Market crash: are we there yet ?

[wind_magic]

Treasury rates on 4-week bills actually went negative for the first time. That's right, instead of just holding cash, people were actually willing to loan money to the government and PAY for the privilege.

It isn't as crazy as it sounds - FDIC insurance goes to 250k$us/bank, and companies with billions can't spread their money around to a million different banks to protect it, so they buy Treasuries even if the rates go negative so they can own something backed by the full faith of the government. It is weird though.

[TropicCat]

Originally Posted by Bene505

Put another way only with lead acid batteries, we complain about not having enough lead-acid battery storage and yet we carry around 8 tons of lead with us at all time.

Ummm.... no. My boat is a lead free zone.

[TropicCat]

Originally Posted by wind_magic

Treasury rates on 4-week bills actually went negative for the first time. That's right, instead of just holding cash, people were actually willing to loan money to the government and PAY for the privilege. .

True.... but this will correct itself when new bonds are issued to cover the bailouts. A few $ trillion in new bonds will fix the bond market PDQ.

[sailingdog]

what, you don't have batteries on your boat???

Originally Posted by TropicCat

Ummm.... no. My boat is a lead free zone.

[chucklesR]

Nice SD.
The reference was to the thought of using the lead mine these mono-hullers tote around as a source for a new age design battery.


I think you know that.

On the other hand, one could go with lithium batteries and solar panels to make a boat lighter and lead free - if you had the money.

[sailingdog]

I know... Just stirring the pot...

BTW, if you do decide to go lithium-based battery way... get automatic on-board fire extinguishers... you'll likely need them.

Originally Posted by chucklesR

Nice SD.
The reference was to the thought of using the lead mine these mono-hullers tote around as a source for a new age design battery.


I think you know that.

On the other hand, one could go with lithium batteries and solar panels to make a boat lighter and lead free - if you had the money.

[sailaway21]

Originally Posted by Bene505

Actually, wind power is the most cost efficient renewable resource right now. Although the new bailout-bill tax benefit for solar might change the numbers a bit.

Uh? It might be cost efficient to produce. It's certainly not cost efficient to transmit the power generated. You're talking a lot of wire there! Were it my money, which come to think of it-it will be, a few nuclear plants makes far more sense.

[sailaway21]

From the New York Post, an article on bailing out the Big Three that makes the crucial distinction between what was intended as useful purposes for TARP and what it is fast becoming. BIG 3 BAILOUT: BUSH'S BOGUS BELIEFS - New York Post

The relevant paragraph to the broader picture:

"When credit markets seized in mid-September, the government acted as if the problem were the collapsing market price of non-performing loans held by money-center banks. Nonsense. The real problem was the collapsing market price of performing loans held by everyone else.

That is, the true crisis was not that companies that richly deserved to go under couldn't raise cash at favorable rates, but that otherwise good companies were (and still are) imperiled because they can't raise money at reasonable rates. The problem today is not that a sensible market doesn't want GM bonds, but that a panicked market doesn't want anyone's bonds.

As long as the government continues to conceive its job as saving bad companies from their just deserts - rather than getting the trillions of dollars of credit destroyed by the panic back out to the productive economy - the bailout will continue to expand and continue to fail. "

[wind_magic]

Wow, they really slashed the price of the $us today didn't they, it's like a giant $us garage sale!

Every major currency up 1, 2, 4+%, gold up 2%, silver up 4%, dow up 4.2%, it's hard to find ANYTHING that didn't "go up" today. People were fleeing the $us faster than they dog piled into it. Happy little $au's were even up 4.5%. Let the devaluation begin in earnest!

[sailingdog]

Sway—

Amen to that, especially this part:

As long as the government continues to conceive its job as saving bad companies from their just deserts - rather than getting the trillions of dollars of credit destroyed by the panic back out to the productive economy - the bailout will continue to expand and continue to fail. "