***SALE*** Bargains Galore/ Get 'em While They're Hot!

hawkeye, Car makers are but one industry with the same problem of many; no cash or credit for consumers to buy.

yes, but the big three were already very weak, the American auto industry has been in a death spiral for a long time. Other industries produce stuff that people want, and have competent management. Other industries will find capital to tide them through the storm, though they will have to dilute the current owners to do it.

Retail (Including restaurants) is another story, many of the major chains that have stores all over are highly leveraged, with massive debt loads. One of the major concerns is that we will have a glut of retail failures, because while we don't need much of the retail space currently used, block upon block of empty store fronts and parking lots will have a bad psychological effect upon Americans.

Management is always the cure or curse for any company.

Very true, hawkman. Driving up Rt 29 N here in Cville are car dealerships. Lots and lots of them. Some are very nice looking visually. Built on lots of land with nice landscaping. Same thing on Rt 250 east of town. Probably half (?) of them can't survive.

cures don't always work. The longer the organism has been mismanaged, the longer the ills have been masked and not attended to, the dicier the recovery becomes. This is where the global financial system finds itself today, and most agree that it is doomed, it will need to be replaced with one that is created by global sensibilities, one that is not American centric.

The question is though, will the failure of the financial system bring down market capitalism theory?? The east is on the march, and it might bring on a global economic system built around the citizens by way of governments directly controlling all critical economic infrastructure, as eastern cultures traditionally gravitate towards.

That goes without saying; most do not have the foresight for long-term planning.

I agree. Today is a "bump", and what a bump it is. I am so glad that I kept my hot little hands off the keyboard when stocks were, one by one, falling by the wayside.

I am pissed off though that I got up a little later than usual this morning. We had decided to buy a certain stock, and it had jumped five bucks in the first 1/2 hour of selling.

I do think though that this is nowhere the end of the volatile market, but we are getting close.

We won't really know if we're out of the woods for about 6 months. I personally think, we'll be in the woods for at least 1 year.

We'll just have to wait and see.

So what do their retirement accounts look like?

People have to spend money on food today, not $30,000 cars.

Phoenix, Here's my guess on the market; it'll probably hover around 9,000 as the floor. There are two conflicting issues that makes our economy and the world's economy still volatile. The first is that the subprime mortgage problem is still upon us, and we still don't know how much damage that will affect the economies of the world. The second is the government involvement in taking over banks to provide it with liquidity. Those two push and pull will be with us for another 18 months or so, and the job market's ability to sustain at current levels or to improve upon it is very important. I remain somewhat optimistic for the long term.

My favorite economic guru is Steve Forbes who this morning was staying that it is not the time to sell and, if you have a strong stomach, it is the time to buy. He suggests that this last quarter will be shaky and the first quarter next year will also be shaky but he predicts things will improve rapidly after that if the government doesn't screw it up. (He also says whomever is elected President won't have diddly squat to do with the improvement either.)

I disagree with Steve Forbes that the economy will improve rapidly "after that."

What do Islamic countries say about interest-bearing loans?

Why ask me?

I think it is incurable. It's a psychological problem. It can't be biological because there's plenty to eat, plenty of fuel and the shagging's a breeze there not being any harems thanks to the Popes.

Although, thinking about it, harems might be the answer.

As ci. is the financial expert on here I wonder if he might take the trouble to provide us with a cost comparison between institutionalised hareems (Mr Buffet having 500 wives type of thing) and the present arrangements which have proved something of a trial to millions of hard working men.

When Governments start talking about protecting the ordinary taxpaper and the hard-pressed, hard-working families up and down the land I find myself rooting in the attic for my tin hat.

What I want to know is where all these hundreds of billions were kept before being used for the bail outs if it wasn't in the very banks having them pumped in.

Maybe the invention of double-entry book-keeping is the real culprit: thought up it is thought by the Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli, in his Summa de arithmetica, geometrica, proportioni et proportionalità (Venice, 1494).

The basic premise is that a business's (or other organization's) financial condition and results of operations are best recorded in accounts. Each account maintains a "history" of changes in monetary values about a particular aspect of the business. (From Wiki)

The word "particular" is the one to watch. One might have reasonably expected it to say "all aspects of the business."

Ha, Ha, Ha!

You know damn well governments are exempt from the rules of accounting. No funds are sacred. The head honcho could could put the surplus in that fund into general revenues any time. Afterall they make the laws.

It's even easier than that!~ They just push the button on the printing press, and WOOSH! Billions come out like monopoly money.

It is not no cost though, inflation does serious damage to societies.