"Off Main Street: The SpeakEasy/BackRoom"

Sure have! Outrageously delicious and outrageously expensive.   Special occaisions only like breakfast on my wife's birthday.   For lox, I usually head over to Zabars.

Eric O' got me looking into German restuarants in Manhattan.   I've tried just about every ethnic cuisine in NY but I can't remember going to a German restaurant.  Ok my bad.  But that can be remedied. 

There is a Beer Garden very close by

Eric O'  which one would you pick?  And what's your strategy to get home?  Waddle or wheel barrow?

http://www.heidelbergrestaurant.com/index.html

Scnitzel a la holstein??? Eggs, anchovies, and capers??   With an appetizer of Sulze, headcheese and pork in aspic,,  sourkraut and beer.    Yikes,  Open the windows in the car

http://zumschneider.com/

I'm gonna need a German dictionary.  Camembert?? Lingonberry??

Gebackener Camembert * $13
Baked camembert w/ lingonberry jam, fresh roll & house salad

Do they mean tripe?

Wammerl Rollbraten $18
Crispy-skinned pork belly stuffed w/ fresh herbs & semmel-brez’n in a dark beer gravy, served w/ Bavarian salad

Everything else kind of looks similar to Polish food.  I have been to a few of those.  Alot of them in the East Village.

When she heard me playing the music vids, she asked what it was about. After explaining, she mentioned that the Spice Girls had appeared and I should post one of theirs. D.T. may think she's a strong woman, but she ain't ever met my Wife!

Sooooooooooooo........

Sorry. I'm weak (plus,well, you know.......)

Eric'O, That's the kind of stuff I want to review.  I've probably watched some of these things before.   I think I want to stick with looking for the basic signs of the boom, bust cycle, and events which triggered mass awakening.   Sometimes all the pundits can so esoteric with their thesis that I think all you have to do sometimes is look out your window and take a walk down main street to see what's going on. 

I learned alot about economics and human behavior sitting at the beach.   Today, the sea's were rough.   Barely swimmable unless you are an expert Ocean swimmer.   High winds, choppy waters, high sea's and strong undercurrent.   I went in the water, went out past the white wash where the waves were breaking and came back in and said, NOPE.   Too dangerous and easy to get tired.   By 9:30am the lifeguards were already doing rescues.  Once it started it didn't end.  One after the other.   They had yellow flags out, more lifeguard stands than I've ever seen, lifeguards driving up and down the beach getting people out of the water who weren't swimming between the green flags where lifeguards could keep a watch on you. 

Despite all the signs that something was wrong, people kept going in the water and getting into trouble.   Really unbelievable.  If their were no lifeguards, there would have certainly been alot of dead people washing up on the beach.  

My summary:

People ignore signs.    They ignore the pleading of the lifeguards, ignore the flags, ignore what you could visually see and feel. .     Total and absolute arrogance not to mention putting your life at risk and making somebody else take care of you.

They do the same thing they always do not realizing or registering something is different and they resented somebody telling them what to do.  I know what I'm doing    Sounds alot like people who don't want to buy metals.

Despite others making the mistake of getting carried out by the undertow, people continue to  wrongly assess their abilities or probably not all, and made the same mistake.  Some of them went right back in the water after being rescued.  What's wrong with humans?  Lifeguards aren't a welfare system.  They are there if you should have an accident.    

It wasn't hard for me to assess that the ocean was better than me today and respect, even awe was called for.   Know when you are overhead and look to experts when necessary isn't a sign of weakness.  It's a sign that you have a brain. 

Seems like some people have a hard time of taking responsibility for themselves and assessing a situation.    When these same behaviors are applied to finances and economics,  trouble!

Well said Peckerwood.   

Life vests don't work if you don't use them.

People are so used to having someone else look out for them and determining the risk they can't seem to think for themselves...everything is disneylanded. They don't get that there are real risks with real consequences in nature. People with no experience and no fitness whitewater rafting, climbing around waterfalls, walking on the edge of cliffs, mountain climbing, jumping from perfectly good airplanes....the list goes on...

BAM, I agree how things play out will be any ones guess.   However, while the dollar being the Worlds Currency under Bretton Woods, is not the worlds' first reserve currency.  Roman Denari, Chinese Liang, Greece Drachma, British Sterling.  No puny sized civilizations A map of the Roman or British Empire should bear this out.   True Poland, Argentina were small in comparison.  

However, debasement of currencies has been going on for thousands of years.  And common to all is a breaking point where the average person wants to get out of fiat as fast as they can accompaniment by civil unrest and other assorted social issues.  While we don't know the end game, I can't help wonder at what stage of deterioation we are in by simply looking outside our windows.  DBean looking out her window and no more small mom and pop stores all taken out by large conglomerates.   China ghost cities an unparalleled signs of a bust and a pocket of no velocity and deflation.   Pining deciding that he can't keep up with the guy across the street on welfare fixing his boat.   Greece on the verge of bankruptcy, public unrest, and as far as I could tell last time I did the research people were looking for more fiat, not gold or silver. 

The crisis of confidence doesn't seem to have  happened in mass as of yet.  But there are definitely signs of deteriation.   The average human can't detact the under tow and by the time they do, there might be any life guards on duty to rescue them. 

...I can't refute any of them.   How do we even know the pattern in which a crisis of confidence will occur?   Currency block by currency block?  Country by country? All at once?    I'm not certain it will be as simple as: fiat -> PM.

I would add another factor then:  the interconnectedness of modern international markets, combined with the technology to switch currencies and locations damn near instantaneously. 

Again, anyone's guess as to how that affects the crisis.   Could have a vortex of currency switching as institutionals jump from one to the other, the masses blindly following.   How will countries respond (see the Swiss and their 1.2 Euro peg)?   Perhaps that delays a switch to the metals.   On the other hand, peoples' ability to monitor monetary flows, almost in real time, will change their response and affect the tipping point in an offsetting fashion.

Perhaps the metals simply get jumped on (electronically) quite rapidly, resulting in the proverbial moon shot.  

I cannot be sure, or back this up with anything, but it seems to me that the average unaware person feels 'safer' today (in modern times) with their supposed ability to move money electronically, than people did in the past.   They are more liquid (physically) in a sense.   As any PM investor (and any Spaniard/Italian/Greek) knows, the reality on the ground is that the people are LESS liquid right now than they ever were (due to bank controls of electronic money).   But that doesn't change what I think is the perception.

The electronic nature of currency has changed people's relationship to it.   There is much less knowledge about what is money than in the past, and the changing nature of that relationship will likely have an affect on peoples' reaction and reaction time.     

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