Chris Martenson's 'The Crash Course' (short video series) is still one of the best explanations out there of what's really going on, and where we're all heading over the next 15-20 years. It's very well put together IMHO.

@ xfiltrate: Chapter 12: How Much Is A Trillion? underscores what you said about the height of a 1Tr stack of $1,000 bills, although CM reckons it would reach 67.9 miles (not 63 mi) high. Maybe he was stacking used, soiled and crumpled bills instead? But hey, who's counting?!
.

Crash Course
 

Keith1954, thanks for the info I just watched the accelerated version of
Chris Martenson's Crash Course.... very informative....
A great, easy to understand, course that only takes an hour to watch
with some excellent suggestions for you economic survival at the end.

The 'Accelerated' Crash Course | Peak Prosperity

Xfiltrate

A couple of more telling statements from those in the know:-

"A great industrial nation is controlled by it's system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world--no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men." — President Woodrow Wilson


"Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws". - Mayer Amschel Rothchild

Well, OK then, one more for luck:-

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." — Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President

Greece, Muppets, Madoff, Pay day loans, Mortgages ...............
 

............................ all the issues of the title of this post get a mention in the linked academic research.
Does Finance Benefit Society? by Luigi Zingales :: SSRN

Yep, it is the longest link in the world!
Anyone who doesn't want to read some 40 pages of academic research could just go to the table 1 included at the end of the paper to see how things have been over the past few years.

We, joe-soap-general-public are the muppets of this post title, as labelled by bank employees not very long ago.

To paraphrase the thread title, "when, and how, will the financial crisis end?"

There is a solution
 

Some countries are more aware than others of the topic of this thread.

One solution is up for consideration as per the link below.
Only the front, headline, page needs to be read for those who have even a slight understanding, although the devil will be in the detail and the banking fraternity will fight this to the death (because of the title I have given to this post).
VOLLGELDINITIATIVE SCHWEIZ: English -

Ted you are so right. The money market work's on the principal that. As the population grows more debit can be made. The greater debit than before will support the debit that is in place now.


Now lets move on. I see on a BBC news item that there is a bug that is restance to antibiotics. In the way that they have to use two very strong antibiotic to kill it off, and then it's not all ways successful. We are on our way to some kind of super bug. Hell I wish I could find the report on the BBC. Sounds to me as if it has come out of the Horizon team. What this is all about. Is if people are dying off with out clearing their debit. And there are less people to take on loans. The banking system, or the money system is going to collapse. Well that's not quite true. There will always be money. When you have the, have's and the have not's.


But as you say. It's people, there are too many of them. That and corruption.


John933

I read that article... Nature always finds a way.

It's alright saying that. But nature don't pick and choose what species is going to stay, and what is going to go. If any thing, it's going to be by size, what it eats, and where it lives. Humans are the wrong size and can't feed them self's unless Tesco is open seven day's a week. Nothing lives for ever.
Hell I'm not all gloom and doom. It's not as if the world is going to end a week next Tuesday.
John933

It is interesting that the quote you use is from this thread 4 years ago.
Has nothing changed for you over the past 4 years?

Regarding the point about population control, the UN has the policy "Agenda 21" dating from 1992 so there is no need for concern.
There was some recent reference to the matter in the other pub thread on "global warming"; the item about Malthus' theories.

I was just reading through the post and that one caught my eye. About my self. I'm retired and have been for some time. Every thing is paid for. Own my own house, Have no bills out standing. So all I need to do is pay for service's I use, plus food and drink. And that don't come to much. So money is not a problem to me.


What douse concern me is the generation that is coming up be hind me, and the new one being born now. How they are going to manage I have no idea. Being lucky enough to be a child of the 60's. I could just pull up the ladder as in I'm all right Jack. Or try and help. But after saying that, there are some people who you just can't help. After being the bank of Dad. The children I have helped, are really no better off with the extra I gave. They complain about the bill's they have to pay. Then tell me about a phone or i pad or some game consul brought on plastic. Trying to tell them to get only the thing's you need. Not the thing's you want. Is like banging your head against a brick wall. Trying to tell them that the less deit you have, mean's that more of the money that comes through the door is yours.


It's a strange old world.
John933

I'm in much the same boat.

Over at the global warming part of the HUBB pub there has been some recent conversation on the same general lines.

