Friday, January 2, 2009

The Great American Workout


Congrats to Chip for taking such a dire subject and injecting a sense of humor and a bit of hope.



From our perspective at MoneyAssistant.org there is a ton of pain ahead. In addition to expected spikes in unemployment and further underemployment, tightened credit and higher interest rates, and expected deficits at all levels of government, housing and other asset values are continuing lower.



With an expected $2 trillion of consumer debt defaults over the coming year, many of us will either be in various modes of workouts with our lenders, creditors and governments.



There is much to fear out there in the business community. This is evidenced by continued severe tightness of credit markets, recent bond issues by some fairly solid companies at rates between 13% and 16%, the bond markets pricing in default levels of 12%+ (more than 1 in 10 large companies are expected to go bust), and corporate valuations that are at 60% of values just 12 months back.



Thankfully, Uncle Sam has put bailouts, restructurings, recapitalizations, and HOPE into the current language of our economic chaos (I refer to it as the Red Plague.) If they will expand the circle from Wall Street, Banks, Detroit, to include Main Street and its small businesses and the consumers/homeowners, we may all survive and be in better shape at the end of this ordeal.



See http://guruatmoneyassistant.wordpress.com for additional comments and thoughts.

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Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Great Depression, Pt. II


Great article.

Lots of risk and parallels, but fortunately (hopefully) different due to FDIC protection of depositors and fast government intervention.



See additional thoughts at http://guruatmoneyassistant.wordpress.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

A Great Weblog of timely and entertaining financial news.

The author is right on target!!

With real unemployment continuing to rise, corporate and private bankruptcies spiking, earnings levels eroding tremendously, asset values tumbling, and credit severely restricted, the “tide” must first recede before it turns and begins to improve. Things are continuing to get worse. Thus, they can not, on average, get better. We must wait and then let the tide reverse.

In addition to coordinated intervention by the governments and cooperation from our financial institutions, we must be patient….
The challenge is to financially survive while being patient.

naked capitalism: Past Financial Crises Suggest Pain Far From Over

naked capitalism: Past Financial Crises Suggest Pain Far From Over

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