Tips on coping with the market meltdown
Dr.Sanity has good advice on how to cope with stress and anxiety as the market melts down:
I was watching CNBC last night with the NYT's Paul Krugman on smirking about how the government needed to bail us out of the crisis. I could sense the glee in his voice when discussing how only government intervention would work. Even Larry Kudlow, a libertarian type was in agreement with him. The only sensible person on was some analyst who kept saying that throwing government regulation and money at the problem was like throwing heroin at an addict. He was the only one who seemed to have any sense although the rest were hardly giving him a chance to talk.
I think the financial crisis is reflective of the election in that we have socialist proposals that are being swallowed hook, line and sinker by the electorate because people are so terrified of standing on their own two feet these days. Everyone is a victim of some evil capitalist. Perhaps voters won't realize until it is too late that playing into the victim mentality could eventually cost them their money, their property, their freedom and their country as we now know it.
Rule #1: Don't be a victim. Rule #2: Don't wait to be rescued. Rescue yourself.
The attitude that we are all helpless victims of the “system” and that the all-powerful and all-good government is always there to help and protect us from ourselves and all the horrible capitalist oppressors out there is one popular way to look at the current mess. The same politicians who got us into this mess are now actively promising to make all the pain go away so that neither they nor you have to change your behavior at all!
This sensibility permeates the culture to such an extent that it grossly interferes with real psychological health and functional coping mechanisms. In fact, in my profession, it is this type of thinking that becomes the major impediment preventing patients with serious psychiatric and emotional problems from being able to take any sort of control over their own lives.
I was watching CNBC last night with the NYT's Paul Krugman on smirking about how the government needed to bail us out of the crisis. I could sense the glee in his voice when discussing how only government intervention would work. Even Larry Kudlow, a libertarian type was in agreement with him. The only sensible person on was some analyst who kept saying that throwing government regulation and money at the problem was like throwing heroin at an addict. He was the only one who seemed to have any sense although the rest were hardly giving him a chance to talk.
I think the financial crisis is reflective of the election in that we have socialist proposals that are being swallowed hook, line and sinker by the electorate because people are so terrified of standing on their own two feet these days. Everyone is a victim of some evil capitalist. Perhaps voters won't realize until it is too late that playing into the victim mentality could eventually cost them their money, their property, their freedom and their country as we now know it.
posted by Helen at 8:34 AM
26 Comments:
The big bail-out has less to do with the will of the people and much more so to do with a government who feels that they can spend the people's money however they wish and with however many dollars they want. War in Iraq? Go for it. Bank bail-out? Let's write a check. Bridge to nowhere? Sure! Highway funds? No amount is too little. Medicaid? Get fat, we'll pay. Education? No child left behind, no matter how bad the case.
Nobody can stop this train, because if we could we would have done it a long time ago. The US government at this point is printing money. Germany printed a bunch of marks during the 1920s, we see where that got them, or maybe everyone has forgotten. Oh well, that means history is bound to repeat itself.
There is plenty of blame to go around.
"Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
It was the Clinton adminstration, still hailed by the meddia as the economic messiah, that pressured the market into this mess in the name of helping the poor. It's amazing how he is usually unscathed, and often benefits, from the messes he creates.
President Bush, who I agree is too big of a spender, has done nothing to stop this mess created by Clinton.
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd has done nothing, although they now want to paint it as a Bush problem. They probably did nothing so it would be an election year issue to help their party.
The greedy lenders should not have lent money to people who did not have adequate credit. I wish every american could own a home, but the reality is it is not a favor to bury people in debt they can't afford.
The borrower's have culpability too. If some politician looking to "help the poor" pressured a bank to allow me to borrow a million bucks, I still wouldn't do it.
I have mixed feelings over the bailout. I could have predicted the headlines against the president though. I said before it passed that if he signs it, he's helping greedy fat cats and if he vetoes it, he's neglecting the poor. Hell, it's an election year.
Now we, the taxpayer, are stuck bailing out companies that shouldn't have loaned money and people who should not have borrowed it. Pathetic.
We have to clean house. Period. We all have to grow a pair, regardless of sex, and do it. The government has successfully pitted the people against each other for the sake of a few hundred keeping their cushy jobs in D.C. for as long as possible. This crisis doesn't affect them, does it? Wonder why - and how - that is.........
I have always been and will forever be suspicious of government. Even my own chosen party. They work four days a week and vote for things that affect me most adversely when I'm sleeping.