All one can do with the kids, as a blood relative, is give them as good an education as possible, ensure they learn to smile and send them on their way at the age of majority.

And I do mean an education rather than the indoctrination practiced in UK establishments these days.

"How are they going to manage?" - one of my very first employers said that to me, and he was referring to me at the time.
But, expectations are extremely high nowadays, for no good reason.

Another year - has anything changed?
 

A review of Cypriot banking, based on "the historic haircut" imposed there in 2012-2013, written about a week ago.
Revisiting the Greatest Crash in History |

For those who can't abide blogs, here's the executive summary:-
Conclusion

The modern debt money system has a limited life span and it cannot stand still. The problem is that with every iteration of the boom-bust cycle, more real wealth is destroyed and more obstacles to the creation of real wealth are erected.
Hapless governments desperately try to squeeze blood out of a turnip by taxing and regulating the private sector to death, while central banks keep promoting monetary inflation. At some point the limit to this game will be reached – and the longer it takes to get to that point, the more devastating the eventual denouement will be.
We don’t see it as our task to offer a solution – with respect to that, we can only reiterate that a return to an unhampered free market system is the only way out, painful as it may initially prove to be. We know however that modern-day governments will simply not go down this path, as it would involve a vast loss of power for them.
All we can do is point out the risks, so that people can at least prepare on an individual level. A major lesson everybody should take to heart from the Cyprus experience is this: when the next crisis strikes, do not believe any of the promises uttered by government or central bank officials. You will be lied to in the critical moments, and you could stand to lose a lot if you believe the lies.
You don’t have to take our word for it: just ask anyone in Greece or Cyprus what they got for believing their deposits were safe.

+ the blog offers this succient summary of the Cypriot stock exchange situation over the past few years:
In order to fully grasp the extent of this devastation, consider the following: had you bought the market after it had declined by 90%, you would quickly have lost another 90%. Had you bought after it had declined by 90% twice, you would just as quickly have lost almost another 90%. So since 2007, this market has seen three consecutive declines of 90%. As far as we know this is unparalleled. If there had been a stock market in the Roman Empire, it might have done something similar around AD 400 – AD 500.

Where are things now, 4 years into this thread?
 

So, “is there a general economic crisis, and if so, is it planned.”


Pulling together the broad themes of the last 4 years of this thread as we enter 2016:
Early replies to this thread were pretty much on topic and, thereafter, the discourse drifted around in various posts covering aspects of the pursuit of money, methods of government, what constitutes the economy, commodity prices especially the price of oil, the BRICs (major developing countries – check that out) and other matters pertaining to both macro and micro economics.


What has been going on over the last 70 years or thereabouts?
In bullet points:
The developed world put up an agreement to deal with their affairs post-WW2.
This was done while that war was still highly active but the big players in the war still found time to look forward and agree on a plan.
This is known as the Bretton Woods agreement, named after the location of the meeting in the USA.

By and large this worked fine, with improving economies for most folk during the post WW2 period, through the 50s and 60s, until:-

In 1971 the USA government of the day abandoned the “gold standard” for their currency, in effect declaring the US dollar to be “fiat” in nature.

Thereafter, and over a number of years, the private banks were de-regulated which, in effect, permitted them to move away from routine high street banking practice and to engage in “investment” banking including the use of those monies deposited by their customers.
“Investment” in this sense of the word includes speculation which does not directly contribute to the economic well-being of a nation, or of it's people.
Also, see “fractional reserve banking” for further reference.

Development of computer technology, including algorithms for trading, have accelerated the global progress of this form of investment, to a point where investing in the real economy has been neglected in the pursuit of money for the sake of money.
Reference terminology:
Hedge funds
Derivatives
Credit default swaps
Exchange traded funds (one of the latest by the way)
Take your pick.

Concurrent with the deregulation of banking, credit became “easy”, in broad terms inflation roared away but economies still had every appearance of being “sound”. For each case of some form of retrenchment in the economic miracle (just one of the terminologies in use) there would be another area of expanding economic activity, whether measured within individual countries, across continents or worldwide.
Examples:
The BRIC countries

Now, it is common reporting to learn of many cases whereby it is impossible to repay debt (for every creditor there is a debtor).
In other words the debt burden is increasing faster than the means to pay off that debt.
Numerous examples occur, across personal cases, regions or nation states.
Examples:
Greece, Puerto Rico, The Ukraine, Venezuela are all current.

