..for one day and the world blows up. Yesterday, I walked into a bunker in Culpepper, VA and was more/less completely out of circulation for most of the day.
I come out, get in the car, turn on the radio, and hear “…dow dropped over 750 points today as the House of Representives failed to pass the 2008 rescue package.”
Holy crap.
I’m still employed, this is a good thing, and the amazing part is that the recruiter calls have actually picked up in the last two weeks after a period of being dead. Not that I’m in the market at the moment, but it’s good to know I have somewhere to fall if all hell breaks loose.
This bailout isn’t a good thing, it’s not comfortable, and it’s not something I’m looking forward to. But it needs to happen.
Kind of like having an infected leg. If it’s too infected, you have to cut the leg off. You don’t want to, it’s life-altering, and it’s going to hurt like hell – but to not do it means you’re going to die.
If the financial markets aren’t bailed out, credit will stop. Businesses and private citizens will no longer be able to get credit for anything. Small or large, whether it’s to renew the lease on your car, purchase a new car/home, or like me, front money for travel. It all just stops. Certain evidence has shown that this started happening months ago. (American Express determined about 6 weeks ago that I was no longer a good risk, despite the fact that I paid every bill on-time and in-full.)
If this happens, money stops moving. Anyone who has taken Econ-101 knows that when money stops moving, the economy crashes harder than anything we’ve ever seen in the last hundred years. My only real hope is that they put the appropriate protections in. yes I want the protections for consumers, yes I want the bankruptcy protection, yes I want the foreclosure moratorium. All of those are required to get money moving again.
What I really want is to see the idiots hung who sold these interest-only and pick-a-payment loans, which were designed for investors, to people who didn’t understand the risks.
Hopefully we’ll see some change in the next week or so. Because sometimes I think that limbo is a much worse place to be.
Gas prices are down though, so maybe there is a silver lining. 
Yes, the whole world is going to hell. The ones who at least still have jobs are the lucky ones. Nice to have a job that is necessary.
The greedy bastards that tried to rake in all that money from the “Po’ folks’ by giving them loans they could not afford, they are hopefully going to suffer the most. But not likely, it’s the little guys that suffer. However, I do see prices dropping. They have to, no one is buying so everything has to go on sale. I have a feeling this might be a blessing in disguise. We need to learn that the money WILL stop flowing. We need to learn how to spend well. We, in America live a very good life.
A celebrity on TMZ was whining about how she’s going broke. All that whining while wearing a 25 thousand watch and a 50 thousand dollar handbag. Get real! Talk about decadence.
Well recover, but it’s going to take 10 years or more. We Americans are a resiliant bunch.