digitaldiscipline ◾ My understanding of shit going splat. (Reply)

tirani: riddle me this:

etcet: 42

tirani: Paulson and Bush keep screaming that we're on the edge of finanical diseaster

tirani: have they bothered to spell out exactly what that disaster will be if we don't hand them over 700 Big with no strings attached?

etcet: broad hints at systemic financial collapse; if the holders of those shitty securities take a sharp kick to the nads, they have insurance. the companies that insured them are, in a word, completely exposed, under-capitalized to cover those policies, and utterly fucked.

etcet: in short, the complete collapse of several massive insurance entities, the equivalent of the bank runs that led to the great depression, albeit at one remove.

etcet: that said, i am not entirely convinced this is entirely a bad or horrible thing, and think that, fundamentally, those who engage in risky behavior, at whatever scale, do need to be responsible for the downside to that risk.

tirani: I'm kind of sitting on the fence of "Would it be so bad for all t hose fuckers who did this bad uber risky shit to get their comupance for it?"

etcet: as long as it doesn't fuck me and mine? let 'em burn.

etcet: the talk about the credit market going in the tank is an empty, bullshit threat.

http://tbm.thebigmoney.com/features/todays-business-press/2008/09/26/sucker-could-go-down
[link courtesy of eBear (

matociquala), whose summation is pitch-perfect: The sheer terror inspired by this situation isn't quite enough to cancel out the Schadenfreude.]

This kind of dovetails with an email I sent to the executive suite at my company this morning:

With all the apparent gloom and doom coming out of the financial and mainstream news outlets regarding the "financial meltdown," there may be a lot of folks, both employees and members, who are worried about how well [COMPANY] is going to weather the coming storm (if one is even coming), whatever it may be. Even as recently as last night, with the collapse of Washington Mutual, it looks and sounds like there is bad news at every turn.

I'm personally operating under the belief that we are more or less avoiding the unpleasantness, due to our status as a Credit Union, and therefore unaffiliated with much of the brouhaha regarding bailout speculation and the ancillary market risks and subsequent fallout. Given our penchant for sensible and responsible stewardship, I suspect that we're more or less immune from the chaos that's dominating the headlines and airwaves, but others might not be as serene about the situation. Is there any value in making an announcement to employees or members regarding our status in the current environment?

My innate "PEOPLE, CHILL THE FUCK OUT" spidey-sense is tingling.