How are you preparing for the worst economic recession in 30 years?

[BobG]

You must not live with three guys... Stocking up? Doesn't happen. They just eat more!
However, since my husband's a bit of a large man, I said at least he'd fed me and the boys for a while.

Did you ever read about the siege of Leningrad? That has to be the most depressing battle ever. The civilians in the city were all too skinny to be worth eating, so the women would try to lure the Soviet soldiers defending the city somewhere private so they could kill them for food.

Just something to keep in mind once all of the pets and squirrels are gone.

 

[turbo]

If you want to read a gruesome tale, Google on "Essex" (ship name) and "Mocha Dick" (the original murderous sperm whale that inspired Melville).

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

However, since my husband's a bit of a large man, I said at least he'd fed me and the boys for a while.

How nice for you. Few husbands help out in the kitchen these days. And yet I hear they make an excellent ragout when properly prepared.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Well, chaos doesn't necessarily mean that we don't understand why something happened. It has more to do with the linearity of the differential equation governing the system.

I was talking about allowing a system to run amok, as opposed to intervention.

Of course, you and me should take precautions to protect ourselves on an individual level, but the collective economy is a beast with momentum; it's my opinion that no amount of policy or administration is going to stop it. It's driven by human emotion more than anything!

Why do you assume this? We have seen one example after another of how people manipulated the system and caused the crisis.

You feel that we might understand the deepest secrets of nature through science, but economics is fundamentally beyond our capacity for understanding; that we will always be beasts in the wilderness?

 

[Pythagorean]

I was talking about allowing a system to run amok, as opposed to intervention.
Why do you assume this? We have seen one example after another of how people manipulated the system and caused the crisis.

You feel that we might understand the deepest secrets of nature through science, but economics is fundamentally beyond our capacity for understanding; that we will always be beasts in the wilderness?

Take a moment to think about the experimental process and how you'd do that in economy (where scale changes everything) without screwing the economy up with a bad guess.

Economists are forces to pick equations for their beauty and elegance (believe it or not this is a dominant factor where empirical evidence is lacking)

I don't think we'll forever be beasts in the wilderness.. I just think economy is wayyyy less developed and understood (after all, it's much younger than physical laws).

Those people that manipulated the system weren't trying to bring the whole thing down. They were manipulating little parts of it for their benefit; they had no direct control over the repercussions of the whole global system.

 

[OmCheeto]

I just think economy is wayyyy less developed and understood (after all, it's much younger than physical laws).

I just learned last year that "Economics" is a social science.
I always assumed it was some glorified field of accounting.

But I'm preparing for this recession by spending my money faster than I ever did before.
I seem to recollect, from my economics classes of old, that the velocity of money was somehow important to the economy.

Apparently, the correct answer to the test was really to put your pennies in the bank, as fast as possible, as long as they do not exceed a value of $100,000(FDIC insured), etc, etc.

 

[turbo]

But I'm preparing for this recession by spending my money faster than I ever did before.

My wife and I saved and conserved all our lives and about 3 years ago we saw bad fiscal times coming, and bought a very small log house with wood heat and a great garden spot, and sold our too-big house in a development in the county seat. To "continue our preparations", today, I wrote a check from a money-market account for a new 2009 Subaru Forester. My old Nissan 4x4 is like a roller-skate when it gets icy and my wife insisted that I needed a new ride, so she had less chance of losing me during winter storms. I'm keeping that old PU for dump-runs, picking up manure for the garden, etc, but it's now looking more and more like a farm vehicle.

I bought a Forester because I had talked my father into cashing in a CD that he was saving for us kids, to buy a decent vehicle to replace the old GM beaters that had been nickel-and-diming him to death. In the two weeks since he's been driving that Forester (with auto transmission to save clutching with arthritic knees), he convinced my wife that I needed one, too. It's a small investment to end the nagging. My father is a month away from turning 83, and has been a die-hard US-made car consumer. Now he can't shut up about Subaru, and he's got his friends and neighbors test-driving his new rig and kicking tires. In all his life he can recall owning 19-20 vehicles, and he swears that none of them has been anywhere near as good as this one.

If you've been debt-free for long enough to save and accumulate some money, the financial market will pay you VERY little interest on it. Buy something nice during the depressed retail market. As Don Henley said "ain't no hearses with luggage racks".

 

[OmCheeto]

Buy something nice during the depressed retail market. As Don Henley said "ain't no hearses with luggage racks".

As a Bohemian, I've always done that.

My friends all thought I was suicidal when I was 30-something.

I tried to explain to them that it wasn't that I didn't enjoy life, it was that I'd lived 20 lifetimes in about 3 years. They still don't understand. I'm all for throwing the old people under the bus at this point.

As long as you don't run up onto the sidewalk to get me, that is.

Gads. I love life.

:!)

 

[turbo]

Om, I have endured brutal hours in construction, even more brutal hours in pulp and paper, including rotating shifts that can turn you into a zombie. I busted out to work as a consultant, to find that working day-shifts every day really sucks when you're 1500 miles away too many weeks a year (even one was too much). I found a job as a network administrator for a large ophthalmic practice, and when the my severe reactions to perfumes, colognes, body-washes, after-shaves, etc got debilitating (asthma, severe headaches, sleep deprivation) I had to find another job. Even that new job (with specific promises of accommodation) turned out to be problematic, with some "preferred" people able to violate the policy at will. Actually, the "preferred" person was an older woman with whom the owner had had a "special" relationship when he was divorced from the mother of his two sons.

 

[OmCheeto]

Om, I have endured brutal hours in construction, even more brutal hours in pulp and paper, including rotating shifts that can turn you into a zombie. I busted out to work as a consultant, to find that working day-shifts every day really sucks when you're 1500 miles away too many weeks a year (even one was too much). I found a job as a network administrator for a large ophthalmic practice, and when the my severe reactions to perfumes, colognes, body-washes, after-shaves, etc got debilitating (asthma, severe headaches, sleep deprivation) I had to find another job. Even that new job (with specific promises of accommodation) turned out to be problematic, with some "preferred" people able to violate the policy at will. Actually, the "preferred" person was an older woman with whom the owner had had a "special" relationship when he was divorced from the mother of his two sons.

I remember rotating shifts. 8 on, 8 off, 8 on, 8 off.

For months on end, 7 days a week...

I was always amazed that I somehow, in a zombie state of mind, managed to find a pair of socks and underwear that did not salute me when I tossed them to the floor.



Oh the good old days.