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Brian
Posts:2210
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| 10/09/2008 1:55 PM |
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1) So the Dow drops to 8600. What's the big deal?
The Nikkei went from 40,000 in 1989 to now 9,200 (nearly 20 years later). The people in Japan are hardly starving. They are going on just fine.
2) We give $10 billion to Pakistan in 7 years to fight terrorism and Americans are complaining of corruption in the country. The generals are lining their pockets.
We give $85 billion + $40 billion = $125 billion to AIG in one month. Don't you think there will be corruption?
$1.8 trillion to the financial industry in a few months. There will be massive corruption.
(1 billion is one thousand millions. 1 trillion is one thousand billions)
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It's time adjust our priorities. We certainly have become a nation of whiners where any little loss is seen as a calamity. We can't let out children out of sight for one minute. We are living in fear of everything. That's no way to live.
Better to take a deep breath, step back a little and rediscover what is truly important.
I view the financial crisis as a blessing in disguise. It will provide the deep cleansing we needed.
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jakob
Posts:473
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| 10/09/2008 2:11 PM |
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Agreed, it's not the end of the world. People are just going to have to work a few more years before retiring. I love having geezers around the workplace. I always seem to learn the most from them.
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tpc
Posts:498
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| 10/09/2008 2:22 PM |
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Whats the problem- Have cash and have been sitting in the weeds for a long time waiting for this kind of an opportunity.
Happening quicker than i expected but these are exciting times. Dear God-I want to thank the repubs for this opportunity that you and they are about to present to me.
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NCgirl
Posts:206
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| 10/09/2008 2:44 PM |
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I agree too. Was at the playground the other day having this same conversation with one of the dads. in a way it will be good for our country. Get back to the basics , friends, family, home. The big cars ,the big houses, and $200 jeans have run us all down one way or another.
I'm over 30 but under 40. Interesting times ahead, will just have embrace it and make it work. |
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HighRiser
Posts:41
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| 10/09/2008 2:56 PM |
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| Brian, you are mostly repeating what you said in your "retiring baby boomers in trouble" thread. I won't repeat my post from there, but this is not a problem with the stock market, it is a problem with the real economy. We need to be confident we can deal with it though or we will quickly slip into the abyss, so I appreciate your positiveness that it isn't a big deal. |
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twocents
Posts:78
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| 10/09/2008 4:07 PM |
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Brian, you're agreeing with a McCain (former) advisor? gasp!
AIG is ridiculous. They draw down 67 bil, don't sell a single asset, and take mgmt on a luxury junket to who knows where. All this after Greenberg tried to get Paulson to let him buy his company back instead of having a fed bailout.
Look at the corruption during Katrina. If gov't employees are going to be that immoral as to capitalize on the death and dislocation of their fellow citizens, I can hardly imagine how easy it will be to scam on a 'victimless' opportunity like the bailout... |
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lurknomore
Posts:270
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| 10/09/2008 6:56 PM |
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| tpc--I'm with you. I put another $150K to work these last 2 days, mostly in SPY, XLF, and IJR EFTs. My previous $150K was, alas, too early, and this may be as well. But with a 5+ year time horizon, I'm quite content. I know that I don't know enough to time the market any better than that. (One of Rumsfeld's "known unknowns"??) I almost went "all in" with the $ allocated to equities, but kept some in reserve in case there is another down move. This has got to be a better time to buy equities than one year ago and probably better than one year from now. That's the best I can do. Besides, time heals all wounds (and most less-than-ideal investment decisions). |
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artist
Posts:81
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| 10/10/2008 2:03 PM |
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I am doing great now in this "Financial Crisis" but I know what I am doing. This "crisis" is man made for a reason.
Here are few recent remarks from elected officials in the US government:
US House of Rep. Speaker Nancy Pelosi : "It's not a bailout, it's a buy-in"
W. Bush : "We have a sound economy"
Hank Paulson : "Our underlying financial system is solid"
Hank Paulson : "The US Dollar is strong"
As an ambitious student of history in all its twisted and convoluted probity, or lack thereof, a thought from my Berlin (a rather appropriate location) office below. The point being, the SPIN is no longer working - the Emperor, or better said, the Empire, has no clothes. He is now laid bare for all to see - now the financial spin doctors are about to foist even more upon us - just wait.
The Big Lie is a propaganda technique. It was defined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle) as a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
And here was a response from Joseph Goebbels to Churchill and Co. -
also very interesting.
"One should not, as a rule, reveal one's secrets, since one does not know if and when one may need them again. The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous."
Like I have said in the past : Repeat the government's mantra over and over again until you believe it : Strong Dollar, Sound Economy, All is Well, Jobs will not be Lost, Economic Fundamentals are Good.
By the way, Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister, is now seemingly intent upon using Anti-Terror Laws against Iceland for sandbagging UK citizens accounts in icelandic banks which have been nationalized- no payouts at the moment, if ever. Gordo, why dont you just bomb them ? God knows, there can be a case made for the outcast Icelandic Taliban in Iceland's extensive cave systems... briefcases full of Kronor, Russian Rubles** and even a few of the Queen's pounds - this is absolutely hilarious if it were not totally true.
(** note: Iceland was turned down by the US, UK and Euroland when submitting for help on a loan bailout for its banks. In the end, it turned to Russia to secure an $8 billion loan so much for so- called "friends and allies". I suppose Russia will now have secured submarine bases in the North Atlantic)
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Goingup?
Posts:150
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| 10/10/2008 7:50 PM |
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Doesn't anyone here ever watch MTV?
Notice how fast moving the action is?
Welcome to the new world, where everything moves at the speed of light.
The world markets crashed because of a lack of fatih. Banks have no faith in each other to pay back their loans.
The govs of the world will get together and fix the problem. It's not that big of a deal. Govs of the world will take equity positioins in banks, and sell the stock back in a year or two when things settle down. This will give the banks the liquidity they need to continue lending. I suspect some governement's will even guarantee the credit of some of the major banks. You'll know if this works almost immediatly as the LIBOR rate will drop like a rock over a two week period.
Bottom line, this happened rapidly and will end rapidly. The world did not change, it got a wake up call, and future assest allocation will be better for it.
If I was a conspiracy theory nut I'd say this was done by the Western Powers to drive oil below 50 for the next decade (another big reason the economy will recover quickly). While I'm all for screwing OPEC as much as they screwed us, long term this isnt' the best case scenario for US energy independence (when gas is below 2 bucks next month will anyone even remember the subject).
The problem now is not whether assets will inflate again, it's how to control that inflation. No wants another bubble forming anytime soon, and to me that's the risk.
You can't have the economy rising and falling this rapidly every year or two. It will disrupt the normal flow of capital and reak havoc with business and gov trying to form reasonable budgets.
For risk taking nuts like me this is all good. I really don't care which way any market moves, as long as it moves. There are so many indexes now, you can go long or short just about any market under the sun. The larger the movement the more potential for profit. You make things boring and it becomes much hard to profit off of moves.
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