The End.

Fed to buy $300 billion in Treasuries

Bloomberg story.

So here we go, then. The US is now printing money to buy their own debt with. DEFCON 1, anybody?

This little sum brings the stimulus package up to a cool $10 trillion, according to another article on Bloomberg.

The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $14.5 trillion, or 33 percent, of the value of the world’s companies since Sept. 15; brought down Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.; and led to the takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. by Bank of America Corp.

The $9.7 trillion in pledges would be enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world. It’s 13 times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office data, and is almost enough to pay off every home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve.
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Dude, did you not say "enough already"?

I'm really surprise to hear you are in the property business. Surly you must know that sentiment is very important.

I actually thought you are in the bake-beans business:D
 
@ BBSA: I'll take one last shot at getting through to you.

Firstly, I DO understand your point about market sentiment. It's actually a very simple concept. Yes, if everybody stops buying because the talking heads on the TV says that the world is coming to an end then this will obviously have a very negative effect on the economy and could only worsen the current recession. 'Nuff said.

However, as I've said before, there's no denying that current events are unprecedented in our lifetimes or even those of our parents. Heck, they might even be unprecedented in living history. I have posted literally dozens of links in this thread alone that back up this point. Essentially, the macro economic trends around us are far, far bigger than mere negative sentiment.

Case in point: The USA is experiencing the worst financial crisis in its history. If Barak's bailouts don't start working soon then we might well end up with unprecedented worldwide chaos for decades to come. Even if things do recover, it will take generations to pay off the astronomical debt that accumulated. The time of unbridled consumerism based on debt is over for good. The American dream is no more. For ever.

Another example: The UK's debt to GDP ratio is now at such a fantastic level that the UK can only be described as utterly bankrupt by any definition of the term. On top of this, the UK as well as the EU's largest banks are sitting on a time bomb waiting for Eastern Europe to start defaulting on their short term loans that are due during the next 12 months. This looming crisis is significantly bigger than the US housing bubble ever was, although its pending demise is indirectly a result of the collapse of the latter.

Judging by all available statistics the current economic collapse is happening far quicker and far more widespread than GD1 in the 30s. Fact. I posted a link before. I can go on and on and on and post many more dooming stories of what is happening around us. Heck, that is what this thread is all about.

What irks me is that you run around after me wherever I go saying: "Ssssh! Shut up! You're making things worse. Don't talk about this." Yes, I got your point long ago. I have chosen not to heed your warnings, though. I feel that it is my right to discuss on a public forum what may well be the most significant event in my entire life. I refuse to shut up about this just because my posts might prevent somebody out there to buy a new BMW on credit.

Contrary to what you may believe, I am desperately hoping that things are going to turn around. I haven't the slightest desire to end up without a job with no food to feed my starving kids in a world of chaos and destruction. In short, I truly hope I am wrong. All I'm asking is that you leave me in peace to discuss this crisis without your constant reprimands, OK? Why don't you start a new thread about how all the doomers are destroying the market with their negative sentiment? I won't come and troll in your thread, I promise.
 
StrongTurd said:
Contrary to what you may believe, I am desperately hoping that things are going to turn around. I haven't the slightest desire to end up without a job with no food to feed my starving kids in a world of chaos and destruction.
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Do you honestly believe that your hopes is going to realise by shouting "DOOM AND GLOOM" at every opportunity you get?

Keep it up and your fears will become true.
 
BBSA said:
Do you honestly believe that your hopes is going to realise by shouting "DOOM AND GLOOM" at every opportunity you get?

Keep it up and your fears will become true.
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Aah, whatever! I'm done trying to discuss this with you. There's no point.

If I admit that I, StrongTurd, am the root cause of the current global economic collapse due to my doom and gloom posts on the Interwebs then will you leave me alone?
 
StrongTurd said:
Aah, whatever! I'm done trying to discuss this with you. There's no point.

If I admit that I, StrongTurd, am the root cause of the current global economic collapse due to my doom and gloom posts on the Interwebs then will you leave me alone?
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Please don't. There's already far too much ego on these forums.
 
To face up to whats happened we all need home truths. BBSA is king of the ostrich movement. No matter what you do in life, you face reality and make a decision based on facts. The banking system nearly went under in the west in September.

The media reported this. They are not responsible. They are feeding us facts.
 
Furthermore the scale of it means American, British and Eurozone children born today will be paying for it when they start to pay tax. The Yanks and Brits are printing electronic money for Gods sake.
 
PCW said:
BBSA is king of the ostrich movement.
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No not at all. I'm fully aware that we are in a deep recession, and I have never argued any different. My problems is with headline like "DEFCON 1", "Financial Armageddon" and "depression that will make the 1930s look like a Sunday picnic".

All I'm asking is that we are more responsible.
 
On a lighter note an Astrologer interviewed on 5fm on Monday said we will be ok till 2011:)..then in 2012 we'll have a civil war:(..by 2014..ok again???:)
 
Here is a nice article which puts everything in perspective:

We live in the shadow of the Great Depression. Americans’ gloom does not reflect just 8.1 percent unemployment or the loss of $13 trillion worth of housing and stock market value since mid-2007. There is also an amorphous anxiety that we are falling into a deep economic ravine from which escape will be difficult. These worries may prove ill-founded. But until they do, they promote pessimism and the hoarding of cash, by consumers and companies alike, that further weaken the economy.

