FEOS wrote:
Not trying to debate you on this. What source can be found to say "there will not be society-ending depression and we should not hoard food and ammo"? There's not, so I can't provide a source for a counterargument. Pretty convenient for you.
There are, however, literally hundreds of articles about the various indicators not being as bad as some would like to think or that even if they are bad, the worst is nearly over. So you take your five or six guys who are preaching doom and gloom...I'll go with the bulk of reporting saying it's bad, but not as bad as all that.
I read the front prage of Bloomberg everyday, trust me I've seen it. No one wants the bull market to end, and any bad incident is just a little hang over, although Bloomberg has had some pretty pessimistic articles for being main stream with this whole credit debacle. Bank loss after bank loss after bank loss.
But if you think I get my opinions from a few newsletters, you are mistaken. To me, the Emperor doesn't have any clothes because I don't buy this mainstream crap and way of thinking. The CPI is BS and the Fed is trying to mislead real inflation, I believe in Austrian economics, not Keynesian or Monetarist economics which favor this corrupt fiat system, and I see the Fed lowering interest rates to just fueling asset bubble after asset bubble and further debasing the dollar. Maybe our entire economy is one great asset bubble ready to pop.
But it all comes down to
$400 in derivatives. You had two guys write a formula for them "finally getting it right" and they ended up receiving noble prizes. The problem is they are never marked to market and once they are, they tend to be worthless. Bear Stearns was being eaten alive by them, and if they failed to every hedge fund that worked through them would have been dead in the water, and JPMorgan and ever other bank that had subprime CDOs would have been in danger of being insolvent overnight just like them.
You had the CEO of Bear Stearns 5 days before their shares dropped like a rock saying they didn't have a liquidity problem and that everything was ok. It's not a liquidity problem, it is a solvency problem.
And it's not convenience, it's called being astute.