I started the race rather late, and right at the time when, to paraphrase Ambassador Kosh from Babylon 5: "The avalanche has already started; it is too late for the pebbles to vote."
I've done everything I can do to retrench; all I can hope to do is to ride out the storm.
On a related note: with all those bank failures out there, I am telling anyone that will listen that moving one's funds to a good credit union might be a good idea. The bigger banks like BofA, Welles Fargo and
On an unrelated note that has little or nothing to do with doomsday scenarios or radioisotopes in an uncomfortable proximity to your family jewels: Seanan McGuire is coming out with a new CD of filk music goodness, Red Roses and Dead Things. Seanan is an awesome songwriter, a poet, comic strip artist and author. You owe it to yourself and to future generations (those not roasted by that hot lump of Co-60 in your shorts) to hie yourself over to her website and preorder a copy.
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Now playing: Seanan McGuire - Vampire Slayer Blues
via FoxyTunes
2 comments:
Except you are wrong about that. Unless you have more than 250,000 dollars in a given financial institution, your funds are FDIC insured, and in the event of the bank's failure, the fed steps in and takes over without pause. The only person I know with that problem is my mother, but since her accounts are in a living trust with two qualifing beneficiaries, she's actually covered for a full 500K. People panicking and pulling their money out of banks is part of what is driving this mess, and it was one of the major causes of the bank failures in the 29-30. That is why we have the FDIC.
While that's what is supposed to happen *normally*,I profoundly disagree because we are not anywhere near normal times now. This "insurance" of which you speak must be paid for from somewhere -- a plundered Treasury already ravaged by "bailouts" and other handouts to the casino overlords on Wall Street. The FDIC is one, repeat ONE big bank failure away from serious trouble. They dodged the bullet when WaaahMooo went down because the FDIC arranged a merger instead of paying out of the fund. However, if the big fish say "no" to the mergers and FDIC has to step in, depositors are HOSED. The root cause of bank failures 70 years ago as well as today is investments and loans on real estate (in the 29-30 crash, it was loans to farmers that were unrecoverable because of weather / climate / ag practices factors that led to the "Dust Bowl.)" Farm loans were not repaid, which led to a wave of forclosures on farm mortgages and a lack of bank liquidity. When people feared their money woulod not be there, the runs on the banks began . . .
The thing about credit unions is that their insurance is paid out of a different fund, and by and large CUs are smaller than behemoths like WaaahMooo, BofA and Wells Fargo. CUs are NOT immune to bad investments -- a look at the online "Bank Implode-o-meter" will tell you that -- but the failure of a CU is less likely to be as disruptive to the national economy as that of a bank like Wachoivia.
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