Comments on Little Blog In The Big Woods: Media cahoots

In a way, we are staying the course. Living fruga...

2008-07-14T07:04:00.000-05:00

In a way, we are staying the course. Living frugal and waiting for the insurance settlement so we can replace our roof. My parents who grew up during the Great Depression and World War II, always taught me to take care of my belongings so they last, be debt free, grow a garden, have an emergency food storage. Whenever the recessions (and Savings and Loan crisis) came, they always told me not to worry because either their loan was so small and up-to-date on the payments that it would be one of the last that the bank came for, or else paid for.

We do keep putting money in our retirement accounts because we feel that we will be no worse than anyone else should the system crash and if it recovers we will be that much better off. I forget who said it but, it was the people who had money to invest during the Great Depression who came out the other side better off.

--Ave

The Fed is now stepping in to support Fannie Mae a...

2008-07-13T19:36:00.000-05:00

The Fed is now stepping in to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/washington/14fannieweb.html

I wonder how much this is going to hurt... Bush has never been one to ask for sacrifice - but I think his time is coming...

Eric

Well, so another all time low is being approached....

2008-07-13T13:26:00.000-05:00

Well, so another all time low is being approached. Do we grow more vegetables? Chop more wood? Get a horse?
I know burying paper money won't help you very much.
I am going to brush up on my iguana and pigeon shooting skills and work on some good surfcasting spots and buy some basic and tough equipment for those activities. I'm lame in one arm, can't pull the bow or slingshot any more. I've begun to warehouse mesquite charcoal and am getting a small and efficient charcoal cooker now, recycled, nothing from a far off manufacturer. Probably from a steel drum. No heating here, not a worry with that.
So can we have some more posts on where to go from here? The economy is melting down, the only question left is how far and how long. That we know. It's lemonade time. Know what I mean?

Knutty- you might like to hear this story- decades...

2008-07-13T08:58:00.000-05:00

Knutty- you might like to hear this story- decades ago ('60's!) I was at a speech by Paul Ehrlich (yeah, "The Population Bomb" guy), and we were doing questions and answers at the end. It was all sounding dismal.

Somebody asked: "Ok; so what would you do if they gave you $100 million to tackle the problem?" (that was a lot of money, back then)

And Ehrlich just blurted out, without thinking- "I'd buy New Zealand, and put a fence around it." Got a good laugh. Obviously not a solution for anything, but it gives a good idea of his opinion of NZ. I don't remember his real answer; just that bit.

You do have a nice place there, problems and all, compared to the rest of the world.

Equa Yona- sure; good question. It's a bad situat...

2008-07-13T08:50:00.000-05:00

Equa Yona- sure; good question. It's a bad situation all around, I don't see ANY "good" responses; just some that might, possibly, be less disastrous for us small folk.

What I would like is some actual honesty about the overall financial situation. Granted that's hard to come by- but I think folks like The Automatic Earth are doing a far better job than our alleged government/business folks.

Everything is very much NOT ticketty-boo (thank you, Knutty!) out there, but the biz world cheerleaders keep insisting it is. "We've hit bottom; it's all going to get better from here! STAY THE COURSE!"

I guess what I'd advise for small investors is that you NOT stay the course- "it", meaning the stock market, is going much further down- it's a bit of a game with doomsayers to guess how far; my own guess is that the Dow could go back to around 5,000; maybe next year.

Panic hurts everyone- but it hurts the big players too; unlike the "no, no, leave your money in the market! keep adding to your retirement fund!" nonsense. The small players can lose every dime they have that way. Where do those dimes go? Into the pockets of the big boys- who are selling short, as long as the market doesn't drop too fast and too hard; they're making money, all the way down.

I don't think there's any reason to take money out of an FDIC insured bank account. But money left in the stock market is evaporating fast- and will likely evaporate faster. Literally, at this point, burying cash in the backyard would be a better idea. Or silver.

I think. :-)

Panic is a disaster. But- it IS a disaster- and pretending all's swell does more damage than acknowledging where we are. Maybe us little folk can get out with a few pennies yet, before it all disappears completely.

So it's all ticketty boo right?riiiiiiight :)Somet...

2008-07-12T23:10:00.000-05:00

So it's all ticketty boo right?
riiiiiiight :)

Sometimes I'm glad to be somewhere else where hopefully the waves will be a little diminished although I'm not counting on it.

viv in nz

This was a prominent story on PBS News Hour. What...

2008-07-12T22:49:00.000-05:00

This was a prominent story on PBS News Hour. What good does panic do? Should we rush the banks? What are you advising, screaming in the streets?

MSNBC has a link on their front page at the moment...

2008-07-12T14:37:00.000-05:00

MSNBC has a link on their front page at the moment:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25644988/

It's a small print link but in the upper half/center of the screen, right under the medium print link for "Newsweek: Why We Can't Let Fannie and Freddie Fail".

Market fairies couldn't hold this one together... ...

2008-07-12T14:02:00.000-05:00

Market fairies couldn't hold this one together... they were trying to keep it quiet, but once spotlight of publicity from Schumer's letter was focused on them, they withered away...

The optimist in me says people won't let everything fall apart - but the pessimist in me says that our country doesn't have communities strong enough to stand alone anymore...

Eric

"But John M. Reich, director of the Office of Thri...

2008-07-12T13:59:00.000-05:00

"But John M. Reich, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, said IndyMac's failure was a 'unique' incident that 'does not signal a direction for the industry as a whole.' ")

And by the way, we have this excellent bridge right over here that we have a special deal on, just for you, to sell cheap.

Here it comes.

Terrifying. My mother just told me she's going to...

2008-07-12T10:05:00.000-05:00

Terrifying. My mother just told me she's going to the bank to take out a good chunk of her cash assets...and I have a feeling that many others will do the same thing, which, of course, will lead to further crisis.

So many seem blissfully ignorant of this recent turn of events, and I'm not sure doing what I want to do (bullhorn...bicycle) will help the problem get any better. :/

And the headlines I am seeing, usually buried in t...

2008-07-12T09:51:00.000-05:00

And the headlines I am seeing, usually buried in the business section, say something like "Feds take over troubled mortgage lender." So, y'know, it's not like a bank failure at all. Nothing to see here, folks.