Just some random thoughts compiled from various sources including me: (1.) The gov't is not putting the liabilities of Fannie and Freddie on the books officially. Our national debt is roughly 9.5 trillion, but if the F/F debt was officially booked the national debt would rise to about 14.5 trillion. Given that the annual GDP is about 13.5 trillion, booking the F/F bailout would have debt greater than GDP - I wouldn't expect either party to support official booking since it would FORCE a drastic change from business as usual. ENRON, of course, went under by booking liabilities off the corporate ledger. Wonder why the government doesn't have to play by the same rules? Ask the 2 parties.
(2.) Before the end of the year, there is roughly $830 Billion of "rollover" debt that's coming up for renewal. Since most of it is held outside of the US, should the debtors NOT decide not to renew the fallout would be epic! (3.) A major source of capital for the US financial system is foreign equity funds - i.e. foreign investors who buy US stocks. Given the market declines in many sectors - especially banking of course - it's questionable whether people will continue to buy. They might, given buy-low-sell-high, but if they don't there'll be no source of operating capital for some or many industries. Maybe yours. (4.) The dollar has lost about 40% of it's purchasing power in the past 5 years with China and the Middle East holding about $1.5 trillion of dollar-denominated US debt. They may decide that they're losing too much money and demand trades made in some other currency. This is already happening in fact: In 2006, the central banks of Italy, Russia, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates announced they would reduce their dollar holdings slightly, with Sweden moving from a 90% dollar-based foreign reserve to 85%. On May 20, 2007, Kuwait discontinued pegging its currency exclusively to the dollar, preferring to use the dollar in a basket of currencies.Syria made a similar announcement on June 4, 2007. While there's been no "run", it's had a slow deflationary effect, but it's also made US labor & exports cheap. (5.) The next hit will be to personal credit such as credit cards, car loans, home equity loans, etc. The spend-thrift consumer will lose their source of funding and their debt will start defaulting. Especially if we see the unemployment rate continue to rise, further contraction of the economy, et al. Given the consumer is 70% of our economy, should they stop spending it could have a cascade effect across everything. SUMMARY ------------------- If you're still reading, you're expecting me to DarkCloud here. Well I won't. The "fundamentals" are NOT strong, but there's loads of room for hope. But also fear. We'll need to run this gauntlet just right while simultaneously preparing for our unfunded obligations such as SS, medicare, et al. and then run that gauntlet right. Whoever is elected they're going to have to start immediately, aggressively, and collectively. They'll have to quickly clear the table of distraction such as social issues, be willing to say unpopular things, convince the country they've nailed it correctly since people are going to suffer, and make hourly adjustments to tactics based on breaking data. I think we're lucky in that neither we nor our parents even know what a depression is. But I also think that we assume we're past such things and that it'll never happen to us. The 5 stages of the Iraq journalist probably apply: a.) it can't happen to me b.) it could happen to me c.) it'll eventually happen to me d.) it's going to happen in the next 2 weeks c.) I've got to get out of here. Which one are you? Have you gathered enough facts to be totally confident in your assessment? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:269724 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
