Turns out, the European markets open at midnight here in Oregon, just before I start getting ready to go to bed. Usually reserved for reading, but last night I was curious.
Holy shit.
Markets drop 10% instantly, and or are suspended from trading.
Calm English guy talks about how equity assets are the only thing left to sell for cash.
I kind of like listening to the accents; makes me feel cosmopolitan. But there's one guy who absolutely mumbles, in an English accent. Can't understand a word he says, but when I do make out a word it's non-sensical. The Euros seem to be a much more dapper crew. The Aussies on the other hand look like they just got out of bed. Germans seems grimly amused; the French have one raised eyebrow; the Chinese appear to be gloating.
Talk me down from this, RDC. Show me how this is just 'normal.'
It was kind of funny. They have two charts running on the screen; rising stocks and losing stocks. But since no stocks were actually going up, the 'rising' stock chart was listing losses of 2.8 or 3.5 or 4.7; those were the winners. The 'losing' stock chart was more like 28.2 or 22.6 or 18.9.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
My Business Blog & My Darling Wife's Blogs
-
-
Trillium Trilogy10 years ago
-
Twitter Updates
Blog Archive
-
▼
2008
(571)
-
▼
October
(42)
- What about books?
- Specialty and general relativity.
- As goes the city, so goes business....
- Against the grain?
- Hits and misses.
- Huge sales = huge bonuses. But not profits....
- Random thoughts.
- "Resort" hotel, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more
- 1000th post.
- Signs of the times.
- Book Signing Results.
- Paul, don't read this.
- Clean cut?
- Is it over yet?
- Rewarding phony profits...
- Bend Film
- Debt is deadly.
- Silver Anniversary
- Dan Parson's Star Wars
- Prying my cold dead hands.
- Cherry pick.
- Joe the Plumber
- Full ninnyhoodness, Part Two.
- A small thing.
- Texas Hold-em
- Full ninnyhoodness
- Resting on my laurels?
- Cover.
- Reagan of Last Resort.
- It's only prudent.
- Euro crash.
- Poor eggs.
- Obama, McCain comics
- Heavenly Downtown.
- Thanks for the bailout, dumbasses.
- Tech adoption rates....
- Geek Formula....
- First and long.
- I got a kindle, you got a kindle, we all got kindle
- 3 Epochs of business, and now a 4th?
- "Beware of Geeks bearing formula's...."
- Forgettable month.
-
▼
October
(42)
About Me
- Duncan McGeary
- I'm Duncan McGeary, owner and/or operator for the last 39 years of Pegasus Books in Downtown Bend, Oregon. These days I'm writing books as well as selling them. I'm the comic book guy. But even more so, I'm a book book guy. Books of all kinds. Big books and little books, children's and adult, fiction and non-fiction, hardback and paperback and trade paperback and graphic novels. Books with more words than pictures and books with more pictures than words. They are all part of the book world to me, and I love being surrounded by them every day.
4 comments:
Keep in mind that the downturn is still not the worst since world war II. Certainly not worse than the great depression.
Now if you really want to become depressed look at the Japanese market stating in the mid 80's. They are the closest thing I can find to the current deliveraging. Their market peaked at 39000 in 1990, dropped to 7500, went back up to 17500 and is currently setting around 10000 or so (about where they were at in 1984).
The Japanese situation is one reason in favor of taking action, since they pretty much did not.
Now I do not expect it to be as bad as the Japanese situation, let me give you another item of interest. If you take a look at the DOW and establish a trend line using the 10 years before the .COM boom (85-95) (a period of solid but not overwhelmingly high growth, kind of a good average) and extend that line to today you end up with a DOW around 8000. Which when you take out the excesses of the housing boom, and carry over from the .COM boom, it would not surprise me as level for building a base.
Deliveraging is painful, if the governments pump in too little money we will get deflation (the Japanese result) to much and we will pop over into extreme inflation (the 70's result). We could get unlucky and get both.
The bottom line is income average in over time, keep cash reserves, do not take on debt.
Greed. Are all humans wired to take as much as they can if presented the opportunity?
I asked myself if I was given access to a room full of money and told I can take as much as I could carry because there was a line waiting behind me for their turn, if I would? Would I do it if I understood that once this wealth was exhausted that every one still in line would suffer terribly? I think I still would and placate myself with the thought I'd help everyone around me with my resources. See how easy it is to lie to yourself?
