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Location: IN>Germany>ND>OH>TX>CA>Currently NoVa and a Vacation Lake House in PA
3,259 posts, read 4,332,943 times
Reputation: 13476
Quote:
Originally Posted by PilgrimsProgress
Doomsayers have been predicting financial collapse for a couple of decades. Are we better off keeping more cash on hand than giving it to the banks? Will credit scores be irrelevant in the future?
Yes, an imminent collapse which hasn't happened yet and should tell you all you need to know about the "doomsayers". The smart move would be live your life as if it won't happen. Or, you can run around shouting at the top of your lungs, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
My Visa card interest is only 8% and I use it for emergencies. This past year I've had unexpected medical, dental and car expenses much higher than normal at a time I had nearly paid off my balance. I'm hardly jet setting around the world first class!
At least with my rewards points I got a Dyson cordless vacuum cleaner that I badly needed, so that softened the blow a bit.
Considering the value of the dollar is plummeting it might actually be more productive to buy everything you will need in the near future now on credit and pay it back over time with dollars that are worth less later due to inflation.
Bad Idea. Bad Idea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nonesuch
Maybe not run up a high-interest credit card bill, but stocking up on non-perishables could give a better return than any CD or savings account
Not bad, but I would suggest a diversified and balanced approach. Some money available to deal with financial emergencies, and some food on hand to deal with Grocer supply failures.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheerbliss
When you say "cash on hand," do you mean stuffing it in your mattress where burglars can steal it as opposed to an FDIC insured account?
...
FDIC is getting thinner and thinner.
It isn't a failure yet, but in a few years things might change.
Right now? Pretty safe, short of a nuclear war or EMP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert20170
Quote:
Originally Posted by PilgrimsProgress:
Doomsayers have been predicting financial collapse for a couple of decades. Are we better off keeping more cash on hand than giving it to the banks? Will credit scores be irrelevant in the future?
Yes, an imminent collapse which hasn't happened yet and should tell you all you need to know about the "doomsayers". The smart move would be live your life as if it won't happen. Or, you can run around shouting at the top of your lungs, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. People in 2019 told us there wouldn't be a pandemic. People in 2020 thought the power grids were all "good to go." In 2008, Lehman Bro's said they were rock solid, three weeks before they went bankrupt.
Not bad, but I would suggest a diversified and balanced approach. Some money available to deal with financial emergencies, and some food on hand to deal with Grocer supply failures.
FDIC is getting thinner and thinner.
It isn't a failure yet, but in a few years things might change.
Right now? Pretty safe, short of a nuclear war or EMP.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. People in 2019 told us there wouldn't be a pandemic. People in 2020 thought the power grids were all "good to go." In 2008, Lehman Bro's said they were rock solid, three weeks before they went bankrupt.
It is never going to happen: until it does.
Was there a time when Enron was considered to be the gold standard among investors?
I've never actually seen a reliable citation for this claim.
There is a scene in 'It's a Wonderful Life' [1946] where bank customers are arguing with the bank manager wanting access to their accounts so they can pay their mortgages.
There is a scene in 'It's a Wonderful Life' [1946] where bank customers are arguing with the bank manager wanting access to their accounts so they can pay their mortgages.
I don't remember that, but I knew two people who lived it.
They gave first hand accounts of it happening.
In 2008 we were a few days away from the ATMs not working. They were able to prop the system back up with a firehose of liquidity created with debt, with the expectation that emergency measures would be temporary. They became permanent. The banking system began to fail again in September of 2019 when the banks stopped lending to each other again. The FED kept it going by becoming the primary lender. Then the virus magically appeared in December and the wheels have been greased by ever-increasing amounts of stimulus. The moratorium on evictions and foreclosures and billions of unpaid rents on commercial real estate are issues that currently have no resolution. The FED eliminated the reserve requirements so that banks would have less motivation to initiate foreclosures to clawback collateral on uncollectible debt.
Here's the trailer to a little reminder. The whole documentary can be watched at YT for free. We were in a much better place in 2008:
I don't remember that, but I knew two people who lived it.
They gave first hand accounts of it happening.
When I was a child, it was a very common topic among my parents, grandparents, and all of their friends.
When I attended elementary school probably 2/3 of my classmates were all referred to as 'okies' because our families had all migrated to California during the Grapes of Wraith migration.
My earliest photo shows me wearing a cotton diaper playing in blow sand with a chest harness tied to a grape vine. My elder siblings were using me as a row marker to mark which row of grapes they were picking.
The struggle to go from living in a Model-T as migrant farmworkers to eventually owning a house, was a long journey for many Okies.
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