Our only frame of reference for this sort of breakdown is the Great Depression. Superficially, the comparison seems absurd. We are a long way from the 1930s, as Christina Romer, head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, noted recently in a useful talk. Unemployment peaked at 25 percent in 1933. At its low point, the economy (gross domestic product) was down 25 percent from its 1929 high. So far, U.S. GDP has dropped only about 2 percent.
What’s more, the Depression changed our thinking and institutions. The human misery of economic turmoil has diminished. “American workers [in the 1930s] had painfully few of the social safety nets that today help families,” Romer said. Until 1935, there was no federal unemployment insurance. At last count, there were 32 million food stamp recipients and 49 million on Medicaid. These programs didn’t exist in the 1930s.

Government also responds more quickly to slumps. Despite many New Deal programs, “fiscal policy”-in effect, deficit spending-was used only modestly in the 1930s, Romer argued. Some of Franklin Roosevelt’s extra spending was offset by a tax increase enacted in Herbert Hoover’s last year. The federal deficit went from 4.5 percent of GDP in 1933 to 5.9 percent in 1934, not a huge increase.

Contrast that with the present. In fiscal 2009, the budget deficit is projected at 12.3 percent of GDP, up from 3.2 percent in 2008. Some of the increase reflects “automatic stabilizers” (in downturns, government spending increases and taxes decrease); the rest stems from the massive “stimulus program.” On top of this, the Federal Reserve has cut its overnight interest rate to about zero and is lending directly in markets where private investors have retreated, including housing.

Government’s aggressive actions should reinforce some of the economy’s normal mechanisms for recovery. As pent-up demand builds, so will the pressure for more spending. The repayment of loans, lowering debt burdens, sets the stage for more spending. Ditto for the runoff of surplus inventories.

So, are Depression analogies far-fetched, needlessly alarmist? Probably-but not inevitably. Even some Depression scholars, who once dismissed the possibility of a repetition, are less confident.

“Unfortunately, the similarities [between then and now] are growing more striking every day,” says economic historian Barry Eichengreen of the University of California at Berkeley. “I never thought I’d say that in my lifetime.” Argues economist Gary Richardson of UC Irvine: “This is the first business downturn since the 1930s that looks like the 1930s.”

One parallel is that it’s worldwide. In the 1930s, the gold standard transmitted the crisis from country to country. Governments raised interest rates to protect their gold reserves. Credit tightened, production and trade suffered, unemployment rose. Now, global investors and banks transmit the crisis. If they suffer losses in one country, they may sell stocks and bonds in other markets to raise cash. Or as they “deleverage”-reduce their own borrowing-they may curtail lending and investing in many countries.

The consequences are the same. In the fourth quarter of 2008, global industrial production fell at a 20 percent annual rate from the third quarter, says the World Bank. International trade may “register its largest decline in 80 years.” Developing countries need to borrow at least $270 billion; if they can’t, their economies will slow and that will hurt the advanced countries that export to them. It’s a vicious circle.

Just as in the 1930s, there’s a global implosion of credit. What’s also reminiscent of the Depression are quarrels over who’s to blame and what should be done. The Obama administration wants bigger stimulus packages from Europe and Japan. Europeans have rebuffed the proposal. The United States has also proposed greater lending by the International Monetary Fund to relieve stresses on poorer countries. Disputes could fuel protectionism and economic nationalism.

No one knows how this epic struggle will end-whether the forces pushing down the global economy will prevail over those trying to pull it up. “Depression” captures a general alarm. The vague fear that something bad is happening, by whatever label, causes consumers and business managers to protect themselves by conserving their cash and slashing their spending. They hope for the best and prepare for the worst. When people stop worrying about depression, when the shadow lifts, the crisis will be over.
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Lord Anubis said:
Another £180bil for UK banks..just saw on Sky News
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thats because, i am reliably told, they have been "prudent" and are "well placed to weather the financial crisis that started in america"

'struth.

looks like, as a UK taxpayer, i just bought my mom ANOTHER bank for mother's day.
with monopoly money. backed by nothing, not even a promise to pay. roll on depression? more like , roll on reality. lets get back to normality. we dont want to go back to the way things were, because that is how this all got started. get your long life milk, beans and shotgun ready:-)
 
It will lift guys, cheer up. Nothing like a diagnosis of Stage IIIB lung cancer to really spoil your mood. This is just the economy, it will get better.
 
dont worry, its contained
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...e/5029194/RBS-faces-500m-loss-on-Cattles.html

must say, they have recently found a massive couch, what will all this money stashed away down the sides. I hope you guys had a nice day, me and my friends are down about £500million, give or take a few million.

or make that
R7000million.

yeah, seven thousand million rand. in one day.

poof! mike the magician works his wonders. vanish, with added oxy action.

and dont forget the £180 billion mentioned earlier. the sums are big, and we still dont know where the end is.
 
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