rm ([personal profile] rm) wrote2008-09-14 08:45 pm

sundries

- Financial news: Okay, Lehman's declaring bankruptcy. Merrill and AIG ae scrambling to avoid same. The gov't is taking control they should have never given up in the first place of Fannie and Freddie. Gas is spiking again because of Ike. I don't know to what degree any of you follow financial stuff, but it's hard to miss when you live in NYC even if that sort of shit has no direct impact on your life. Anyway. This shit is bad. And it wil trickle down, even if just via sentiment. Sentiment can fuck an economy.

- Another lovely day on Governors' Island. Some of [livejournal.com profile] redstapler's friends took fabulous pictures of me and I finally got to meet Ifan. Meanwhile, Michael Aranella and his Dreamland Orchestra can't possibly imagine how much Torchwood porn I'm going to write listening to this utterly scrumptous CD. There's nothing like a slutty tuba and a sleazy trombone.

- I love Trader Joe's. Today: 2 boxes of mini tacos, 1 pack of garlic sausage, 2 jars of salsa, 2 frozen enchilada lunches, 2 boxes of candy, 1 pould of ground beef: $30. That's like 12 meals and snacks for me.

- Patty got me a documents box today in this awesome burnt umber color and it looks flash and I can divide it up into sections for my various correspondence and yay.

- True Blood in a moment and then some work before bed.

- Really damn nice weekend.

- I still need to catch up on email.

[identity profile] angstzeit.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 01:08 am (UTC)(link)
The financial industry has been tying one on for a long time and we're going to get the hangover.
mangosteen: (Default)

[personal profile] mangosteen 2008-09-15 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
The Ike spike was only temporary. Gas and Oil futures are now plummeting, and the NYMEX crude oil October future is below $100/bbl, because Ike was actually pretty easy on the oil rigs, most of which had never been brought back online when they were shut off for Gustav, and demand is still slacking off.

Saudi Arabia breaking from the OPEC cartel doesn't make things any clearer, either.

[identity profile] rufus.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 01:39 am (UTC)(link)
on the subject of the financial news, someone else on my flist ([livejournal.com profile] popejeremy) found this post and is wondering if it is a reasonable description of the situation or not?

I know you may not know, but maybe someone else reading this comment will.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
Roubini is very smart and is both runs a firm and is an econ professor at NYU. He's extremely bearish though and its his business to be a pessimist. Which is to say, I think it's not quite as bad as he's saying, but yeah, more or less.

[identity profile] rufus.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 02:05 am (UTC)(link)
excellent (ok, *not* excellent, but you know what I mean), thank you!
ext_24631: editrix with a martini (Default)

[identity profile] editrx.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 04:26 am (UTC)(link)
I'm terrified because Elric and I depend entirely on the income from the now-much-smaller investments made from the money I inherited from my mother and stepfather. Just enough to keep us from not making the mortgage payments. No more.

If we lose that income stream, we're toast. Literally. The house is no longer worth its mortgage (which we had to take out to cover what the scam-artist-contractor stole from us [over $200,000 plus another $200,000 in missing materials], and then had to replace with a new contractor, back a few years ago) -- even if we could find a buyer, we would owe about half its worth to the mortgage. And there would be no money to pay that, more or less find even an apartment to live in. Not like there are many apartments in the middle of the country.

I'm scared shitless. I still haven't found employment since the Baen debacle all those years ago -- I can't get them to even acknowledge that I ever worked there (for 16 YEARS!), and so my resume is completely and utterly worthless.

I wish I knew what to do.
Edited 2008-09-15 04:28 (UTC)

[identity profile] feyandstrange.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 08:45 am (UTC)(link)
I'm resisting the urge to stay up very late my time until the markets open, because the financial news from this weekend has been so insane. And it's not like a bell ringing in Wall Street will suddenly give me the answers - or the news feeds at that time - it's just so nuts...

[identity profile] vashtan.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 11:56 am (UTC)(link)
I follow the financial stuff (job-related, I'm a financial journalist for private equity and I'm based in the London office). Anything that happens in the US has major repercussions on the UK. And it's ... interesting times. The boyfriend works at an investment bank (he's their IT guy - and this particular bank is quite pleased, because they are small and suffered pretty much no exposure). But the nood is very different even here in London. O_O

[identity profile] mystrys.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 01:24 pm (UTC)(link)
What do you think of True Blood?? I haven't watched the second episode yet but I loved the first episode. Of course, I'm a huge fan of the Southern Gothic genre anyhow and its nice to see on my television screen.

I haven't seen anyone else on my friends list posting about it actually - you're the first.

[identity profile] rm.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 01:26 pm (UTC)(link)
I didn't love the first episode, but was willing to give it a chance because a lot of small things in it interested me. I loved the second episode because the actors are doing nice work about memory and history and war and it could have been a real throwaway in anything vampire related.

[identity profile] raaven.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 05:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for the heads-up on the financials...I've been keeping a sort of log of financial companies and crops in my del.icio.us links. I'll go find stories on these and add them.

EDIT: FAILURES of financial companies and crops.
Edited 2008-09-15 18:00 (UTC)

[identity profile] coriander.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 09:16 pm (UTC)(link)
There's nothing like a slutty tuba and a sleazy trombone.

This made me giggle for quite a long while. If you threw in an accordian, for me it would be an eargasm!

Ok, you made my day with this description!