Where are things now? part 2
 

It is not too clear to me if there was ever clarity within this thread about what constitutes the real economy, differentiated from the pursuit of money as an end in itself – the latter are what are sometimes referred to as rentier societies and individuals.


It is the latter that is outlined below in the context of the modern world that is moving toward a globalised economy.


There are a few concepts about the situation described below; any or all of these can be followed up and found to have evidence for their inherent truth OR the fact that they are under consideration by various authorities, academics and others including those who comment on economics.
Incidentally, the logic of the flow below may not be fully in accordance with the pure principles of logic for reasons of brevity – but economics is far from logical in any case, dealing with essential interactions between human beings.

The current system of financing used throughout most of the world is a Ponzi scheme. As such it is a fraud; both a long term and an all-embracing fraud. Those who are not convinced of this probably should read no further – if you haven't experienced it or otherwise arrived at the widespread evidence for this statement by now then continue as you are, but this statement follows on directly from my last post concerning the inability to repay debt.

1. This Ponzi scheme has been in place at least since the Bank of England was established in the late 17th century as a means of privatising the money supply to the government of that day. Since then, it has grown and has come to be used throughout much of the world's systems.
2. This Ponzi scheme is on a path toward which it cannot be sustained; the well known “hockey stick” graph. The exponential growth graph cannot be sustained indefinitely, as nature itself has demonstrated in many examples of exponential growth.
3. Just as every other Ponzi scheme collapses, eventually, so the current approaches used for the supply of money have to end and be replaced with a system that is more sustainable. All of the current monetary and fiscal ploys in play are merely shuffling the deck chairs on the deck of the Titanic (to adopt a metaphor for a moment). The situation in Greece is a case in point.
4. The longer the time that elapses until the Ponzi scheme ceases and is replaced with a better system the worse the economic pain will be; the bigger will be the fall from the hockey stick graph of debt.
5. Fiat money: a fiat currency is defined as that which has no backing such as the earlier gold standard and similar methods of establishing value. All monetary systems currently in use in the developed world are fiat in nature; ever since the USA abandoned their gold standard in the early 1970s (in particular, in its role as the reserve currency of the world).
6. There is no example in history of a fiat currency remaining in use indefinitely; sooner or later each has collapsed via a loss of confidence by those with access to that currency.
7. Nevertheless, with modern methods of communication and education there is some potential to think that a fiat currency could be sustained; this is arguable but that argument does take place today among academic researchers, commentators et al.
8. An alternative would be to move toward another method of providing a measurement of the value of money, whether that be by the use of traditional gold or some other commodity (oil has been mentioned by some).
9. One method to establish “faith” in a fiat currency would be to have a single currency for the whole world; the evidence coming from the short history of the Euro plainly shows that this is impossible to achieve (Events in Greece, Cyprus, etc all show how fiat the Euro really is, even after making due allowance for any number of other issues related to the overall operation of the Euro; more deck chair re-arrangement).
10. Because of the previous statement, the practical solution must lie with nation states for any foreseeable length of time into the future.
11. Very recently, some nation states have been addressing their own situation with regard to their own currency; Ecuador, for instance, has adopted a system of electronic/digital money in a similar manner to Bitcoin but relevant only to their own nation.
12. Switzerland may hold a referendum to decide if the Ponzi scheme outlined above is to be abandoned, at least in part. This is a very significant development if only because it indicates that enough of the population of that country has developed sufficient interest in, and understanding of, their own financing system to want to instigate change. See an earlier post above for a link to the Swiss concept.
    

So, regarding the thread question:
Yes, there is an ongoing economic crisis which has been building for a considerable time – we (each nation that is) are somewhere along the hockey stick graph and each nation will have to find its' own solution to have a sustainable level of debt.
Some individuals are in the same position as are organisations below the level of nation states.

Part 2 of the question:
It doesn't really matter whether it is pre-planned or we just happen to be where we are today; we are where we are in any case.

World Economic Forum 2016
 

I believe there are 8 major themes to this years' jamboree in Davos.

Up now:
Financial apocalypse: Ex BIS chief economist William White warns of epic debt tsunami worse than 2007