Money Mayhem
What has a front has a back. The bigger the front, the bigger the back.
Macrobiotic theory
Sorry folks, no photography today. I know, I know, this is a photography blog, not an economics blog. However I’m a money-woman by trade, so I’m just sitting back today and watching the financial world collapse around my ears. So far the FTSE 100 has fallen 5% today. The Dow Jones is about to open. Things are going to get pretty nasty.
Hot on the heels of Fred and Fannie, Lehman’s could be enough to trigger a catastrophic economic collapse, similar to Black Thursday which triggered the start of The Great Depression. Am I being overly alarmist? Well, that rather depends on how the US Government reacts to this latest crisis.
Barack Obama commented that the Lehman bankruptcy posed "a major threat" to the US economy. Of course he blamed the Bush administration's economic philosophy and said, "This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for the future and make their mortgage payments." No kidding, Barack. Really? So how are you going to fix it, eh?
One thing’s for sure, the fallout from this ongoing financial turmoil will be huge. Socially, financially and politically, the world will never be the same again.
Althaia contemplates the latest banking collapse
Macrobiotic theory
Sorry folks, no photography today. I know, I know, this is a photography blog, not an economics blog. However I’m a money-woman by trade, so I’m just sitting back today and watching the financial world collapse around my ears. So far the FTSE 100 has fallen 5% today. The Dow Jones is about to open. Things are going to get pretty nasty.
Hot on the heels of Fred and Fannie, Lehman’s could be enough to trigger a catastrophic economic collapse, similar to Black Thursday which triggered the start of The Great Depression. Am I being overly alarmist? Well, that rather depends on how the US Government reacts to this latest crisis.
Barack Obama commented that the Lehman bankruptcy posed "a major threat" to the US economy. Of course he blamed the Bush administration's economic philosophy and said, "This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for the future and make their mortgage payments." No kidding, Barack. Really? So how are you going to fix it, eh?
One thing’s for sure, the fallout from this ongoing financial turmoil will be huge. Socially, financially and politically, the world will never be the same again.
Althaia contemplates the latest banking collapse
posted by Lin at 1:25 PM
5 Comments:
It’s greed pure and simple that got us into this mess. Those are the people who helped put in play all the economic forces that are creating this financial failure and Bush was but one of the players. No government oversight, let the market correct itself, let the market police out the bad apples and for god sakes cut our taxes. Now there screaming for government help to bale them out of the mess they made, “We’re too big to let us fail”. Now all our children are going to have to pay for their failures and for the government’s failures as well. And it’s not over yet by a long shot, and the people at the top who had control will walk away with their nice golden retirement intact. Go figure!
Michael, you're quite right. The problem is that people will rarely admit to being greedy and always wanting more, more, more.
It's human nature to want what you haven't got. And you're very right that this isn't the end of it. It's merely the end of the beginning.
The world hasn't fallen apart yet. In fact, wisdom is pretty universal that conditions are in no way similar to those precedent to the Great Depression. Outside the financial markets and firms, and a few industries that need a shakeup anyway, industry is still pretty damn robust, especially in high tech areas. Believe me, as one whose financial health for decades hence depends on performance of my investments, 65% of which are in equities, I should be as worried as anyone. I'm not bailing, however; that would definitely be the wrong move.
I felt pretty good today as I pulled my head out of the sand for a look around.
So..as I was sitting in the library this morning. I read that your gov't may use the November Queen's speech to outline plans to hold everyone's email and web traffic data in a database for 12 months.
It said the ISPs are appalled, the Information Commissioner is appalled and pretty much everybody else is appalled - so it's probably going to happen.
Then I read that your Public Accounts Committee reports that the government doesn't know how many websites it has, what the sites cost or whether any money has been saved by putting services online. The PAC said 16 per cent of government departments have no idea how their sites are being used.
So I'm thinking that the above mentioned database will be in that 16 per cent and they won't know where it's stored or some free spirited Gov't computer geek will find a way to garble the data or hit the delete button as needed. All in the name of saving members of your Gov't untold embarrassment if their emails were some how exposed. They do keep track of those too don't they?
Soooo I was feeling bad for YOU and feeling good here as the sun is shining and its quit raining for the first time in days. 12+ inches or rain in two days and we didn't have a hurricane.
Then I check out Fluffy...and find DOOM & GLOOM. Not your Halloween DOOM and GLOOM but the USA has fucked it up again and the world is done as we know it. This where I pause with a BIG sigh. S-I-G-H.
Why is always our fault? Why can't the rest of the world start to think for themselves and take some responsibility for their own actions? Seems to me that an awful lot of them wanted come here and to buy up a lot of our real estate that is slowly sinking in value. Maybe we should nationalize all foreign holdings and resell them to pay for all this bailout stuff, Oh, but who would buy them, we'll all be in the soup lines in tattered clothes. Shit. Wait I know...if Bill Gates and Warren Buffett would give every one in the US 2 million tax free and we had to spend one million right away. They want to spend billions in Africa, why not here? That would get the economy going and we all could live on easy street. Well pigs could fly if they had wings.
Well.. the wife is about to call and check in from her morning break and she's going to wonder why I didn't answer the phone. It's because my head is back in the frick'n sand.
D.L. Wood
P.S. Have a great week Lin. :-)
Hey Mr Wood, I'm an accountant. I'm supposed to do doom and gloom. In fact I excel at it. It's my destiny.
Incidentally ISP's have had to store 12 months data for a while now. The government are just formalising it. They already have that big database of computers in place (that titbit is not in the press, incidentally.) The UK is one big database. It’s a shame that our information keeps getting stolen though, but it’s not the government’s fault surely?
Why is it always America's fault? Because the US leads the world, because our leaders are numpties who copy yours, because when America sneezes the world catches a cold. You're not the most powerful nation in the world for nothing you know. It's why your vote is so important. BTW, I'll have that $2m thanks. I'll even pay tax on it if it helps :-) $2m would bail my company out nicely.
I could sleep better, I could afford more hot sexy models, and that in turn would make you happier. Yep, money and boobies make the world a better place :-)
Stephen, I love ya dearly but unless you're talking about the big tech companies like Microsoft and Google, you're misinformed I'm afraid. I talk to the small US technology companies every single day, and they're majorly strapped of cash, shit scared for their families and companies and watching their worlds fall apart. Part of this is their own customers going under, part of it is the threat of free software taking away their livelihood, part of it is banks not lending them money to pay their mortgages. Don't believe everything you read in the press. Little companies like ours are going to the wall on both sides of the pond, every single day. I can't emphasise how bad things are in the tech sector. The suffering of our customers is very real. Invest in gold my friend, it’s what is recommended by our economists as the safest long-haul option. Not that economists know much either though:-)
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