Life will continue and we will all be humbled and have to take part in our communities to survive. The days of sitting in you car to your work back to your house are over. Building bonds with your neighbors, small business owners, local government will be crucial in the next few years.
Bend will suffer but it has many resources to count on. Water, geography limiting easy access, farms, ranches, small population base, hunting and fishing. I wouldn't mind being there instead of here in Portland during the coming turmoil.
Books on how to fix anything, gardening, hunting, basic engineering and building will be invaluable and a great barter item. Comics and games will be valuable for their ability to entertain and help people forget reality for a while.
The treasury bond market over the next few days will be the next emergency. If that fails then the dollar is done and our collective future becomes very bleak, very fast. Stay warm. Probably won't be snowboarding this winter..
"Comics and games will be valuable for their ability to entertain and help people forget reality for a while."
It's really getting bad, so I'm thinking of going to Duncan's store to shore up my stockpile of comics that are at home in the cellar. I'm going to need something to read while the world goes to hell outside my fortified fortress.
On a less sarcastic note, who would have ever thought, Duncan, that comics would be a sector that gains from economic malaise?
The inherent paradox of change is you can only truly see it completely in the rear view mirror.
I ran across this comment in an economics blog I frequent.
"As recently as Yesterday, Merkel suggested that she wants out of the Euro. She is not going to toe the line any longer and Germany will be the first to abandon the Euro for a newer-D Mark or North EU Type "Gold-backed " Euro.
Expect a split in the EU into two factions of those EU Countries that are using the Euro as its currency.
Call it the Latin Euro and the Northern Europe Euro.
France and Germany will most likely revive the Franc and the D. Mark respectively as a companion currency alongside the Northern Europe Euro currency as a back-up. Both will be accepted currencies until a final determination is made on the longevity of any common Northern Euro currency.
Latin Based Euro Countries
Cyprus
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Malta
Montenegro
Portugal
San Marino
Slovenia
Spain
Vatican City
Andorra
Northern Euro Countries "Gold Backed"
Austria
Belgium
Finland
France
Germany
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Monaco
Russia has already begun formal discussions on a Gold backed Rouble and given their immense Natural Resources reserves and the build-up of their Gold mining investments over the course of the last 10 years it will be a very easy switch for them.
Argentina and Brazil have already broken form the USD Reserve for settling trade accounts between each country. This was adopted over the Summer and went off with out a hitch.
China has been building it gold reserves and is now the largest sovereign nation invested in African Gold Mining, as well as oil exploration in Canada, and the Caribbean (Cuba).
What should concern the US and the UK the most is that no inclusion of the USD as a reserve currency going forward or the pound sterling as a benchmark currency for European Trade is being considered on a going forward basis.
What we are witnessing is a stern demand by BIS and stronger EU nations like Germany to Paulson, that the toxic bonds need to be repatriated to explode on American soil. The dollar rally is nothing more than the closeout of that debt being settled after which the USD will most likely shed 30%-50% of it value in a stunningly short amount of time. Months not years.
Gold is becoming accepted as currency over fractional reserve systems. Just go out and try to buy some physical bullion today. Every Sovereign Mint in the world has either stopped or dramatically suspended any sales to the Public. And Every Central Bank has publicly said that it has suspend any future sales. The Paper futures manipulation on COMEX and LME are about to implode, as no Physical deliveries can be made on contracts the demand delivery at settlement. This may occur before the month is out."
Here's another piece concerning derivatives and the risk they pose to the world economy.
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.
2457240.0.
smoke_mirrors_and_how_a_handful_of_
missed_mortgage_payments_started_the_
global_financial_crisis.php
The USD dollar will cease to be the worlds reserve currency in the very near future. The damage to our buying power and economic influence will be immense.
What really bothers me is the fact that the majority of the population is blissfully unaware of events leading America to a starkly frugal future. We also all fail to understand the impact on the dollar if oil is sold in a basket of currencies as is inevitably drawing near. I do not jest when I suggest the dollar has a real possibility of being devalued to a point of in consequence and a barter economy takes precedence.
History is littered with failed empires and currencies. I have kids and a small business. I hope I'm wrong but I'm preparing in case I'm right.
Post a Comment