The new great depressions | Why did it take more than a year for the house of cards to fall?

My only real question - other than "what's going to happen to me?" - is why did it take more than a year for the US Government to decide to do something [and then fail in it's attempt to be reactionary]?

The internet is a great thing - not just to learn new stuff - but because the internet has not memory.  It really doesn't now yesterday from today or for that matter last year.  It just holds all that information waiting for someone to request it.  So, for those interested in learning what we knew last year at this time, here are some links.  After doing some of your own investigation, why not ask the question "Why did it take so long?" - and you might be scared to really get to the answer.  

But, my prediction is that just like being overwieght, out of shape, deeply in debt, have a habit you need to break -- that if we [as a nation and a world] decide to make the hard choices now, work to make it right - we will get through this mess.  If we take the easy way out today, it will only get harder [and cost more] tomorrow.

Here are the links...

There are more, but you can do the research yourself -- start searching for "Mark to Market", "Collateralized Debt Obligation", "Sub Prime", "Derivatives", "Swaps" etc and so on.  You will be amazed -- there were lots of people saying this would happen all the way back to 2005 and 2006 - and all the warning signs were there in 2007.  

1 comment:

  1. I would suspect that the situation was much like that at a company called EDS back in 2002. Against every other technology stock, the leadership at EDS stated (and continued to state as late as beginning of Q2 2002) that the downturn resulting from 9/11 would not impact the company. They were then negotiating a large contract with Proctor & Gamble that, if consummated, would go a long way towards making that true. Unfortunately for EDS, the Proctor & Gamble deal fell through and the stock plummeted more than 50% (and continued downward until ultimately about 70% of it high-water value was lost). The leadership knew what was going on (based on successful lawsuits against the leadership).

    In this case, I suspect that the current administration was banking that the house of cards would last at least until the next administration took office (Republican or Democratic) so they could say that it didn't occur on their watch. Unfortunately, like the EDS example, timing is everything and one hiccup causes the whole thing to fail.

    Just wait until tomorrow...

    Walt

    ReplyDelete

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