This morning I went in to work half asleep as usual. I am able to get moving quicker than most folks but am still not quite myself until I've been up for a half hour and or had a cup of coffee. Someone said in passing "US Debt was downgraded" and it caught my attention enough to walk over and ask if he was serious. He was and gave me the one sentence summary of it then moved on to something else. This part was kind of interesting.
Remember the scene in Snatch (if you haven't seen it you really should) where the two black guys who run the pawn shop and their friend walk into the office and find Brick Top (an old crazy english gangster with funny glasses) sitting on the couch? Well it got the two guys attention because there was an old, odd looking man sitting on the couch in their supposedly locked office. The third knew who Brick Top was and what his presence there meant, that it was very bad. This was kind of like that. Certainly it will get everybodies attention, if just for a second, but only some who keep track of these sort of things know how really bad it is.
For a lot of reasons I have been somewhat complacent recently but this definitely changed that. While not a suprise parse I didn't think anything like this would happen so soon. It definitely made me take stock of things.
On the bright side I am really happy Wifey and Walker are at home with family. It would be nice if I was around, both for psychological and functional (healthy young men with military training are useful) reasons, they are in the best possible place they could be. This makes me very glad we made that choice.
I had been (maybe mistakenly) waiting for PM's to take a hard dip before buying again. That plan is out the window. I made a big, for us, purchase and feel better knowing that a little bit more of our buying power is now not dollar denominated. Also I am looking at filling a few gaps that have been present for awhile. I HAD planned to just stash cash and do a good round of buying when I get back but that plan is now out the window. Also I have a few more ideas and need to do some more thinking and talk with the Wife about them.
Get your house in order while it is still possible and reasonably affordable. I don't mean to tell you that the world is ending and you should put every dime into beans and bullets or anything like that. However if there is something you have been meaning to do, or a purchase you have been meaning to make and can reasonably afford them it is time to do it. Could be food, training, PM's, guns, ammo, whatever. There may well be some bad stuff coming so if you want something and can (please don't use credit or spend irresponsibly) afford it them it's time to get it.
If our nation does not get it's economic house in order sooner instead of later we may have some very ugly times ahead.
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4 comments:
just another case of CYA...
the bond rating should probably have been lowered a long time ago.
I notice that during the debt furor in the last couple of weeks, MSNBC, ABC news, CBS news, CNN, HN, and the other MSN (not Fox) were all predicting immediate doom, fire from heaven, dogs sleeping with cats, and other catastrophic events if everybody didn't cave and accept the Democratic plan to just keep bumping the debt ceiling and not worry about the results. The absolute most terrible and appalling thing that might happen would be a drop in the U.S. credit rating!!! Then it happened, and all these same sources are now deprecating the fact and saying "well, it really doesn't make any difference." The White House mob is echoing this sentiment. However, I think it does make a big difference. Somebody finally said "The Emperor has no clothes!" I think next week will be particularly interesting.
The ugly times are indeed coming - there's no avoiding them. The politicians in charge of making the big decisions were entirely willing to have the nation enter into default to make a point. All the current discussions are about cutting the deficit; cutting the nation's debt was never even part of the equation.
So no, the ugly times are coming, full speed ahead - the only question facing us now is how ugly the upcoming days are going to turn out to be.
The downgrade should have been done a long time ago by all agencies. But they are the same ones that gave great ratings to all the companies that were too big to fail and then failed. Mixed bag.
I still keep a good amount of cash on hand. If we need to get out of Dodge, I'll be more than happy to pay $50 per gallon of gas to get to where I need to be or to get whatever else we need to get.
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