oh, US economy, you are so very much fail right now

[rivendellrose]

Hey, look. My bank just went caput.

Or rather it was "Seized, Sold" as the Seattle PI headline would have it. The HUGE headline, I might add. Huge and bold and underlined with lots of "omg, jobs! Stock market! Banks dying!" doom.

Oh, and they kindly took up a few square inches to say that accounts are secure and that branches will remain open as usual. Nice of them to make at least some effort to quell the inevitable panic.

God I love the press. In the way that I really wish they'd quit doomsaying about the stupid fecking economy.

Anybody in Europe/UK want to adopt an American? I'm small, clean, useful, and fit neatly into cupboards for handy storage. You might have to pay for my shipping, though, because the dollar continues its tanking trend. ;)

For the record: I really am not significantly worried by this. Yes, it's awkward, and yes, it's going to cause problems - particularly in my city, where WaMu has been a major funding factor for the arts and such. However. I don't believe all the doom-saying "We could have another Great Depression" crap. I do believe that the US needs to change its fucking ways, but I've always believed that. And I do believe we're not going to be the "major world power" that we were when I was growing up, but... big deal, when you come down to it. History, among other things, lends a sense of perspective under which all of this really doesn't seem like such a damned big deal.

That said, I still reserve the right to mock the living daylights out of the whole thing.

Comments

[websandwhiskers.livejournal.com]

. . the words "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy" keep flitting across my mind re: all this panic over the economy . . . and it's all just a little bit too conveniently timed re: the election. A bit wag-the-dog-ish.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy was exactly what I was thinking, too. And Bush... good lord. It's a far cry from "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," that's for sure.

[cassildra.livejournal.com]

I love how after all of the WaMu shit, there's "Boeing sees fresh orders for its 767s"

OH GOD THE ECONOMY IS TANKING

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeeeeeeeah. I mean, honestly - did anybody expect that the whole mortgage crisis wasn't going to cause some companies to tank? And yet other things? Really getting on pretty well.

...All of this said with a grain of salt, mind, considering I work for a company that relies on the automotive industry for our lifeblood. But I figure I win either way on that one - if they're doing well, they're trying to sell cars, and if they're doing poorly... they're still trying to sell cars. XD

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

And unlike the poor fuckers in Detroit (et al), your job works just fine if it's foreign companies trying to sell cars here.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

True.

I really do feel bad for the folks building the cars. Hell, for people in all forms of factory work. As much as I have nothing but distaste for the American car culture and industry, that doesn't include the people who are just making them.

[cassildra.livejournal.com]

People are seriously over reacting. I kind of was at first, too, I admit it. Then I went... "Dude, people would've been jumping out windows by now. Okay!"

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

I think one of the big problems with this crisis is that for the man on the street there really isn't any clear picture of what the hell is going on.

I mean, okay, there's something about low-down-payment mortgages and high-risk loans being bundled and traded in shady deals and now all of that money is worthless... but I don't actually know how that affects real homeowners. I know how that's affected interbank lending (it froze right the fuck up, to be crude) but I don't know what that means for me--I mean, I don't own a home, and I'm not going to be in a position to for a while. But I'm sure SOMEBODY is getting screwed by this besides suits at banks.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

As I understand it (which, to be fair, consists of a lot of me half-hearing NPR's economic reports while I'm not entirely awake), the biggest issue is that the panic over bad loans is making it a lot harder for anybody to get good loans. So that's college students, small businesses, big businesses, what-have-you, and the whole thing sort of... ripples out. Companies aren't hiring as much, because they're waiting to see what all the fall-out of this mess will be. And so on - lots of little things all adding up.

That said, I'm in the same spot as you - I don't have a mortgage (so lending prices / interest rates don't affect me), I don't drive (so gas prices don't affect me), I don't eat much red meat (so the screaming fuss about how beef prices are going to rocket later this fall doesn't affect me)... and so on. In the long run I think everything will settle out nicely, but at the moment it really does seem like a whole lot of panic.

Whether or not a lot of that panic is being caused by rampant Chicken Little syndrome in the media is entirely another question, but I'm sure you can guess my opinion of that.

[jfrog78.livejournal.com]

But I love red meat!

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Me too, but it's not very good for the environment, or for my health in large doses.

[irishninja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the WaMu failure is really too bad. It will affect Seattle's economy somehow, but how much and how badly are yet to be determined. It hurts our civic pride more than anything. Kinda like when Boeing moved to Chi-town. :\

But yeah, I transferred almost all of my money out of my WaMu account this morning, as Chase and I are bitter enemies. I hear there are some really cool credit unions around here. ;D

[jfrog78.livejournal.com]

OMG bitter enemies do tell so I may know the hatred you have and make my decisions that way! Because if your on the ninjas bad side you did something bad!

[irishninja.livejournal.com]

Some stories require the admission price of 1 import beer of my choice.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I figure as long as Microsoft and Amazon don't ditch us, my civic pride is doing okay. ;)

I've still got my accounts, but I'm thinking of taking a good bit out and starting in with BECU or something. I hate to fall in line with any kind of panic, but... well, it just seems sensible not to have all the eggs in one basket, as the saying goes.

[irishninja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, good point about MS and Amazon. :)

Spreading money around is good, especially if you have a lot of it. BECU was where I was thinking of going as well, although I was told just today of Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union, which is supposed to also be really good. :)

[maymargaret.livejournal.com]

You think it's weird out there. Up here there's this low level panic. Periodically the temps sneak over to the corner where I work so we can make fun of the economy away from the rest of the floor who might not have jobs tomorrow. Granted, we might not have jobs tomorrow, but we're not particularly worried.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I wondered how bad it'd be in there. Glad to hear you temps are at least having fun with it. ;)

[maymargaret.livejournal.com]

I think it's self defense. But hey, we had donuts.

[akashasheiress.livejournal.com]

I'll adopt you. Are you allergic to sheep, cold weather or fish?

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Not that I know of, nope, and definitely not, respectively. ;)