip the supply. This is one reason the U.S. is so concerned with the supply from Africa... something Wikileaks told everyone about.

You surely are joking aren't you?

Not at all.

We have the technology to get probes into the asteroid belt, zap likely asteroids with lasers and get a spectrographic reading. We even have the engines for it, if we're not in a particular hurry. We finally have computer capability to leave such a probe to make most of its own decisions. And we've demonstrated the ability to drop a package onto an asteroid or comet -- in this case, a beacon to both mark it and announce our claim.

NASA says an elevator to orbit is within reach -- and an international group of investors has put together $12 billion to build one (though I think that's 'way low). With an elevator to orbit, we could send up equipment for orbital smelters.

And if a second cable was put up, dedicated to down-traffic, the design for using the force of gravity on the modules coming down to generate electricity was done years ago.

We should be working to get friendly with Ecuador, because in the Western Hemisphere, that's the place for one -- though once it's feasible, Brazil will be wanting its own.

Even without that, though, retrieval of asteroidal metals had all the kinks worked out in the 80s. The only thing we really lack is a propulsion system to haul the things back -- though it would be a nice way to "retire" old nuclear weapons. With the drives we have now, retrieval time from even a favorable asteroidal orbit could be decades rather than years.

But we should be working on it now. I'm not going to bank on speculation about asteroids of precious metals (I read an article arguing it wouldn't be improbable to find sizable ones of nearly pure plutonium), but with more and more competition for resources here, we need to go for the asteroids.

That's one reason I oppose any manned missions to Mars -- it's pointless. Spend a dozen years learning from designing better equipment for hauling back asteroids, and from working in orbit, and once the tech is solid, then and only then head for Mars.

You want dreaming? Once we get good at steering asteroids, we send probes to find some water-ice comets. Smash a few big ones into the Moon, and we can give it a shirt-sleeve atmosphere -- have to renew it regularly; I think the half-life for an earth-like atmosphere on that surface is on the order of 200 years. Though don't expect parks or farms; estimates on the effort needed to turn lunar regolith into soil indicate centuries to turn the place green.

 

[MoltenRock III]

Not at all.

We have the technology to get probes into the asteroid belt, zap likely asteroids with lasers and get a spectrographic reading. We even have the engines for it, if we're not in a particular hurry. We finally have computer capability to leave such a probe to make most of its own decisions. And we've demonstrated the ability to drop a package onto an asteroid or comet -- in this case, a beacon to both mark it and announce our claim.

NASA says an elevator to orbit is within reach -- and an international group of investors has put together $12 billion to build one (though I think that's 'way low). With an elevator to orbit, we could send up equipment for orbital smelters.

And if a second cable was put up, dedicated to down-traffic, the design for using the force of gravity on the modules coming down to generate electricity was done years ago.

We should be working to get friendly with Ecuador, because in the Western Hemisphere, that's the place for one -- though once it's feasible, Brazil will be wanting its own.

Even without that, though, retrieval of asteroidal metals had all the kinks worked out in the 80s. The only thing we really lack is a propulsion system to haul the things back -- though it would be a nice way to "retire" old nuclear weapons. With the drives we have now, retrieval time from even a favorable asteroidal orbit could be decades rather than years.

But we should be working on it now. I'm not going to bank on speculation about asteroids of precious metals (I read an article arguing it wouldn't be improbable to find sizable ones of nearly pure plutonium), but with more and more competition for resources here, we need to go for the asteroids.

That's one reason I oppose any manned missions to Mars -- it's pointless. Spend a dozen years learning from designing better equipment for hauling back asteroids, and from working in orbit, and once the tech is solid, then and only then head for Mars.

You want dreaming? Once we get good at steering asteroids, we send probes to find some water-ice comets. Smash a few big ones into the Moon, and we can give it a shirt-sleeve atmosphere -- have to renew it regularly; I think the half-life for an earth-like atmosphere on that surface is on the order of 200 years. Though don't expect parks or farms; estimates on the effort needed to turn lunar regolith into soil indicate centuries to turn the place green.