Man, I am looking for money to buy some GM stock. It is at its lowest price since 1950. I got to git sum.
Trey
"Man, I am looking for money to buy some GM stock. It is at its lowest price since 1950."
--------
It could go to its lowest price since 1900 ("0").
I guess their main focus in the early 1990s of "diversity" is on the back burner now.
Chrysler and GM are in merger talks.
This could be interesting.
If the price of fuel keeps going down, Joe and Mary's baby boy might just have to get himself a hemi! Hoowah!
It's easy to call lenders greedy, but all it serves to do is demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the situation.
Lenders were forced to make high risk loans under threat of prosecution by the justice department. That's a fact. Attorneys general from several states tried to stop questionable financing practices, but were told not to do so by the federal government. That's also a fact. So this is not and was never a matter of greed but of government interference.
Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by incompetence. What has happened over the last ten or so years, and is coming to a head now, is the result of failed policies and institutional and personal stupidity.
Bill Gross (oh how apt the name) once said that credit is the lifeblood of capitalism. WRONG. Capital is the lifeblood of capitalism. Credit is just another word for debt.
Cheap money and easy credit led the erroneous belief that you could borrow your way to prosperity. This occurred across all levels of society, from the personal to the municipal, from the individual all the way up to the city, state and federal governments, across the globe. Now everyone is drowning in debt, and no one has any money to get out of it. There will be a painful but necessary correction.
People say that America is the world's richest nation. Actually it's the world's most debt-ridden nation, and now the bills are coming due.
When you have money--that is, when your money is working for you--you're free. You can do whatever you want. When you have debt--that is, when you're working for money, someone else's money--you're a slave. All you can do is work.
We have gone from being the freest nation to being a slave state. That is not the fault of capitalism but of ignorance and incompetence. And we have no one to blame for it but ourselves.
The American dream--that is, freedom--is achievable only through fiscal responsibility and financial independence. We seem to have forgotten that.
And anyone who thinks the assclowns in Washington are going to borrow and spend this country out of this mess is a complete idiot.
Great post GG.
Trey
I think the only ones left who believe that (borrow and spend our way out) are those who work inside the beltway.
I think every individual allowed to vote in every free nation on this planet needs to vote in a manner to clean house.
One of my favorite Bob Dylan lines: "Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters."
The big bail-out has less to do with the will of the people and much more so to do with a government who feels that they can spend the people's money however they wish and with however many dollars they want.
Agree. Conservatives complain of liberals/socialist wanting to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. The bail out is a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich.
It pains me to write this, but the liberal critique is true. The government is essentially controlled by big business. On at least two major issues, illegal immigration and the bailout, the Congress has ignored the will of a super majority of the citizenry. They did it just to benefit their big business buddies.
I've worked hard for the Republican Party for twenty years. Gave money when it hurt, too.
The bastards stabbed me in the back twice now.
Here's an economist who predicted this financial crisis a couple of years ago with very dire predictions of what is going to happen:
http://www.newmogul.com/item?id=1002
As this is the "freshest" post, thought I'd drop this in here. I have been thinking and talking about how easily Hillary dropped off the planet since it happened. I am sure others figured there was a reason, just as I did.
http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/clinton-supporters-sharing-evidence-for-rico-case-against-obama-campaign/
I still believe Hillary is only doing this because she wants the white house herself. But if this information holds true, we can bet on Hillary supporters voting for McCain instead of Obama. And as I have thought out loud, 2012 will be Palin / Hillary.
A few things:
1) Of course Larry Kudlow wants the government to bail out Wall Street. People like Kudlow are 'free market libertarians' until THEY need money. It's always been that way. Has been since JP Morgan arranged the first bailout in 1907. There is NO SUCH THING as a free market. Never has been. Anyone who believes there is is very naive. I've worked on Wall Street for years, so I should know. We never wondered 'if' the government was going to bail out Wall Street; we assumed they were going to. We wondered how much?
It's not like this is new. Remember the Chrysler bailout in the 70's? Who paid for the S&L crisis? We did. It's always been that way, always will be. The people who own the country run the country. We're just employees.
2)700 billion isn't nearly enough. The problem is about five times the size of that. In all actuality, we'll never know the true extent of the problem, because the banks never will.
Regardless of the politics, the financial crisis has now grown to the point that it is beyond anyone's control. No one can possibly understand the complicated web of inter-related contracts and obligations well enough to positively identify the good versus the worthless.
