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Morgan isn't the only one predicting depression; Harry Dent is, one running from 2010 until 2023. But who knows; it may actually get here, time will tell. I think the current administration has done a good job, with the tax rebate and other ploys, to push the day of reckoning downstream until the NEXT guy takes office, at which time THAT president will get painted with the hateful brush of economic disaster, and as Dent says, the next president will be a one-term president.
Sorry Mike, your earlier comment got caught up in Uncle Billy's traveling preacher show.
Harry Dent's timing prediction makes some sense. The banks have already taken some deadly hits, with more every day, and previous experience suggests that it takes 12-24 months for the losses to drive insolvencies. That'd put the beginning of the fun around 2010. It's like blowing a dam...the charges don't have to vaporize the structure, just weaken it...the weight of the water pushing up against it does the rest over the course of some time. As Mike Morgan pointed out, banks can't survive taking 30% haircuts on a broad cross section of their portfolios...and when you throw together bad mortgage debt, bad CRE loans, failing auto loans, and the last resort of the failing debtor--bad credit card debt--there's knee-buckling damage being done to many a bank balance sheet, even at some of the largest banks.
Anyone with a substantial sum in deposit accounts, including CDs and CD-backed IRAs, should be well-acquainted with the FDIC's limits. It's more complicated than just $100,000 per depositor per bank...there are different categories of deposits that are insured separately, and with different limits. For example a couple with a joint account can have $200,000 covered by the FDIC in their joint account, and each can have $100,000 in separate accounts styled only in their own names. Certain IRAs are insured to $200,000. The FDIC has a calculator on their site to help determine coverage.
But...principles of diversification suggest that even with FDIC coverage, it's a good idea to keep large sums spread out across a few reputable institutions so problems or a failure at one doesn't have excessive short-term impact.
And last, anyone with a large sum in a deposit account should know how their bank is rated. Some of the higher interest rates come from banks known to be close to the brink, like Countrywide Bank. Bankrate.com provides a free rating service.
why has this become such a popular thread? i've been lurking in the background for months, and it just seems like everyone keeps saying the same things over and over.
why has this become such a popular thread? i've been lurking in the background for months, and it just seems like everyone keeps saying the same things over and over.
I was sure that LBear trying to teach Sunday School on Wall Street, and the Monty Python schtick on the Holy Hand Grenade was new here...
It's not all the same thing...a lot has happened in the last six months, and a lot is happening still. Six months ago lots of people were predicting that Colorado housing would recover famously in the spring...it didn't...and now there's new discussion on how far, for how long, etc.
We nearly had a financial train wreck after the MLK holiday, and the Bear Stearns bailout certainly changed how many look at the state of and meddling in the financial markets.
The oil price spike is also recent vintage bad news, and the discussions we were having about resources and overconsumption etc take a whole new light when a C-note is actually needed to fill the gas tank. With natural gas/propane prices moving up to make a warm house equally painful this winter, there's some more discussion to be had on the energy piece of ramping inflation in Colorado, and how one might make housing decisions in the future to mitigate that.
Seems like support of public programs has been weak in CO, with maybe some accompanying consequences, and that consumption runs high at least around Denver metro with maybe some ramifications concerning water resources and air quality (and of course, credit and economic implications). I also wonder about what happens if burnt hydrocarbon emissions impact the climate of snowpack and precipitation - water resources through the summer, for example. Seems some of what stokes the CO economy might hurt it at the same time (or in the future)?
Clover and some wascally wabbits might be a good combo. Fwied wabbit is good eatin'.
Clover would work....good thinkin' Elmer
Now should we tell everybody in Boulder that we've found a way to combat global warming through atmospheric releases of a special sulfate compound? We could even tout the benefits of hydrogenated rainwater.
if food prices keep rising, I'm gonna corner the local black market on prairie dog meat....jerked, fried, roasted....those fat little things gotta be mighty tasty with all that grass they eat...just need to practice stealth in 'harvesting' them and taking the meat to the street.
if food prices keep rising, I'm gonna corner the local black market on prairie dog meat....jerked, fried, roasted....those fat little things gotta be mighty tasty with all that grass they eat...just need to practice stealth in 'harvesting' them and taking the meat to the street.
Do you have any Vietnamese restraunts nearby?
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