quote:

Originally posted by occrider Absolutely necessary. Let's get one thing straight, I could care less what happens to equities ... the only thing i care about is restoring normal lending in the money markets. But TARP is a day late and a dollar short imo. The fed really fucked up by letting Lehman fail. It resulted in the prime market money market fund dropping below a buck and it asserted that ANY firm can fail. That resulted in a huge flight of safety of instittutional investors to treasury backed funds. I see nothing attractive in the equities market for the simple reason that I don't see how large multinational companies can continue to fund day to day operations under reasonable rates via commercial lending under current conditions.

How can we as taxpayers pay for this AND a two front occupational war? This is going to inflate our currency and rob us of our already decrepit savings. But the paradox, crisis's like these force people to save, it's a strange relationship. But anyways, do you expect the value of the dollar to continue its decline, especially when $700 billion is added to the money supply, after they've already put in hundreds of billions more in the last year? Or are the other currencies of the world also losing value and so our dollar value relative to other currencies won't change much?

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quote:

Originally posted by occrider Let me put it in different terms ... I have never even thought about writing a letter to my congressperson urging drastic deficit spending to do whatever it takes to avert a complete financial catastrophe ever. If you see my postings in the PDD I am a free market economist and I abhor the thought of government intervention. But I sent an email to my congressperson yesterday because I am that afraid.

Beat you by a week. I guess this is what we get for letting only the idiots contact our Congressmen and women.

BTW, saw a story on Digg today in the top 10 about how the Dow drop today shows that the asset purchase (a/k/a "bailout") isn't working.

First, it's not a bailout.

Second, the dragging of their feet by your inept congressmen is a big contributor to this crisis really catching fire. If you have a House Rep that shot this down on Monday and voted in favor on Friday - shoot them. That may be going a bit far...sorry, but what do you expect? It didn't change much in tenor, just added pork, but took too many days to pass to make the difference intended (like 9 days rather than 5). Buffett compared it to a Financial Pearl Harbor and as an analogy, wasn't far off. In this day and age, to wait that long to respond to such a rapidly developing topic is fatal. You have to be right the first time - it's that simple (and dangerously fatal).

BTW, if you don't think that those extra days mattered, try investing or trading to learn how much 4 days of international markets can matter. Or more importantly, try being a bank and borrowing money at LIBOR rates on those days and note what your difference is when multipying 1/2 a point when borrowing millions of dollars.

___________________
"Go back to bed america your government is in control
Here's American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it,
Watch these picturary retards bang their fuckin' skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom,
Here you go America you are free to do as we tell you
We want your soul
Your cash, your house, your phone, your cash, your house, your life" -Adam Freeland - We Want Your Soul

quote:

Originally posted by Krypton But anyways, do you expect the value of the dollar to continue its decline, especially when $700 billion is added to the money supply, after they've already put in hundreds of billions more in the last year? Or are the other currencies of the world also losing value and so our dollar value relative to other currencies won't change much?

yeah man, the aussie dollar has dropped 20c against the US$ in only a few months. i dont get it, if you guys are really fucked, how can we be even more fucked? we were almost in parity not too long ago.

i hope we like butt-fucking coz i see capitalism's todger heading in our direction!

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN our pollies keep telling us we (aust) are in a good position to weather the storm, are we being lied to?

WaMu kept saying they were fine, and, well...

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN thanks for the link. to be honest i was too busy today to even notice that the reserve had gone for a full percentage point! all my money is tied up in real estate so i really should pay more attention! so, is the whole world at risk because of the domino effect that began in the US, or we at risk because we have gone down a similar road re lending? our pollies keep telling us we (aust) are in a good position to weather the storm, are we being lied to?

