Sunday, March 15, 2009

Quietly edging towards the exits, before the general panic

Htp: Michael Panzer, for this:

They are taking cash out of the bank in preparation for a long-haul bad time. A friend in Florida told me the local bank was out of hundred-dollar bills on Wednesday because a man had come in the day before and withdrawn $90,000. Five weeks ago, when I asked a Wall Street titan what one should do to be safe in the future, he took me aback with the concreteness of his advice, and its bottom-line nature. Everyone should try to own a house, he said, no matter how big or small, but it has to have some land, on which you should learn how to grow things. He also recommended gold coins, such as American Eagles. I went to the U.S. Mint Web site the next day, but there was a six-week wait due to high demand. (I just went on the Web site again: Production of gold Eagle coins "has been temporarily suspended because of unprecedented demand" for bullion.)

Like I said over a month ago: "this is a time for individuals to make their own quiet plans and preparations."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read this, and don't doubt it will be bad, but be wary too of that human tendency to expect the "end times". It will be tough, but the world will not end. Americans in particular are vulnerable to this because of their relative newness. We should be able to take the longer view...

Sackerson said...

Not the end times, Nick, but the level of debt is far higher in relation to GDP than it has ever been. It will take very hard braking to avert a high-speed crash. And the world's economies are much more interdependent, and in synch, than before, too.

Anonymous said...

"End times" I am reminded of INXS' song "The End of the World As We Know It." That's really all it takes - if you turn right and wrong and smart and dumb and reckless and cautious and turn them all upside down, it's the end times for people who have strived to live on the right end of the stick. Decades of preparing for this lifestage, this decade, this career, this whatever - all for naught. Sure, some religious wackos will tell us that God is comimg to smite the wicked, but the rest of us good folk are already feeling a mite smited. But if you let that go, our loved ones are still lovable, our friends still tell great stories, We're still smart and trainable, and you can cook a mighty good pot of rice and beans when you need to feed a crowd.