www.CostaRicaTicas.com

Brother Jester gives excellent advice--remember that's $100K per INSTITUTION, not per ACCOUNT. Also with multiples of bank failures and an overstressed FDIC/ FSLIC it may take you 6+ months to get your funds back. Hang loose, stay liquid.
The idea that any institution is "too big to fail" is anathema to a dedicated capitalist, even though Fannie and Fredie "bought" such status. Lehman , Merrill and AIG need to be allowed to fail--that's how capitalism works at least in theory. We seem to have socialized risk and debt, and privatized profit--and it's still going on as the easy terms of the F & F Twins bailout clearly shows. Where's the close examination of the books and other transparency there?

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Its good to see people waking up to all this. My 1st trip to costa rica the rate was 82 per dollar complete with the 5 colon bills .25 colon coins and even .1 centamos coins. 1 colon coins as bis as a silver dollar.

The elephant in the room is the federal reserve. It is privately owned and not subject to any audits.

Has anyone heard of the Amero currency yet? It is supposed to be the USA, Canada and Mexico all merged into one currency kinda like the eruo.

I think buying gold and silver is a good investment as well as real estate.

country's are pulling out of the dollar as we speak and big banks are going bankrupt as we speak. Bush Himself will be moving to Paraguay.

Pura Vida

Excellent points. The federal reserve was created in secret in the 1930's and is a privately owned corporation. Its a big scam like so many other aspects of our supposed free market capitalist system.I think corporate dictatorship would be a more accurate description.
I know how extreme that may sound to some but think about who controls the media, the food, armaments, transportation, drugs ( both medical and recreational) and oil and marvel at the unprecedented power over the people of the Earth and Earth itself.

_________________
I believe in moderation in everything except excess.
I phuck 'em just to see the look on their face.
Klatu, berata, nicto.

Bingo. Except I need to make slight correction. It was created in secret in 1910 in Jeckyl Island. It was then signed in to law in 1913 by Woodrow Wilson. Breaking news.. the Fed is going to grant AIG it's loan for 85 BILLION. Here's the catch. They, the Fed, get an 80% stake. Wake up people. Wake up. This will be great for the market tomorrow but it's just one more piece of evidence that all the wealth is being stolen.

dapanz1

Just like to point out that the guys that started microsoft, oracle, ben and jerry's, hp, cellular one, google, walmart, mcdonalds, napster, apple, marriott, yahoo and a lot of other companies were just regular people with an idea. Tell me how that fits into any corporate dictatorship (not really sure what a corporate dictatorship is really, to be honest). Many of our big businesses today were once just small businesses. The USA recognized a long time ago that small businesses turn into big business so this is why we have loan facilities of all types to help small businesses grow.

I can't really speak to the FED, it is a central bank and those things exist all over the world, don't they? Are they all messed up or just ours? I'm not smart enough to comment really.

So what do we do folks? Continue as we always have hoping that the big wheels figure this thing out or are regular people smart enough to protest for a change. I don't think any of us regular folks know what to ask for. Heck, many regular folks had no idea they couldn't afford a mortgage payment that was going to increase 50% in two years.

Too many regular folks living off credit so they probably feel they have little advice to offer since they are not living any different than the US Gov't.... buy it today, pay next month and the month after that. A whole new attitude needs to take hold in households and in the gov't.

I think we are in a crisis, but not that bad. As long as the bailouts are in the billions, I think we are fine (I could be wrong). Why do I feel this way, because when the gov't budget deficit is 400 billion for just one year, no one blinks. It is what it is. No big deal and it hasn't been a big deal for a long time, many many many years there have been deficits.

Is offering up an 80 billion dollar bailout any different than a 400 billion dollar budget deficit? I'm ask, because I really don't know. Both the 80 and the 400 boils down to owing money to someone so I don't see them as any different. 400 makes 80 seem like a drop in the bucket.

The governemnt deficits are huge, importing oil and funding the Iraq/Afghanistan are also huge. The bailout of AIG for 75 billion sounds huge too, but AIG is paying interest to the Feds at 11.31%, so this gives AIG incentive to sell off its assets quickly but timely to pay back the FED. A one week firesale would have been disastrous... ameeting today among the FED said an AIG failure would have been a 1000 to 2000 point down day and would cause problems worldwide leading to other failures ... The problem is AIG has business with states/governemnts, corporations and individuals around the world

But on an individual level, I know people I work with that borrowed against their houses for years, as the house went up, they withdrew the equity in loans... now they are underwater in thier loan.. many people simply walk away from the house.. wait a few years till their credit "repairs" and buy another house.. the real loser here is the last sucker holding the mortgage.... and that's how the cycle repeats...

Too many people have no personal financial responsibility, the attitude is live for today and let someone else worry about the debt, americans need only blame themselves..

Before bringing up or discussing the Federal Reserve System, a bit of knowledge of it and why it was created as well as alternatives to it, would be wise. A good place to start is the www.wikipedia.org article, principally to take the conspiracy theory out of the issue and the article talking about it. It mentions for starters that the Fed is a quasi-public, not private, organization. Wikipedia is a "People's Encyclopedia" not beholden to anyone (not that I'd use it for corporate histories and the like).

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Wth does quasi-public mean?
Paying interest to some bank you gave the power to print money out of thin air with nothing backing it up at all?

Hell I dunno

The USA is pretty damned screwed up IMO. The Gov. cries about terrorist and the sort all the damn time, yet allow ships from communist China to enter our ports everyday full of nice cheap Wal-mart goods.

Definitely crazy stuff

A blogster on MSNBC had some interesting commentary on why these bailouts are a bad idea. He includes translations on some of the jargon-laden gobbledegook that passes for English from the FED.
http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topst ... daddy.aspx

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

Good read Jazz.

And now the DOW down another 450! OMG. On AC 360 last night a few bullets on the Great Depression:

- Unemployment 25% at the height
- Lasted from 1929-1939
- Median income halved from the start (scary stuff).

I need another long weekender in San Jose soon barring any big storm my way to release all the tensions!

I guess the sad thing or the happy thing (not sure which really) is that we didn't get to see what would have happened had the FED not stepped in. Darn, that might have been so freaking exciting... maybe on par with shock and awe. They say, oh no, we can't let this happen or that happen... it makes me want to see it because I have no idea what it is. I wish we could see and then if we don't like it, roll it back.

I think they are just preventing gold from going up to 3000.

As a follow-on to Brother Jester's post: The worst year of the Great Depression was 1937, when there was a recession inside the Depression, and the Depression only ended because of Department of War deficit spending and foreign (read: British) armament spending due to the onset of WWII. We today have nothing like that budgetary flexibility due to entitlement spending and various ongoing wars. At least this time the hard times won't be lead by the agricultural sector, which is booming.

_________________
"A man accustomed to hear only the echo of his own sentiments, soon bars all the common avenues of delight, and has no part in the general gratification of mankind"--Dr. Johnson
"Amen, brother"-ED

My hero:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04B3Wl2qouw

dapanz1

Hey D, when Ron said one side says we can't have 1 cent less for defense and the other side said we can't have 1 cent less for this or that, they decide that both sides get what they want so mega spend on the war and mega spending on social welfare programs.

This is something I've had my eye on... dems talk about war spending, but they have a back door deal with the administration and that is, give us money for our wars and we'll give you whatever you want for the this and thats.

(this isn't knocking the dems btw, I would never want 50 years of repub rule or 50 years of dem rule... I like the on again off again thing coz it keeps us zig zagging the middle over the long term so no knock. my comment is about spending, not trying to knock either party)

How about this as an explanation for all the mess?:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/17/ ... index.html