Friday, February 1, 2008

Welcome to Sharon's friends


Hi, I just noticed that my friend and partner in crime Sharon Astyk put a link to us here in her most recent post at Casaubon's Book and her newest blog, Depletion and Abundance. So I thought I'd welcome you if you join us from there.

The Automatic Earth is a blog run by my friend Stoneleigh and me, Ilargi. We will certainly write on a wide(r) range of topics in the near future, but for now our focus is mainly on finance. The reason for that will be obvious once you take some time to go through our daily posts. There are earth-shifting events taking place in the world of money that will affect us all, and most will not be pleasant.

And no, we are not here to give investment advice or to tell you how to get rich or richer. We simply try to provide you with the information that hopefully will help to get you away from financial dire straits. Something that these days is not so easy, trust me on that one. The credit crisis that shakes through our economies will leave little standing once it's done. We will all have to make significant adjustments in our ways of life, our hopes and dreams, and our perception of the world out there.

The main issue that we wish to transfer to all of you is to get out of debt, as much as you possibly can. Other than that, draw your own conclusions after reading the material we provide.

We post a daily Debt Rattle, which is a sampling of finance articles, published in newspapers and on the internet, and we provide a concise introductory commentary for most, though not all, of them. Other than the Debt Rattles, we write articles on things we think need some more emphasis. If you feel it's a bit too technical, don't worry, it's a learning curve, just as Sharon's topics are.

Despite the somewhat grim message we have to offer, we hope you will find some valuable words here.

Kindly,

Stoneleigh and Ilargi.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like things are coming together for your blog. ! Congratulations !

Nice intro and background to the site. I'm putting a plug for your site where ever I can.

An incredible time to be awake.

John(Samsara)

Peter said...

Hi,

Sharon sent me-nice to be welcomed by a Paul Simon lyric-he's a favorite. From art to economics, isn't it singularly amazing that, while "the revolution will not be televised", it (the collapse, and renewal), is being described and reported and blogged about in such amazing, and sometimes erudite, detail? Look forward to reading, thanks for your efforts. In general, is there any reason not to use bancruptcy to eliminate debt, when the situation says it's the "only" way?
Peter

Ilargi said...

Peter, it's not that easy, for two reasons. One, new US bankruptcy laws make that path a lot harder and more time consuming. Two, for a lot of people their main debt is their mortgage loan. We simply don't feel there are a few more years left to resolve this situation, that time is of the essence.

Ilargi said...

Samsara,

good to see you

as you may notice, we picked it up a notch or two from our Oil Drum days. no choice, really

keep coming back and don't be stranger, now, ya hear!

Anonymous said...

About the get out of debt thing. Last time we had stagflation, people who got into debt made out like bandits. If you are paying a reasonable size 5% fixed mortgage in shrinking currency, with inflation at 15% having carried rents through the roof, how are you not sitting pretty?

Greyzone said...

The stagflation of the 1970s was fundamentally inflationary.

This time we are in a fundamentally deflationary period.

If you don't understand why then you are exactly at the right place. Stoneleigh and ilargi will make it crystal clear why this is deflationary.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for clipping these articles together and commenting on them. I am still trying to wrap my brain around the whole thing and understand it, to the extent that something this complex CAN be understood. And I did come here from Sharon's blogs.

I also am still not crystal clear why this time it will be fundementally deflationary, rather than fundementally both-inflationary-and-deflationary. But I'm working on it. We'll see, and slowing improve our understanding