You can tell how fucked you are by how active your central bank is. The Fed is pulling all the tools out of its tool chest and is now going to enter the commercial paper market to ease the liquidity crunch:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?...KSZk&refer=home

Sooner or later, it will run out of things it can do so I hope to fuck this frees up the money markets. What's going on in Iceland is a microcosm as to what might happen elsewhere. It's currency devalued 30% in a DAY. Its sovereign debt rating just got downgraded. It is a country that very well might go bankrupt. I just saw this morning that its seeking a loan from Russia and it pegged its currency. Absolutely insane.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?...OEf4&refer=home

Of course Iceland's banks are extremely leveraged ... but there needs to be a worldwide response to this crisis. The ECB, the EU governments, the US, and Japan need to coordinate a global response. Both fiscal stimulus and monetary policy.

Divided, Europe may be more fucked than the US since the ECB has to coordinate policies across multiple countries and may have trouble orchestrating combined fiscal stimulus packages. Here are a list of European banks as a percentage of GDP to their respective countries

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/61d7e148-...?nclick_check=1

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Retro ...

quote:

Originally posted by Krypton How can we as taxpayers pay for this AND a two front occupational war? This is going to inflate our currency and rob us of our already decrepit savings. But the paradox, crisis's like these force people to save, it's a strange relationship. But anyways, do you expect the value of the dollar to continue its decline, especially when $700 billion is added to the money supply, after they've already put in hundreds of billions more in the last year? Or are the other currencies of the world also losing value and so our dollar value relative to other currencies won't change much?

I'm not very close to the currency markets so I'd rather not opine too much on it. Traditionally the dollar is the flight to safety but what's safe in this environment? Certainly not the Euro. I have heard from a few friends that the Japanese yen is relatively save however.

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Retro ...

quote:

Originally posted by occrider but what's safe in this environment?

Starbucks giftcards from Costco. The one near me was selling $100 face value for $75.

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quote:

Originally posted by Brizzo "It's all gone Pete Tong" is actually a phrase in Europe, England I believe. Pretty sure that's where Pete Tong got his DJ name from as well.

The infamous Rojam ID. 14 years, 9 months and counting...

Last edited by fbgdavidson on Oct-07-2008 at 14:47

I am now sufficiently scared.

quote:

Originally posted by Sunsnail I am now sufficiently scared.

good. now I can make money...

When I worked at my first company they had a 401k. The people said for every week you don't contribute you will have to work an extra month or something like that. I don't remember them telling me about situations like what is happening now.

401k is a roulette wheel spinning for 60 years and your bet is black or red. They don't let you bet on 0, and 00

___________________
ATB -Let u go
Iio - Rapture(riva edit)
Dj Encore - I see right through you
Lasgo - something

The best vocal tunes on LI RIP(2001-2002)

quote:

Originally posted by Trancealot When I worked at my first company they had a 401k. The people said for every week you don't contribute you will have to work an extra month or something like that. I don't remember them telling me about situations like what is happening now. 401k is a roulette wheel spinning for 60 years and your bet is black or red. They don't let you bet on 0, and 00

Time mitigates risk.

The only reason I'de ever contribute to a 401k is if the company matched my contributions, and I'de only choose a bond fund or something. The 401k my company had were Fidelity retirement funds, where you chose the year you wanted to retire, and that was your fund. Those really are a joke. I only want the company matches.

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quote:

Originally posted by Krypton Time mitigates risk. The only reason I'de ever contribute to a 401k is if the company matched my contributions, and I'de only choose a bond fund or something. The 401k my company had were Fidelity retirement funds, where you chose the year you wanted to retire, and that was your fund. Those really are a joke. I only want the company matches.

Yeah my previous place of work had fidelity..

you needed to work for atleast 1 year. After than you can join the 401k. Then after 1.5 years they would of contributed 6%. You think this would of worked out for me if I stayed even though I left had which had nothing to do with the 401k. All I recall is for each quarter statement I received I was always going down a little and this was in 05. If I still did it up to now would I have lost alot of it even with them contributing??I was invested in minimal risk as I was young which they advised me.

___________________
ATB -Let u go
Iio - Rapture(riva edit)
Dj Encore - I see right through you
Lasgo - something

The best vocal tunes on LI RIP(2001-2002)