People, chill! (financial/economic troubles)

The BBQ Pit
1

This is a relatively mild pitting.

In the name of Holy Jesus, chill out. Yes, some financial services companies, and not even all the parts of those companies, have had some trouble. Yes, a couple big boys went under. Boo fricking hoo. Frankly, the economy will do what it always does: it says huh, takes a dtock market hit, and then… goes right on. We might have a recession quarter or three, and that sucks. It is not, however, the end of the world.

Every bleeding time this happens (and it happens like clockwork once a decade), people run about like chickens with their heads cut off proclaiming “The End Is Night.” Heck, this is one of the milder downturns we’ve faced, as it’s almost entirely confined to the financial sector. Yes, it has repercussions elsewhere in the short term. In the long, though, everything will roll right along. Productivity and production is up as usual - it’s just that temporarily capital markets are sluggish.

It is not the end of the world. It is not a depression. It is not the eternally-heralded End of American Dominance (for the love of Glorious Christ, they’ve been ‘heralding’ that one since about, oh, 1777!). We had something like fourt major economic crises in the Cold War, and came out of each one stronger than before. The same thing ill happen now, and probably much more easily and quickly than, say, the energy crisis or Black Thursday.

So I don’t want to hear it. You are ignorant idiots, and please just shut up, since it’s obvious your fears are largely based around the fact that you’re too damned ignorant to know what’s going on. Dumbass.

Finally, no, it’s not President Bush’s fault. It’s not really Congress’s fault. It’s not Greenspan’s or Bernanke’s fault. Some people made bad choices which contributed in small ways: several different Republican party and Democrat Congresses, President Clinton, the Fed, yeah. But honestly, none of them made the key critical decisions. And those decisions were not even neccessarily wrong, just overly risky. Sometimes, life hands you lemons, and you’ll have to learn to make lemonade or… suck lemons.

2

Nigh. The End is Nigh.

3

I cannot type correctly, and I rarely spellcheck my posts very well. Deal with it.

4

The magic market will fix everything! Quit whining! Don’t blame Republicans or conservatives.

There you go, everyone. I summed up the OP in 13 words. Just read this and save a minute.

-Joe

5

In a lot of ways the people who are running around in a panic are creating the problem and amplifying it as well. The financial system is based on confidence. When that goes away we pull perfectly good money away from perfectly sound companies, causing them to fail and making the situation appear even more dire. If you stop and think about it, this is as much an exercise in psychology and sociology as it is in economics.

Who among us hasn’t been watching this and saying to ourselves “who’s next?” That is a demonstration of our lack of confidence. Rather than wondering who will fail, largely because of how fast we’re running from them, we would likely be better off looking for strong companies and investments, or maybe even just collectively sitting on our hands instead of continuing to manufacture and perpetuate a crisis.

6

You’re an idiot.

7

This response is hilariously ironic.

8

“Hey, I just checked our balance, and all our money is gone!”

“Well, honey, I drew it all out and bought lottery tickets.”

“What! Are you fucking insane?”

“Well, I admit, you could see that as being ‘overly risky’…”

" ‘Overly risky!’ All our money is gone! Gone!"

“Just temporarily, honey, here, suck a lemon…”

9

As for this dumb OP, it is in fact a lot of people’s fault, including but not limited to the President 70 years ago and every President + Congress since for not fixing the obvious problems (and some of them making new ones!)

And the end of American dominance is quite obviously nigh, you have a third of the population of 2 other countries, of course you’re going to become (relatively) small fry. That pesky love of debt isn’t helping.

10

Really, AD, this was all just a crisis of confidence? A “mental” closure of a couple of century old financial institutions? You make it sound like it all started simply because a little boy wanted tuppence to feed the birds.

Well, I’m feeling much better about everything now. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

11

I prefer to say, “The end is ni. Ni!”

12

No, no. The end is Nye. When Bill Nye gets his own show again, that’s the beginning of the Apocalypse.

13

I’ll chill out when I find out that I am not getting laid off. Until then, you can keep your calming wishes to yourself. Thanks.

14

Not to speak for him, but the reaction to justified worries (the investment banks folding, sub-prime etc) has been overblown and spread to companies that are just fine.

Which could’ve been prevented with common-sense transparency regulation, but anywho.

15

It always starts with something of substance, but it never ends that way. If this keeps up, how long do you think it will be until we start seeing bank runs? Is there any reason that people should run on a bank? Maybe we should ask Chuck Schumer that question, he has some insight on that.

You will note that some of the better positioned financial institutions are snapping up assets with glee. Would they do that if they were bad investments? Of course not, they don’t want to collapse either. But if they’re not all bad investments, why are financial institutions dropping like flies?

Once the herd starts moving in one direction there’s no stopping it. And if that isn’t what’s driving this string of collapses, it will be soon enough.

16

Then I’m not going to take you seriously, and I’m going to correct you. Deal with it.

17

Trouble is, it’s partially all their faults. And some people did see it coming… eventually. But I don’t think anyone saw it all coming down in one freakin’ weak.

That said, I’m not taking my money out of the bank, selling my stock, trying to cash in my 401K. Yeah, it’s a major adjustment, but DON’T PANIC. We’ll get through it. It is something that happens at least once a decade so let’s get this one out of the way.

18

Agreed in every respect, except that “weak” is spelled “week”. Is this the weekly pedantics thread? If not it should be.

19

:smack:

DON’T PANIK!

20

This has been coming since the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which effectively repealed the safeguards in place since the Great Depression. And to make this relevant the man behind the Act is none other than a top adviser to Sen. McCain (Phil Gramm). You can also thank him for Commodity Futures Modernization Act which also led to some of these failures/bailouts.
Eh fuck it, I like potato soup.