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Originally posted by out2theblack:
How will You get by ?

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Originally posted by out2theblack:
So this is US , on the raggedy edge...

Hyperinflation , Economic Depression Ahead ;

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How will You get by

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Originally posted by Khyron:
I'd start by not bitching when the government tries to save the banks that have my money.

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BILL MOYERS:
On Monday, the people rose up and Congress backed down, sending the bailout to defeat. But then the lobbyists rushed in with a brinks truck of bribes, and this afternoon Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson got $700 billion dollars to save the system that his crowd on Wall Street had exploited to enrich themselves while plunging the country to the edge of catastrophe.

The bailout offers almost no help for homeowners, or equity for taxpayers in banks that are being thrown a lifeline...it turns our Secretary of the Treasury into Caesar Augustus and plunders democracy with tax breaks for Hollywood studios, Samoan sweat shops, Alaskan fishermen, rum merchants, makers of toy arrows and giveaways to big oil. All this on the very day the government reports that another 160,000 people lost their jobs last month — that's the most in five and a half years.

No wonder that Congress today resembled Monty Python's ministry of silly walks — one palm open to the lobbyists, the other holding their nose against the stinking odor of a bill everyone said they didn't want — while rushing for the airport to go home and tell the voters how important it is for them to be re-elected — so they can come back and clean up the mess they just made.

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Originally posted by Khyron:
I was referring to all of those people who were against government bail-out on principle, since they (understandably) want the greedy corporate fat-cats to come crashing down burning, but apparently fail to see that the entire system would come crashing down with them.

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from "Roots of the Crisis: How did Wall Street get into this mess?"

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The original plan crafted by Treasury would authorize the department to spend up to $700 billion to buy MBSes and other "toxic" debt and thereby remove them from banks' balance sheets. With the "bad loans" off the books, the banks would become sound. Because it was assumed that the MBS market was "illiquid," the government would become the buyer of last resort for these products. There is a certain simple elegance to the plan.

Except that no market is truly illiquid. It just isn't liquid at the price you want to sell. This summer, Merrill Lynch unloaded a bunch of bad debt at 22 cents on the dollar. There are likely plenty of buyers for the banks' bad debt, just not at the price the banks would prefer. Enter the government, which clearly intends to purchase MBSes at some premium above the market price. That was the nature of the bailout that failed on Monday.

Congressional leaders have vowed to bring a new proposal for a vote, possibly as soon as Thursday, proving yet again that Washington is fertile ground for really bad ideas. But with the market rebounding—as of this writing the Dow was up almost 300 points—and public opposition hardening, signs are emerging that banks are starting to clean house. The crisis may have already peaked. Of course, Congress' ability to further screw this up can't be overstated.

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Originally posted by SergeantX:

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Originally posted by Khyron:
I'd start by not bitching when the government tries to save the banks that have my money.

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Yeah! We should all just take our ass-fucking and appreciate that it's for our own good!

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BILL MOYERS:
On Monday, the people rose up and Congress backed down, sending the bailout to defeat. But then the lobbyists rushed in with a brinks truck of bribes, and this afternoon Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson got $700 billion dollars to save the system that his crowd on Wall Street had exploited to enrich themselves while plunging the country to the edge of catastrophe.

The bailout offers almost no help for homeowners, or equity for taxpayers in banks that are being thrown a lifeline...it turns our Secretary of the Treasury into Caesar Augustus and plunders democracy with tax breaks for Hollywood studios, Samoan sweat shops, Alaskan fishermen, rum merchants, makers of toy arrows and giveaways to big oil. All this on the very day the government reports that another 160,000 people lost their jobs last month — that's the most in five and a half years.

No wonder that Congress today resembled Monty Python's ministry of silly walks — one palm open to the lobbyists, the other holding their nose against the stinking odor of a bill everyone said they didn't want — while rushing for the airport to go home and tell the voters how important it is for them to be re-elected — so they can come back and clean up the mess they just made.