This is like promising your credit card company that you are leaving on an excursion tomorrow to hunt magic unicorns, and your $30,000 you owe them is no problem, assuming of course they lend you another $15,000 to easily bring home these magic unicorns so you can pay your monthly minimum payment.

It's nuts beyond all measures on a practical scale. It's a pipe dream.

 

[Kulindahr]

This is like promising your credit card company that you are leaving on an excursion tomorrow to hunt magic unicorns, and your $30,000 you owe them is no problem, assuming of course they lend you another $15,000 to easily bring home these magic unicorns so you can pay your monthly minimum payment.

It's nuts beyond all measures on a practical scale. It's a pipe dream.

Columbus was a pipe dream.

The Mayflower was a pipe dream.

The American Revolution was a pipe dream.

Lewis and Clark was a pipe dream.

A man on the moon was a pipe dream.


History is built on pipe dreams. It is always the dreamers who lead the way. Small-minded people always scoff.


The real pipe dream here is to think that we can get by on this planet with the resources we have.

 

[MoltenRock III]

Columbus was a pipe dream.

The Mayflower was a pipe dream.

The American Revolution was a pipe dream.

Lewis and Clark was a pipe dream.

A man on the moon was a pipe dream.


History is built on pipe dreams. It is always the dreamers who lead the way. Small-minded people always scoff.


The real pipe dream here is to think that we can get by on this planet with the resources we have.

You're talking about a "moon shot" to pay America's debt. If this notion had any serious credence in leading circles, America's debt % would raise to 15% or more for 30 year notes. It's insane.

It's fine for some discovery sake, but not under any practical use term like finding iron ore to mine, to pay off the debt. That's plain nuts. It would cost trillions of $$$. Additionally, to all the so-called strict Constitutionalists where is space exploration in the Constitution anyway?

But given this latest revelation you've stated it should give anyone serious pause about your "anything to oil" being easy idea as well.

There is no way you will get off the middle eastern oil teat without a $2.50 to $5 per gallon gasoline tax increase unless of course the USA wants to subsidize the other programs to the tune of hundreds of billions of $$$ it can't afford in the first place. No way, no how.

 

[hotatlboi]

I have to agree with Molten Rock.

I am all for space exploration, but a way to pay for the deficit it is not.

 

[hotatlboi]

NASA says an elevator to orbit is within reach

I would be interested in the source for this. I don't recall them ever saying that. They conducted a few studies on it, but none determined it would be feasible in the near term.

The materials it would require don't even exist yet.

It would need to use carbon nanotubes and none with the requisite tensile strength have ever been fabricated.

The longest piece of that material of any tensile strength that has been fabricated is half a meter. For a space elevator, one would need a piece hundreds of kilometers long.

It would likely take many hundreds of billions and years to even develop the tech to where building it was an option, which would then be a huge additional expense.

 

[Kulindahr]

You're talking about a "moon shot" to pay America's debt. If this notion had any serious credence in leading circles, America's debt % would raise to 15% or more for 30 year notes. It's insane.

It's fine for some discovery sake, but not under any practical use term like finding iron ore to mine, to pay off the debt. That's plain nuts. It would cost trillions of $$$. Additionally, to all the so-called strict Constitutionalists where is space exploration in the Constitution anyway?

No, it wouldn't cost "trillions". The cost to launch a single probe would be in the tens of millions.

And it's not "iron ore to mine"; there's a class of asteroids that are close to being pure metal. But even if it cost a trillion to bring one back, the profit would be on the order of 2000% -- even a modest 2km-diameter metallic asteroid would hold $20+ trillion in metal.

This has enough credence that the Association of Planetary Scientists recommended to President Bush that he forget about Mars and pursue this, because the technology for it is within reach and that for Mars isn't even close.

But given this latest revelation you've stated it should give anyone serious pause about your "anything to oil" being easy idea as well.

So you ignore the articles. "Anything to oil" plants are up and running. They take the leavings from a turkey processing plant, household trash, used tires, and turn it into oil and fertilizer.

