115.
by weaver95 on Oct.31, 2009, under Business, Politics
yup - that’s the count of how many banks we’ve closed so far this year. Here’s the latest/greatest update so far, since last night the Fed closed nine more banks.
We’re not out of the woods yet kids, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. Even scarier is the rumor that the FDIC might be broke. I’m really hoping that rumor is false. With all the bank closings we’ve already had, we don’t need to find out that bank deposits aren’t covered anymore. A run on the banks would essentially destroy our economy. well, not directly but it’d kick off a series of unfortunate events, to turn a phrase. And that would be enough to do us in.
Of course, there are already rumors that the US dollar is on the way out as the world reserve currency of choice. combine that with the collapse of the US economy and….well, it’s Mad Max time. that’s a worst case scenario of course. But there’s a lot of reasons to watch the piggy bank right now. I’m just not sure if I should start to panic or if we’ll pull it out before we collapse.
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October 31st, 2009 on 10:21 pm
Mad Max was awfully unrealistic- the amount of gas they waste driving around and fighting is more than they would ever gain from winning said fights. And of course, the idea that everyone would use non-gunpowder weapons since saltpeter is oh so difficult to make >.>
In the end, its a natural result of the departure of critical thinking from this country. We take way too much for granted without thinking of how it all interacts.
November 1st, 2009 on 11:35 am
To a certain extent, this current scenario is absolutely necessary. In order to create, one has to destroy. Not necessarily the complete razing of American society, but a good hit every once in a while allows the opportunity to rebuild. The difficulty with this is determining how to rebuild. More often than not, people as a whole tend to choose the short-sighted easy way. This almost invariably leads to long-term suckitude. Is it the end of the world if the U.S. loses its position as top dog? Not in the least. Last I checked, France and England aren’t doing too bad. If anything, it’ll be an opportunity for someone else to take the lead in cleaning up messes around the world.
Yeah, I know, I’m rambling.
November 3rd, 2009 on 5:23 am
I hate to sound like an old granny, but we have ethical problems as a society that have really been shooting us in the foot for a long time. James Carville once famously deflected some ethical concerns about his candidate with an indignant “It’s the economy, stupid.” He was more correct than he realized, though he was incorrect in the assumption that ethical concerns are distinct from economic ones, as recent events demonstrate. SenorOcho correctly points out our departure from critical thinking, but this is only part of the problem. A lot of people thought quite critically about economic and financial trends and tried to warn us. Most just gamed the system, cashed out in time, and now laugh from their mansions at greedy little folks who tried and failed to do a half-ass version of the same thing. What prevents greed from eclipsing one’s critical thinking? I hate to say one’s personal morality, because, while true, whenever you mention morality, people get defensive about where they put their dick or what they smoke or don’t smoke and things get…obscured. So, we’ll call it ethics. Personal, professional, dare I say national? Whatever you call it, it’s what makes you go, “Hey I’m part of the problem! I should stop that!” Unfortunately we’re a bit specious with our value judgments these days. We’re all for lining other folks against the wall but very forgiving of our own flaws. Multiply that by about three hundred million and you have the society, and the economy, that we have today. So yes, Mr. Carville, it is the economy, but it’s also ethics…stupid.
With that in mind and in full knowledge of my own hypocrisy, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank some of the folks who made this disaster possible:
You folks with shitty credit who financed (or refinanced) your McMansion with a subprime mortgage: Thank you.
Greedy idiot bankers who bought more debt than they could ever collect in hopes that they could sell it to someone else before it all went bad, thus proving that a practical demonstration of musical chairs should be included in any MBA curriculum: Thank you.
Real estate speculators who inflated prices and continued to overbuild even after it was apparent that there was a glut of houses on the market: Thank you.
On a related note: Carlton Sheetz, you son of a bitch. You know what you did. Thank you for it.
Corporate officers who used merger and acquisition and recklessly cutting overhead as a substitute for real growth and actual profitability: Thank you.
Investment Advisers and Market Analysts who played along with this gamesmanship, basing recommendations on tweaked indicators and turning a blind eye to the fact that the emperor fewer and fewer clothes on: Thank you so much.
Investors great and small who had all of this information available to them and instead played along hoping that they’d either get out in time or just keep the market running on pixie dust and ass-smoke by virtue of their wanting it to do so: Thanks much.
Federal Regulators during the Clinton and Bush Administrations who watched it all go down. Sure, most of it was legal but it was also unethical and destructive in the long term. Now I know that nobody wants to be the bad guy and where the economy was concerned being a Gloomy Gus would have gotten you crucified (Particularly in the ’90s), but somebody’s gotta play bad cop, dammit. Thanks, thanks , and thanks, by the way.
Finally, Accountants, especially CPAs and especially especially those who were CFOs who decided upon specious interpretations of the Generally Accepted Accounting principles. You people are the worst of the worst. Those principles were adopted specifically to keep this from happening. You were meant to be gatekeepers; instead you were enablers. Thanks ever so much.
This further illustrates my point. There are safeguards and regulations in place, but they’re useless when the people supposed to apply them are themselves compromised. Most, if not all of the folks I just mentioned knew enough to know better. In most cases they simply let their greed override their better judgment, or in the cases of the corporate officers largely insulated themselves from the long-term repercussions of their misdeeds. Like the man said, you can’t fix stupid. Actually you can, but it’s a long and painful process. Evil is an even tougher nut to crack, but it can be overcome. What we find ourselves confronted with however, is no less than stupid evil. Now how the hell do we fix that?
Now, that was rambling.