Tuesday, September 16, 2008

This ain't your neighborhood WET N' WILD waterslide

The slippery slope that is the slide into "The Greatest Depression" is progressing nicely. (I love superlatives, e.g., The Pretty Good Depression of 1893, The Great Depression of the 1930's, and The Greatest Depression [and last?] of the 21st Century-- Dada's tag.)

Momentum is building while we get a surprise visit from Bush today. Sticking his head out of the hole in the east end of the White House lawn (where the hell's he been hiding the last 6 weeks?), he reassured us how the nation's underlying economic fundamentals are strong despite the abysmal abyss the rest of us are presently sinking into at lightening speed.

The administration is just trying to hold off the angry mobs until January 21, 2009, when they and their Wall Street cronies can legally get the hell out of town; to be reunited with their booty spirited out of the U.S. Treasury the past 8 years in places overseas (any places over seas) that don't subscribe to international treaties against war criminals.

Meanwhile, next (of the 'biggies') in line for the guillotine: AIG and Washington Mutual.

From today's economic tome over at Urban Survival comes the following tidbit where an e-mailer wrote to inquire what all of these bankruptcies and other ominous economic factors looming larger and larger on the horizon mean for us:

No retirement account or prospect of retirement, to begin with. A semi-nomadic life among the ruins is a kind of worst-case, but a high enough possibility to have good all-weather clothing and broken-in hiking shoes. But again, I always over prep for things.


You can test your preps easy enough any time by unplugging your phone, turning off your power, not using your checking account or credit cards - and don't forget to turn off the water, too. If you can get by for 90-days to a couple of years in this condition, I'd say you're about as well prepared as you can get.


On the other hand, if you can't, then relax because you've got...let me see....20 days to October 7th.


I won't even begin to go into October 7th (as in some kind of October surprise?), but suffice it for me to say, if this past weekend without drinking water in the neighborhood for a couple of days was any indication, our future will be very bleak indeed!

Fasten your seat belts. This will be the most amusingest of amusement rides.

10 comments:

Fran said...

Any predictions on how long before the FDIC gets the pat on the back for doing a Heck-of-a-job, before it tanks in bankruptcy & collapse as well?

Hate to be so doom & gloom, but let's face it the FDIC could not possibly have enough funds to pay out for a major nationwide bank collapse scenario.

D.K. Raed said...

That was a very illuminating link! I hope the Oct surprise is not the first week of Oct as I'll be in vegas then and you know that is THE LAST PLACE I'd want to be for any "amusing" event.

I don't know what to do about WaMu. We have some FDIC-insured retirement CD's there. I think once again I will happy to have been affected at the beginning of this fiasco, while there is still money in FDIC reserves.

Dada said...

fran - Well, like I said, the admin is hoping they won't have to say that "Heck-of-a-job" line before they leave office (with the Treasury).

As far as the FDIC goes, as of the end of August their reserve ratio fell below the 1.15% required by law. That was the result of them setting aside $10+ billion to cover potential losses from Indymac. If I remember correctly, the current FDIC ratio of reserves:deposits was down to around 1.01%. But I think they were bolstering it in order to be in compliance with the law.

Wow, that sounds sooo strange. I didn't know anything was in compliance with laws anymore. In fact, I didn't think there was any need to follow laws anymore under the Bush/Cheney precedent.

Hmmm, maybe there's still some minute fear of the masses? (Just wait til they can no longer reimburse depositors if the 1000 banks that some see failing in the relatively near future actually do.)

That's when the Americans will probably rise up and say, "Gosh, darn, I've lost my life savings, my retirement, social security. You'd better stop that before I get mad or something.)

Dada said...

D.K. Did you see on that link where they said nothing has changed to alter what they think could result in some military-like initiative (or terrorism - faux or real) in October that could cost between 2-20 million lives?

I enjoy reading Urban Survival each week. And if I'm prone to consider such doom and gloom and it comes to pass a terrorist attack or war with Russia results in only 1/2 the casualties I can rejoice by saying, "Wow, that wasn't so bad. We lost somewhere between 1-10 million people -- that's only half of what I was expecting!"

BTW, some many months ago I quoted from UrbanSurvival the price of oil which he said the experts were expecting to fluctuate between $80-140/bbl, which was pretty close I'd say.

But as for you getting in early on the bank failures, I don't know how we all may be affected later by the ones to follow.

I absolutely hate WAMU (w/no ill towards your retirement D.K.) but I had incidents I believe I alluded to here sometime ago that almost cost me a stroke when trying to resolve estate issues of a family member by speaking to some WAMU b*tch who was totally snotty over the phone. When I asked if I could speak to her supervisor said, "No. Is there anything else I can help you with today?" Thank god I couldn't go through the phone, because I'd be serving a 100 years to life in some penitentiary for homicide.

But wrote letters to the state of Oregon (where the acct. was) and the State of Washington (where WAMU was), as well as letters to WAMU, of course. Within 6-12 mos. I rec'd an apology from WAMU but it was too late. I'd already bled to death my WAMU designated voodoo doll. So their current financial woes may be the result of my voodoo chants and rituals.

I only hope I didn't bring on collapse of the entire banking system...I only intended to target WAMU, but as we're learning in the Middle East bombings from unmanned U.S. drones, bombing targets isn't always that precise. Things can get messy.

PTCruiser said...

Shit yeah! I love the new profile pic!

Dada said...

Thanks PT: God spoke to me before I blogged this one. (At least I think he did. I don't THINK it was my stomach growlin' at me cause I hadn't had breakfast yet.) He told me to write this blog. He hinted at my ascendency up the incorporal ladder if I did. He said I should have a profile pic fitting of such ascendency. Now I do.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Billie Greenwood said...

Do you think I should keep my money in cash? In shoeboxes under the bed? In small bills? Will the U.S. dollar have any value even if I did that?

Maybe I should just zero out my retirement account right now and go buy some canned food while there's still some on the store's shelves.

Everything you've predicted so far has come true. It sure has been nice knowing you, Dada.

eProf2 said...

Hey, who is this new angel of doom on the Dada avatar? Holier than me and most of the other regulars here! LOL!

Dada said...

B.E. - first my disclaimer. I've never lived through one of these. Neither have you or any of the other visitors here. So we're all pretty much on equal ground in the same boat (?). But I'm not shy about sharing my (pessimistic) thoughts.

I don't think it matters where you keep your money, or in what denominations. Shoeboxes are nice (maybe that's why I stumbled across a whole bunch this afternoon that Mrs. Dada is hoarding?).

I suspect when the end comes, you can throw the worthless contents ($$$) of the shoebox away to use it for items you value on your trek to Canada or Iceland.

And I don't think you should zero out your retirement -- just in case Bush and McCain are right -- "the underlying fundamentals of the economy are strong!" But if they are wrong and you end up sitting on hoards of canned beans and Ramen noodles, people would soon get suspicious why you are NOT losing weight and looking gaunt just like they are. (The results of that may be too gruesome to go into here, but like I say, I've never lived through one of these. I did read Grapes of Wrath once, though.)

I always figured, however, the collapse of crapitalism would follow the collapse of Communism. It was only a question of time. Bush and Cheney just expedited that process. Fortunately, the latter resulted in a big party, dancing atop a wall before we tore it down.

Sadly, for crapitalism, the entire globe could be affected and I don't think there'll be much dancing (save for the former Soviet Union).

Dada said...

eprof: Re the avatar, I confess, I've been influenced by mariamaria and her ever changing avatars. So I thought I would emulate her efforts.