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At least one journalist gets it.

SergeantX

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Originally posted by Khyron:

I'd start by not bitching when the government tries to save the banks that have my money.

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Originally posted by out2theblack:
How will You get by ?

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Originally posted by out2theblack:
So this is US , on the raggedy edge...

Hyperinflation , Economic Depression Ahead ;

How will You get by ?


"It's an extraordinary new world, and survival is simply a question of
whether we can reach deep enough to find the extraordinary in
ourselves."
~~Morgan Martin, "Earth 2"

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Originally posted by out2theblack:

How will You get by ?

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Many say that the Dow is going down to 8,000. So there will be more pain and volatility ahead. Stay away from trading stocks, unless you want to throw some risk capital at some stocks that have been beaten down. No matter when you buy, it's still a risk to go even lower though.

I like CDs. Find a local bank that is strong, and isn't too involved with home mortgages (do some DD), and then park your money in short-term CDs. You'll get around 4.5% now, and it's FDIC insured.

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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Many say that the Dow is going down to 8,000. So there will be more pain and volatility ahead. Stay away from trading stocks, unless you want to throw some risk capital at some stocks that have been beaten down. No matter when you buy, it's still a risk to go even lower though.

I like CDs. Find a local bank that is strong, and isn't too involved with home mortgages (do some DD), and then park your money in short-term CDs. You'll get around 4.5% now, and it's FDIC insured.

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I second that.

Guy at work said "There's got to be a way of making money offa this thing."

My response: "First thing: don't lose it."

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:


...Just hold and hope for better days. And buy some damn silver.

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Originally posted by rue:
I have an Ethiopian friend - he came through a lot of hardship - revolution, crackdown, jail, countrywide instability and starvation - and I asked him "Gold or mattress ?". He said "Not gold".

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Out2B - The situations in Biafra and Ethiopia, and likely, soon to be Somalia, got to the point of a total social collapse, and in that particular case, more immediately useful assets spike in value, over and above precious metals because there is no remaining social or material infrastructure to make use of them beyond as a medium of exchange.

In a situation THAT awful, one has to look to what is valueable as an immediately useful commodity, stuff like tools, fuel, ammunition, canned goods, booze, toilet paper, what you call your basic beans & bullets scenario.

And skill has it's place even then, for if the light truck you're using as a technical to defend your little scrap of land will not start cause of a mechanical problem, you're in a world of hurt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(fighting_vehicle)
(Remember to add final parenthesis manually.)

I don't see a total social collapse happening here, but should things come to that, starvation is gonna do for more folk than bullets when it comes right down to it - and you can't eat ammo, although it can be useful in producing something you can, of course.

Since food is a perishable good, longterm storage is a bit of an issue, and in a situation that nasty you just don't wanna part with it, the best longterm durable good you could invest in for a situation that's gonna get really ugly ?

Good tools and the skills to use them - believe me, in a crisis, you can name your price, and because of the value of that skill, folk tend to be unwilling to harm you, or even allow others to do so.

I find it highly unlikely it'd get that bad here, but tools and spam ain't never a bad investment, yanno.

-Frem

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Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
...we could always be like the Russians in Siberia.

Stock up on Vodka and bullets.

Thats the only currency they use over there.

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Originally posted by rue:


DUH !

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Yeah , we need more immigrants like that...

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Originally posted by rue:


Yeah, well, OTTB doesn't have much else to add.

I sense a certain poverty of mentation in him.

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Originally posted by rue:
That's STILL all you've got ? That's your best and only argument ?

BTW - your interest in my mattress smacks of desperation. Sexual desperation. You need to get a life. Maybe pal up with Rap. He's not very discriminating, and neither are you.

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Originally posted by rue:
So, to try to get this train back on the track - OTB - do you have anything to say about the value of gold as it relates to the money supply ?

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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Yeah , we need more immigrants like that...

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You jackass. The guy is a Senior Staff Chemist. Would rather have more of him than of you.

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