There is no way you will get off the middle eastern oil teat without a $2.50 to $5 per gallon gasoline tax increase unless of course the USA wants to subsidize the other programs to the tune of hundreds of billions of $$$ it can't afford in the first place. No way, no how.

I don't know why you hate the poor so much. A $5/gal increase in the gas tax would yield negative revenue -- the U.S. economy would collapse. It would put millions out of work and let hundreds of thousands freeze to death in the winters. I know, you'd employ more bureaucrats at above median income to handle vouchers for people with need -- with every one of those bureaucrats a drain on the economy requiring yet more tax money.

Forget the accountant's approach that needs repairs and patches and repairs and patches to the repairs and patches even before it's implemented. Accountants diddle with reality; engineers change it. And the engineers have already provided what we need, if we'd just use it.

I have to agree with Molten Rock.

I am all for space exploration, but a way to pay for the deficit it is not.

Just one moderate asteroid would be $20 trillion. A medium asteroid could reach $500 trillion.

They're out there, we have most of the technology, we should get started. Screw "exploration", and aim at something very, very practical.

 

[Kulindahr]

I would be interested in the source for this. I don't recall them ever saying that. They conducted a few studies on it, but none determined it would be feasible in the near term.

The materials it would require don't even exist yet.

It would need to use carbon nanotubes and none with the requisite tensile strength have ever been fabricated.

The longest piece of that material of any tensile strength that has been fabricated is half a meter. For a space elevator, one would need a piece hundreds of kilometers long.

It would likely take many hundreds of billions and years to even develop the tech to where building it was an option, which would then be a huge additional expense.

DISCOVER magazine and Science News have both reported on it -- DISCOVER was the one that found the group of investors already organized once the material is ready. Then there's NASA itself: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2000/ast07sep_1/

As for years, NASA's info says "within 50" -- big slop factor.

Hundreds of billions for research and development??? Billions, maybe.

Building it? Estimates when Bush was first elected hovered around $12 billion. From the experience with the Space Station, I'd say double that.

 

[hotatlboi]

Hundreds of billions for research and development??? Billions, maybe.

Building it? Estimates when Bush was first elected hovered around $12 billion. From the experience with the Space Station, I'd say double that.

The simple fact is that no one knows how much the development and construction would be because the materials haven't been invented yet, so we have no idea how tough it will be to get them, and once we can make them to mass produce, refine, and construct things with them.

 

[MoltenRock III]

The simple fact is that no one knows how much the development and construction would be because the materials haven't been invented yet, so we have no idea how tough it will be to get them, and once we can make them to mass produce, refine, and construct things with them.

No kidding. Boeing's own 787 airplane that uses proven technology for their carbon fibre composites is 3 1/2 years behind schedule, (now in year 10 of development) and currently over-budget by a factor of 2, costing in excess of $22+ billion in R&D alone. This is a corporation simply building a piece of proven technology in an effort to save 15% to 20% in fuel and running costs over existing technology. Can you imagine how many years and trillions it would cost for developing carbon nanotubes spanning miles into space, and being used to transport materials that have never been transported before?

 

[evanrick]

file a police report if I think they stole their ill-gotten gains? that's pretty weak sauce....i must have hit pretty close to the mark to get such a benign comment.

it doesnt matter what I, its what people KNOW. voters are angry, they are angry that the rich and elected class, and are only going to cause their own suffering by following these tea partiers.

 

[Kulindahr]

Point 1: I haven't heard about this, Kulindahr. It's an interesting concept. (Remember Back to the Future?) Do you have any more information?

Here's the quickest to find:

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/anything-oil

Point 2: Apropos the energy crunch: I don't know why gasoline rations haven't been considered. It would reduce demand, (and thus, price) increase efficiency (people would carpool), and even improve our health (a lot of people would walk or bike instead of getting into their cars). Plus be better for the environment.

Exemptions would be made for people who rely on it for a living, e.g. truckers, farmers, and so on. Thoughts?

