And in the worst case collapse of society situation, my sense of adventure will allow me to deal with the suffering.
Until you get appendicitis and you have no money for doctoring. Or you fall on a rusty nail and there are not enough antibiotics to go around. Or they cut off our water and you have to hike up the mountain to get it. And then you get typhus and you have to poop in the woods.
And in the worst case collapse of society situation, my sense of adventure will allow me to deal with the suffering.
Until you get appendicitis and you have no money for doctoring. Or you fall on a rusty nail and there are not enough antibiotics to go around. Or they cut off our water and you have to hike up the mountain to get it. And then you get typhus and you have to poop in the woods.
Appendicitis sucks whether you have money for doctoring or not.
Also, pooping in the woods is fun, as long as you don't wipe with poison ivy and you don't have diarrhea.
Scott can afford to be optimistic; he has no dependents. Likewise, I'm not terribly worried about it. The sum of my concerns are 1) where will I get loans for law school with the credit crisis, and 2) what cons can I still go to despite high gas prices? (Granted, I work in trees. That's not a very risky field right now.) I'm not terribly worried about losing my job because the company is doing well (we're hiring! Yay! Anybody know any GIS programmers? We need one...). I make enough to fill my needs and have a little extra, which I use for fun and savings. I rent, so I have no housing value to lose. The only thing I have debt on is my car, which I plan to keep for fucking EVER (It's a Camry), and I have a relatively low interest rate. All of my money is in my local state credit union, so no investments or banks to fail. Maybe I should have set up a 401k when I started here, but I didn't. I have nothing riding on the market right now.
I can adjust my budget as needed...because I don't have kids or pets or a family depending on me to provide for them. As Scott says, the more things that are tied to you, the more you worry in this situation. However unlike him, I do not think it's stupid to have kids and/or roots...just something you have to be prepared to deal with and suck up when the hit comes.
Appendicitis and other hospital-requiring things aren't a good example, because hospitals are usually required to treat you anyway for serious stuff (exceptions and specifics always apply, etc etc). They try to get your money afterwards. You can pay them off over several years just like you pay off student loans. That's basically what Evan did when he shattered his ankle skydiving and didn't have medical insurance. Sure, it sucks. But it's not the end of the world. As long as you don't owe money to organized crime and you don't need great credit, the people you owe money to can just wait.
Appendicitis and other hospital-requiring things aren't a good example, because hospitals are usually required to treat you anyway for serious stuff (exceptions and specifics always apply, etc etc). They try to get your money afterwards.
In a depression, sure. Scott was talking about Mad Max break down of civil order being fun. He wants the Wild West, but Oregon trail is not fun if it is real life and you are the one that was bitten by the snake.
In a depression, sure. Scott was talking about Mad Max break down of civil order being fun. He wants the Wild West, but Oregon trail is not fun if it is real life and you are the one that was bitten by the snake.
Normal every day life has no adventure, but it also has no snake bites. That evens out to 0. Oregon Trail, Mad Max, or Hokuto no Ken have snake bites, and exploding heads, but they also have adventure. Regular worlds and post apolcalyptic worlds both even out to 0 when you take everything into account.
You guys, it is insanely hard to get bitten by a poisonous snake. Usually, you have to be doing something very stupid. It's also easy to prevent against in the non-stupid situations. XD
Okay, so assume total societal breakdown. If that happens, then we will be so far out of our current societal context that we can't really know how we'll handle it, because we don't know what we'll have to deal with. Not to mention we can't ever have the Wild West again, because the entire freaking country is already inundated with people anywhere life is sustainable. It would be something completely new.
Adventure means uncertainty, and you whine whenever things are uncertain or hard. You don't even take the opportunity to adventure in your current day life.
You guys, it is insanely hard to get bitten by a poisonous snake. Usually, you have to be doing something very stupid. It's also easy to prevent against. XD
Short selling serves a number of important functions in the market. The fact that they've taken such drastic action on such short notice worries me somewhat. Of course, this comes right on the heels of their banning of naked short sales.
Of course, what concerns me far more than the ramifications of this action is the fact that, here at my desk at work, I have to deal with this from a technical perspective...
Of course, what concerns me far more than the ramifications of this action is the fact that, here at my desk at work, I have to deal with this from a technical perspective...
Rym has to watch all the trades all day and if he sees a short sale hit Ctrl-backspace-T, if he misses one the American economy fails apart....
