Back in 2005, I began warning SurvivalBlog readers that derivatives [1] were a much larger threat than the housing bubble. Now we read in the mainstream media: The $55 trillion question [2]. The article begins: “The financial crisis has put a spotlight on the obscure world of credit default swaps – which trade in a vast, unregulated market that most people haven’t heard of and even fewer understand. Will this be the next disaster?”
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Safecastle just a started an unusual 25%-off Mountain House sale [3]. The sale ends on October 14th. Get your order in immediately for the best selection!
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The latest slug of bad news from our Economic Editor, who is recovering from a recent surgery (please keep Cheryl in your prayers): USA 2008: The Great Depression [4] — The Day Main Street Struck Back At Wall Street [4] — Credit Markets Frozen As Banks Hoard Cash [5] — Western World Will Become Significantly Less Wealthy [6] — (“Corporate America has just lost a chunk of its value the size of the Indian economy.”) — Greenspan: “Gold Is The Ultimate Form of Payment In The World” [7] — The Truth About The Bailout [8] (“‘Hundreds of billions of dollars are going to bail out foreign investors. They know it, they demanded it, and the bill has been carefully written to make sure that can happen.” – Brad Sherman , D-California.’ That’s right folks. You are going to have $700 billion – about 25% of the total Federal budget – put on your personal credit card (via taxes forever) in order to bail out foreign investors.”) — Marc Faber: Bailout Won’t Stop Depression; Buy Gold [9] (“A stock rally in the event that a [bailout] package is approved will be temporary and should be used as ‘an opportunity’ to sell, said [Marc] Faber.”) — Inflation In Stereo [10] (The Mogambo Guru) — $1 Quadrillion of Unregulated Debt at Core of Coming Derivatives Crisis [11] — Credit Cards To Implode 1Q 2009: Analyst [12] — You Won’t Believe Where The $700bn Bailout Figure Came From [13] (“Do you know where that very important $700-billion figure came from? Here’s a quote from that Forbes story: “It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.” They made it up to be sufficiently ginormous to frighten everyone into rapid action. And it worked.”) — Interbank Dollar Rate Hits 8% [14] (“That high of around 8 percent is four times the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target rate and more than double the cost of borrowing dollars for three months as indicated by Thursday’s London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) fixing.”) — Derivatives Deleveraging II, Debt Deflation, Gold & Bailout II [15] — Bailout with ‘sweeteners’ heads toward Senate win [16] — Bailout with ‘sweeteners’ heads toward Senate win [16] — And to cap all that from Cheryl, here are two items that I found linked at The Drudge Report: Clinton: ‘It Sounds Dire, But Commerce Could Stop’ [17] and Why propping up banks will not rescue a debauched financial system [18]
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Josh H. mentioned that there is a compatibility glitch in the Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 browser that prevents it from displaying some web pages, including SurvivalBlog. But Josh quickly found a “fix” for the problem. If you install I.E. 8 Beta 2, then follow-up the installation with these simple “fix” steps:
Go to “Tools”
Go to “Compatibility View Settings”
Check the box “Display all websites in Compatibility View”
Click “Close”
This setting should be a “global” setting that “sticks” so that SurvivalBlog will display properly during all subsequent visits.