Posted on 10/05/2008 6:52:37 PM PDT by Lazamataz
We face extreme danger. Unless there is immediate intervention on every front by all the major powers acting in concert, we risk a disintegration of global finance within days. Nobody will be spared, unless they own gold bars.
Investors will learn today whether the Paulson bail-out - fattened to $850bn (£480bn) by Congress - can begin to halt the death spiral in the credit system. So far, the response looks terrible.
Germany is now in the hot seat. The collapse of a rescue deal for Hypo Real Estate on Saturday threatens a 400bn (£311bn) bankruptcy that nearly matches the Lehman Brothers debacle for sheer scale.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has been forced to pull her head out of the sand, guaranteeing all German savings, a day after she rebuked Ireland for doing much the same thing. Reality intrudes.
During the past week, we have tipped over the edge, into the middle of the abyss. Systemic collapse is in full train. The Netherlands has just rushed through a second, more sweeping nationalisation of Fortis. Ireland and Greece have had to rescue all their banks. Iceland is facing an Argentine denouement.
The US commercial paper market is closed. It shrank $95bn last week, and has lost $208bn in three weeks. The interbank lending market has seized up. There are almost no bids. It is a ghost market. Healthy companies cannot roll over debt. Some will have to sack staff today to stave off default.
As the unflappable Warren Buffett puts it, the credit freeze is sucking blood out of the economy. In my adult lifetime, I dont think Ive ever seen people as fearful, he said. We are fast approaching the point of no return. The only way out of this calamitous descent is shock and awe on a global scale, .....
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Gold isn’t a consumable. It doesn’t tarnish, or corrode. All the things you listed are consumables, and therefore cease to exist when used. Not much of a standard if you can eat/burn/crash your money.
Thanks for posting those commendable words by Andrew Jackson.
Where is Old Hickory when we need him most?
That's interesting. Scary, but interesting.
L
Assuming that the corporations that you buy into still exist when the smoke clears. Sometimes they don’t, and you have zippo.
I always paid spot for junk, $1 over for rounds, and $3 for Eagles. Gold had a premium for the various coins; usually $12-$45.
My dealer said he has had the average Joe buying like crazy but also very large purchases have been made by long standing institutional and government customers. One buyer for silver for the US mint bought every ounce he had earlier this year but had to do so at spot price. I would imagine that was probably 5,000+ ounces. They did so as silver was selling at $17 or so and that was a tidy profit even without the Rounds and Eagle premiums. There has been very little selling back to them even at the high silver prices of over $18.
Surprising that the same thing happening in Europe. At least, with America, the population is growing so there’s a reason for the expansion of the housing supply. But with Europe, the population is declining throughout the continent so how can a bubble exist in the first place?
The DEMOCRATIC PARTY did this to the world...
Gold is useful because of history. You don’t need to “sell” the idea of gold as money to anyone.
Let me put it to you this way: Your ass is in a jam. You need to get past some penny-ante bureaucrat. Doesn’t matter where in the world, you just need to get past him, or have him look the other way while you’re doing something.
You can flash a wad of paper. And maybe he’ll take it.
Or you can produce some gold coins - 24K, so he can verify with his teeth that they’re real.
It doesn’t much matter the language barriers or the circumstances, you’ll at *least* have some interest in that gold, if not a ‘sale.’
Go ahead and try explaining a currency based on a basket of commodities to people who are not versed in finance. I’ll still be around for several more years, so take your time and report back how that goes... ;-)
Meanwhile, banks are sucked dry as frantic depositors rush to save what they can. Customers are left only with the cash in their pockets as the banks go under. Without money to spend, consumers begin to hoard what cash they have, spending it only when absolutely necessary. Orders for goods drop like a rock as people stop spending. Manufacturing production then plummets as orders dry up. They then begin laying off workers, who, without paychecks coming in, also cease spending money, causing a further demand-side contraction.
The spiral deepens...
So that would put the cash in hand price on silver at around 22 bucks an ounce. That's just crazy. I don't know how much that helps. A price on something the dealer doesn't have ain't worth much.
Pretty well matches what silver is bringing on ebay. Generally over $20/oz. Makes you wonder what purpose the paper price serves.
Thank goodness I live in Arkansas.
Hey, I resemble that remark.
I just learned the difference between “government guaranteed” and liquid.
Bears looking into. He's collapsed other markets (Asia) for fun,
That will depend on how thoughtfully you purchased. - For example, right now heavy duty pickup trucks are selling cheap, and high fuel economy sedans are selling high, but after a collapse, that situation will tilt 180 degrees, as a sedan will be worthless for driving to the job you don't have, and equally worthless for doing the productive, income producing work of a truck. The same principle can be applied to stocks.
No, but some of his friends did it.
The executives at Fannie, and Freddie, essentially all Obama democrats, deliberately scuttled those corporations for the express purpose of affecting the election. It was a huge gamble, but they are all pragmatists (i.e. the ends justify the means) and see the election of their doofus as an infinately valuable goal.
Do you think that he will get elected?
If that’s not odd enough, consider that it was especially bad in Spain.
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