Joe, this should make you happy. I listen to the traffic/weather AM radio for the 5 minute drive to the train station. They said something interesting. Remember I said that as you get close to retirement you should move your money into money market accounts or other safe investments? Apparently some of those money market accounts, which are supposed to be safe, were invested in stuff like Lehman Brothers, which was thought to be safe. It's still cool, though. The news was that the government is going to back that shit up.
Joe, this should make you happy. I listen to the traffic/weather AM radio for the 5 minute drive to the train station. They said something interesting. Remember I said that as you get close to retirement you should move your money into money market accounts or other safe investments? Apparently some of those money market accounts, which are supposed to be safe, were invested in stuff like Lehman Brothers, which was thought to be safe. It's still cool, though. The news was that the government is going to back that shit up.
So when I said "Hopefully those funds didn't consider investment banks that never had a bad quarter until now as stable areas....."
I was right to worry that this would be the case! Bam! I should be interviewed on CNN :-p
Joe, this should make you happy. I listen to the traffic/weather AM radio for the 5 minute drive to the train station. They said something interesting. Remember I said that as you get close to retirement you should move your money into money market accounts or other safe investments? Apparently some of those money market accounts, which are supposed to be safe, were invested in stuff like Lehman Brothers, which was thought to be safe. It's still cool, though. The news was that the government is going to back that shit up.
Were you surprised by that those accounts were invested thusly? Do you seriously believe that the government is going to restore some individual's funds? Even if you do, do you believe that the governemtn will be able to continue to "back up" all the other financial institutions that are on their way to ruin?
The thing I have trouble understanding is how these government backups all work. The US government has no money. We're trillions in debt. Yet, despite that, we can afford to pay money to keep these things from falling apart. If I had debt of that proportions, it definitely would not work out.
The thing I have trouble understanding is how these government backups all work. The US government has no money. We're trillions in debt. Yet, despite that, we can afford to pay money to keep these things from falling apart. If I had debt of that proportions, it definitely would not work out.
Actually I've been thinking that myself this morning. Back in the day before people understood economic theory, when a country was in trouble it would just print more money.... I hope we are not doing the "spiritual" successor to this...
Actually I've been thinking that myself this morning. Back in the day before people understood economic theory, when a country was in trouble it would just print more money.... I hope we are not doing the "spiritual" successor to this...
We aren't printing more money, we're borrowing more money. It's completely different.
Actually I've been thinking that myself this morning. Back in the day before people understood economic theory, when a country was in trouble it would just print more money.... I hope we are not doing the "spiritual" successor to this...
We aren't printing more money, we're borrowing more money. It's completely different.
But more than psychology is involved here. What is really going on, at the most fundamental level, is that the United States is in the process of being forced by its foreign creditors to begin living within its means.
I think it is very clear that we have a government of, by, and for the people.
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Also, pooping in the woods is fun, as long as you don't wipe with poison ivy and you don't have diarrhea.
I can adjust my budget as needed...because I don't have kids or pets or a family depending on me to provide for them. As Scott says, the more things that are tied to you, the more you worry in this situation. However unlike him, I do not think it's stupid to have kids and/or roots...just something you have to be prepared to deal with and suck up when the hit comes.
Appendicitis and other hospital-requiring things aren't a good example, because hospitals are usually required to treat you anyway for serious stuff (exceptions and specifics always apply, etc etc). They try to get your money afterwards. You can pay them off over several years just like you pay off student loans. That's basically what Evan did when he shattered his ankle skydiving and didn't have medical insurance. Sure, it sucks. But it's not the end of the world. As long as you don't owe money to organized crime and you don't need great credit, the people you owe money to can just wait.
Okay, so assume total societal breakdown. If that happens, then we will be so far out of our current societal context that we can't really know how we'll handle it, because we don't know what we'll have to deal with. Not to mention we can't ever have the Wild West again, because the entire freaking country is already inundated with people anywhere life is sustainable. It would be something completely new.
Man, I miss Oregon Trail...
P.S. Thank Andrew for showing me this several weeks ago.
Short selling serves a number of important functions in the market. The fact that they've taken such drastic action on such short notice worries me somewhat. Of course, this comes right on the heels of their banning of naked short sales.
Of course, what concerns me far more than the ramifications of this action is the fact that, here at my desk at work, I have to deal with this from a technical perspective...
These may be worse signs than anything Greenspan has said about this being the worst downturn since the Depression . . .
I was right to worry that this would be the case! Bam! I should be interviewed on CNN :-p