Credit Crisis? Just Wait for a Replay

[Didereaux]

Source: NY Times

As 2007 ends, it seems that the financial world shakes every time a company reveals some new exposure to the disastrous world of subprime mortgage lending.

But just how different was subprime lending from other lending in the days of easy money that prevailed until this summer? The smug confidence that nothing could go wrong, and that credit quality did not matter, could be seen in the many other markets as well.
<snip>
We have learned in the last month that credit insurers took big risks in backing C.D.O.’s and other exotic things. Some are scrambling to raise more capital to stay in business. One, ACA, may well go out of business.

But if the credit insurers turn out to have had inadequate reserves, what are we to make of the credit default swap market? Mr. Seides calls it “an insurance market with no loss reserves,” and points out that $45 trillion in such swaps are now outstanding. That is, he notes, almost five times the United States national debt.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/business/28norris.html?hp

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ya know, it may NOT be a smart move to have a democrat in the Whitehouse in '09.

Just joking, the USSupCT DEMANDS we win this thing, but 2012 may be a bruiser. Some pundit or other mentioned when 'Turd Blossum' Rove left that it was for planning the 2012 campaign and not the '08 one.

[ixion]

1. 2012... the end of the world as we know it according to many ancient calendars

Interesting times, indeed.

[dysfunctional press]

6. many? i thought that it was just the mayans whose calender ended then.

:shrug:

[ixion]

8. egypt and druid also refer to the date, I believe

which is what makes it kind of interesting, IMO.

NOTE: much of these types of things are open to interpretation, so who really knows. :)

[dysfunctional press]

15. the mayans, egyptians, druids, inca, and polynesians all used a 13-moon/month calendar...

that divided the year into 13 28-day months, but the mayans were the only ones whose calander "ends" on our date of dec. 21, 2012 (the winter solstice).

to the mayans, that date represents the end of their current 5,125-year "13-baktun cycle", and the beginning of a new such cycle.

[ryanmuegge]

2. We aren't going to be alive in 2012 anyway. Who cares?

[pattmarty]

3. I'm 61 now, and probably won't be. but what of the "young-uns"???

[ryanmuegge]

4. I'm 23. I'm just saying with the effects of peak oil...

and the resulting drop in our standard of living, I don't expect to be alive. Effects of climate change could also wipe us out by then (notice how it's already difficult to get water in the south). Many could die in this country in the oncoming recession if it becomes anything like the Great Depression.

[pattmarty]

10. You are young, so you must keep fighting or move to another country.

[mahina]

11. People die all the time.

New lives come, morning follows night, it won't be a lot of fun but we are an adaptable crew. I hope you aren't serious about all this doom stuff. Times were tough many times in world history. Doesn't mean we won't be here.

[dysfunctional press]

5. you don't think you'll live 5 more years?

do you have some type of life-threatening medical condition? 66 isn't really all that old.

[pattmarty]

9. My father died at 60, mother at 64, so if I make it, I make it.

[dysfunctional press]

14. attitude can have a lot to do with it too...

if you resign your mind to it, your body may just decide to comply.

[dysfunctional press]

7. we aren't? how so? i definitely intend to be here...

how do you figure?

[ryanmuegge]

12. Peak oil, in particular, will be devastating

I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but things are looking very bleak. Our lifestyle and economy is so unsustainable, relative to resources and population, that everything could implode any day. If we don't get our energy situation resolved soon (because we are so dependent on hydrocarbons), it seems plausible a significant reduction in population is imminent.

[dysfunctional press]

13. not so much in the next 5 or 6 years...at least not in apocolyptic sense-

there's still a LOT of oil in the ground- it's just more expensive to get at and out.

as to the "significant reduction in population" being "imminent"...relax. in this country, that would be more likely from some type of lethal contagious pathogen than from mass starvation in the next 5-6 years.

we've have lost an important 8 years of time that could have been put toward solving future problems, rather exasperating current ones, once the next president takes office- but hopefully, 44 will have the foresight and fortitude to launch us on an "apollo program' to develop alternative/renewable fuel sources and vehicles/houses that use them, with a stated goal of weaning us off foreign hydrocarbons within a decade.

[Didereaux]

16. k'd for the night shift

[Deja Q]

18. THANK YOU!!!

The doom talk is getting old, there are alternatives and other means and so much is on the horizon than to be a petty pessimist is... pathetic.

[Didereaux]

19. Floyd Norris is hardly a 'petty pessimist' his views are rather widely respected.

[avenger64]

17. Please don't post stuff like this ...

.. it tells the truth way too clearly.