Whoever is elected in November will be hamstrung be the fact that the country is out of money. The party is over, Government programs will be cut back like never before, and in a few years we will emerge stronger, with now worthless people totally dependent on Government handouts (this includes most Government employees)having for the first time in their lives to be responsible for themselves.
So finally, we stand at the threshold of the brave new world, tomcal? I do wonder just what it is that we will be accepting as we give in to the 5th stage of grief. By your second paragraph, sounds like you expect it to be full blown socialism - with a lot of military personnel on constant patrol of the streets, keeping the peace.
As natural resources aren't evenly dispersed within man made national boundaries, it could get messy. I just hope all the bridges in Florida don't get bombed out, as I could be living under one eventually.
I actually think we're going to be forced into a quasi social democratic system in the vein of the Scandinavian countries. This is the result of the pendulum swinging to the other extreme. We've let the banks and Wall Street run wild for years now. Now the pendulum will swing the other way.
I myself am a fan of capitalism, but I understand the true nature of the greed of the banks (commercial and investment) and brokerage companies. Wall Street is a zero sum game. If you let them regulate themselves, (which we've done) they WILL strip-mine the country. They need to be reigned in. The public needs to be protected, lest we be left holding the bag time and again.
br549:
The intent of my second paragraph, above, was to express my belief that no degree of government intervention can stop the current economic crisis.
The current crisis has been caused by government mandates, such as the Community Redevelopment Act, which forced banks to lend to people who otherwise would not qualify, and now, surprisingly, cannot meet their obligations. There have been excesses in the free markets as well, but at the root of those excesses was the government pushing programs designed to produce "home ownership for all".
No, I believe that we have come to this point as a result of getting too close to full blown socialism. When this is over, the socialists will be in the garbage bin of history.
But with respect to the upcoming elections, whoever wins will be a one-term President and Party. Outside economic forces will hamstring any attempts by the next President to implement any social agenda. The only consideration will be what programs to jettison in order to survive. Four years from now, the American people will blame whoever was the President for the pain of the "surgery without anesthiesia", as former Argentine President Carlos Menem put it, and vote him out.
tomcal,
Your comments are quite good. I agree with you generally on some of your points. I do in fact think that the Community Redevelopment Act is a big cause of this.
However, there are a few more things . . .
In no particular order: 1) The deregulation that has been going on in the banking and brokerage sectors since the eighties has been a huge factor. This deregulation, coupled with a wild-west over-the-counter credit default swaps market, was (is) a recipe for disaster. When I actually learned what credit default swaps were, I couldn’t BELIEVE they were unregulated!! That’s like letting the mafia police itself. An overheated secondary mortgage market ensured, where the pressure was on to write mortgages to feed the hungry maw of Wall Street. The Fannie Mae crisis is a perfect example. For years, they dealt in plain vanilla mortgages. When the competition stepped up, Fannie Mae felt the pressure from Wall Street and started dealing in crap. Hence, bye bye Fannie Mae.
Interestingly enough, the Chicago mercantile Exchange is now working on a trading platform for credit default swaps, which are in the process of being standardized and regulated. That’ll probably be launched within the space of six months.
Basically, everyone felt the pressure from Wall Street to write more and more mortgages. Now the investment banks are left holding worthless paper. The bank implosions you see now are happening because over the past few months, the banks have learned just how much of this crap is on their books. It took about a year to figure out, and there’s still more to go. My wild guess is about another 500 billion, just to be conservative.
When you say socialism, I think you’re correct, but in a different way. I think it’s socialism for the investment banks, not the public. Believe me, the investment banks were very much behind the Community Redevelopment Act, which provided a lucrative market in credit default swaps. And since most investment banks only think about five minutes ahead, they could care less what happened in the future. Any Wall Street veteran can tell you that the time frame on the street is very narrow. No one could care less what happens in a month. Perhaps now that’s changed a bit, with people facing complete demolition. But not much.
I’ve worked on Wall Street for years, and that’s how it’s always been.
Good conversation.
metalover30:
Just send me $100,000; I promise to pay for any disaster that should befall you during the coming year, unless you actually make a claim.
metalover30:
500 Billion? That may be the value of the losses on underlying mortgage debt; but as you know, the notional value of the Default Swap "side bets" probably exceeds that amount ten times over.
As Frank Zappa once wrote: "No more credit at the liquor store..."
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