I wouldn't ration. If you want to play with regulating how much people use, I'd figure out a way to do a sliding scale -- the first X gallons you use are at the basic price, the next Y gallons at 20% higher, the next Z gallons at 50% higher....

 

[Kulindahr]

@ The tax cut people:

A passel of rich people, including Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates, have publicly come out and stated that 1) they don't need the money and 2) they think the tax cuts are imprudent. (It is; it's pure pork in it's most shameless form.)

And now, there's an organization of people like them who're pushing the idea that we should donate the tax cuts to a job-creating venture:

http://www.giveitbackforjobs.org/

Now here's an idea:

reinstate the taxes but let people designate where they want that extra level to go: housing, medical, infrastructure.... (invading foreign nations does NOT go on the list).

 

[Kulindahr]

No kidding. Boeing's own 787 airplane that uses proven technology for their carbon fibre composites is 3 1/2 years behind schedule, (now in year 10 of development) and currently over-budget by a factor of 2, costing in excess of $22+ billion in R&D alone. This is a corporation simply building a piece of proven technology in an effort to save 15% to 20% in fuel and running costs over existing technology. Can you imagine how many years and trillions it would cost for developing carbon nanotubes spanning miles into space, and being used to transport materials that have never been transported before?

For the space elevator, there's something to that, though the designs and materials for the 'cars' and modules already exist. The toughest part will be a transfer system for the cars, from up track to down track at the geosynch station.

But for the asteroid program, we already have everything except the propulsion units, and NASA is working on the one that would go for probes -- and maybe for asteroids; no one knows how it will scale up (though if we get fusion, regolith on an asteroid can be turned into a plasma rocket).

The space elevator is within reach, though barely; the asteroid program we should be doing now.

 

[Kulindahr]

file a police report if I think they stole their ill-gotten gains? that's pretty weak sauce....i must have hit pretty close to the mark to get such a benign comment.

it doesnt matter what I, its what people KNOW. voters are angry, they are angry that the rich and elected class, and are only going to cause their own suffering by following these tea partiers.

So if people "know", where are all the police reports? Where are all the arrests?

I agree that much of what they have is unearned income, or plunder via a financial system that punishes the poor for being poor and rewards the rich for being rich -- but that's no reason for using inaccurate language.

 

[JB3]

No kidding. Boeing's own 787 airplane that uses proven technology for their carbon fibre composites is 3 1/2 years behind schedule, (now in year 10 of development) and currently over-budget by a factor of 2, costing in excess of $22+ billion in R&D alone. This is a corporation simply building a piece of proven technology in an effort to save 15% to 20% in fuel and running costs over existing technology. Can you imagine how many years and trillions it would cost for developing carbon nanotubes spanning miles into space, and being used to transport materials that have never been transported before?

The 787 is a first-of-its-kind aircraft, so it doesn't matter that the technology has been around; its never ever been used in this way before for a commercial aircraft. That's a bad example to try and refute what Kuli is proposing.

 

[Kulindahr]

The 787 is a first-of-its-kind aircraft, so it doesn't matter that the technology has been around; its never ever been used in this way before for a commercial aircraft. That's a bad example to try and refute what Kuli is proposing.

Thank you.

The Saturn V was good enough for boosting an asteroid. The Russian heavy lifters would also do -- not that we'd want chemical propellants out there; the delta vee to get them there is not a good bargain given the delta vee they'd grant.

Heck, the rail guns developed thanks to Ronnie Ray-gun's "Star Wars" program would do fine for moving asteroids, though I'm doubtful of being able to set up one of those robotically yet. With a rocket, you can just butt one end against the mass and start pushing; if it's off a little, you back off and try again, but the rail gun would have to be anchored, then loaded and run (what, you ask, would be the fuel? pellets of the low-grade part of the asteroid, fired off at near-cometary velocities).

But by the time any probes have found and tagged some useful asteroids, we'll be a lot closer to having the rest. It's like with roads: we didn't wait for the interstate system before we crossed the Mississippi, we started with what we had -- or trains; we didn't wait till we had modern high-efficiency nearly-smokeless diesels, we built what we could.