Warding Off Dark Fears

"It's not like the 1930s, is it? Their money isn't actually sitting there. They shouldn't panic. It's just the way it is today. The Bank of England don't lend money to just anybody." - a 63 year old woman who used to work as a teller at a Northern Rock branch.

"Their money isn't actually sitting there." - That part she got right.

Some realism:

"Yesterday something happened that I have not seen in my lifetime, a run on a major British bank."
Panic on the streets of Britain: Northern rocked, City shocked
Hamish McRae - The Independent (UK) - September 15, 2007





The Bank of England is trying to unfreeze a major bank's financial paper while the US Fed is trying to unfreeze much of the world's financial paper. Other central banks are trying to do the same. Simply creating more credit and debt is not going to solve the problem of too much credit and debt.

Tuesday, September 18, the Federal Open Market Committee meets. The Fed is universally expected to cut US official interest rates at this meeting.

A few days ago a US Senate panel very quietly approved an $US 850 Billion increase in the US Treasury's "debt limit", raising it to $US 9.82 TRILLION. This will be the fifth debt limit increase since Mr Bush first took office in January 2001.

"It'll work. It has to work. WE WANT IT TO WORK!" - a financial official in Atlas Shrugged.

"First, the deflation and liquidation progression is from stocks, to bank deposits, to currency, to gold; and, from bank deposits to currency to gold can happen with lightening speed."