GM Bankrupt
-
Well gm finally filed bankruptcy http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/market-dispatches-060109.aspx[^]
"I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." Einstein
-
Well gm finally filed bankruptcy http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/market-dispatches-060109.aspx[^]
"I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." Einstein
I understand that the economy around the world has dived deep into the ocean... but i still don't know what the start point of all this crisis is, which has even brought largest companies to crash to ground all of a sudden "out of the blue" - i.e. we never heard anything from these companies in 2007, did we? Some say its all due to consumer over spending on credit cards, people buying houses on mortgage without being able to pay, etc... but seriosly, poeple were spending on things all the time... not just in Jan 2008, to cause all this. Forgive my ignorance of this "economic crash" thing... what caused all this? Some friends of mine said it was just the Lehman brothers crash that caused it all to start with? I just don't understand... if this was happening over a period of time and not just in 2008 January lets say, what were people like auditors and so-called "financial industry ahtorities" (FSA in UK for example) doing? Just taking salaries :-) They could not spot all this coming? Scary world we are living in!!!!! All this tells me that the aspect of "giving away" - donations, and the like, is dangerous these days. Because I always thought that we could/should give away if we have things beyond our needs. But with these un-predictable crisis things, one never knows how much we will need for our own future, since banks can collapse all of a sudden, and wipe out all our savings in a fraction of second, leaving us with nothing. If we had given away part of fortune thinking that we have enough for us, it would be a risky assessment - wouldn't it? Since banks collapsing would wipe out all our savings in a minute :-( Just a sily thought, because of all this scary crisis thing. I still think we should/could give away whenever we can. Very scary world!
modified on Monday, June 1, 2009 5:47 PM
-
I understand that the economy around the world has dived deep into the ocean... but i still don't know what the start point of all this crisis is, which has even brought largest companies to crash to ground all of a sudden "out of the blue" - i.e. we never heard anything from these companies in 2007, did we? Some say its all due to consumer over spending on credit cards, people buying houses on mortgage without being able to pay, etc... but seriosly, poeple were spending on things all the time... not just in Jan 2008, to cause all this. Forgive my ignorance of this "economic crash" thing... what caused all this? Some friends of mine said it was just the Lehman brothers crash that caused it all to start with? I just don't understand... if this was happening over a period of time and not just in 2008 January lets say, what were people like auditors and so-called "financial industry ahtorities" (FSA in UK for example) doing? Just taking salaries :-) They could not spot all this coming? Scary world we are living in!!!!! All this tells me that the aspect of "giving away" - donations, and the like, is dangerous these days. Because I always thought that we could/should give away if we have things beyond our needs. But with these un-predictable crisis things, one never knows how much we will need for our own future, since banks can collapse all of a sudden, and wipe out all our savings in a fraction of second, leaving us with nothing. If we had given away part of fortune thinking that we have enough for us, it would be a risky assessment - wouldn't it? Since banks collapsing would wipe out all our savings in a minute :-( Just a sily thought, because of all this scary crisis thing. I still think we should/could give away whenever we can. Very scary world!
modified on Monday, June 1, 2009 5:47 PM
-
I understand that the economy around the world has dived deep into the ocean... but i still don't know what the start point of all this crisis is, which has even brought largest companies to crash to ground all of a sudden "out of the blue" - i.e. we never heard anything from these companies in 2007, did we? Some say its all due to consumer over spending on credit cards, people buying houses on mortgage without being able to pay, etc... but seriosly, poeple were spending on things all the time... not just in Jan 2008, to cause all this. Forgive my ignorance of this "economic crash" thing... what caused all this? Some friends of mine said it was just the Lehman brothers crash that caused it all to start with? I just don't understand... if this was happening over a period of time and not just in 2008 January lets say, what were people like auditors and so-called "financial industry ahtorities" (FSA in UK for example) doing? Just taking salaries :-) They could not spot all this coming? Scary world we are living in!!!!! All this tells me that the aspect of "giving away" - donations, and the like, is dangerous these days. Because I always thought that we could/should give away if we have things beyond our needs. But with these un-predictable crisis things, one never knows how much we will need for our own future, since banks can collapse all of a sudden, and wipe out all our savings in a fraction of second, leaving us with nothing. If we had given away part of fortune thinking that we have enough for us, it would be a risky assessment - wouldn't it? Since banks collapsing would wipe out all our savings in a minute :-( Just a sily thought, because of all this scary crisis thing. I still think we should/could give away whenever we can. Very scary world!
modified on Monday, June 1, 2009 5:47 PM
-
I understand that the economy around the world has dived deep into the ocean... but i still don't know what the start point of all this crisis is, which has even brought largest companies to crash to ground all of a sudden "out of the blue" - i.e. we never heard anything from these companies in 2007, did we? Some say its all due to consumer over spending on credit cards, people buying houses on mortgage without being able to pay, etc... but seriosly, poeple were spending on things all the time... not just in Jan 2008, to cause all this. Forgive my ignorance of this "economic crash" thing... what caused all this? Some friends of mine said it was just the Lehman brothers crash that caused it all to start with? I just don't understand... if this was happening over a period of time and not just in 2008 January lets say, what were people like auditors and so-called "financial industry ahtorities" (FSA in UK for example) doing? Just taking salaries :-) They could not spot all this coming? Scary world we are living in!!!!! All this tells me that the aspect of "giving away" - donations, and the like, is dangerous these days. Because I always thought that we could/should give away if we have things beyond our needs. But with these un-predictable crisis things, one never knows how much we will need for our own future, since banks can collapse all of a sudden, and wipe out all our savings in a fraction of second, leaving us with nothing. If we had given away part of fortune thinking that we have enough for us, it would be a risky assessment - wouldn't it? Since banks collapsing would wipe out all our savings in a minute :-( Just a sily thought, because of all this scary crisis thing. I still think we should/could give away whenever we can. Very scary world!
modified on Monday, June 1, 2009 5:47 PM
code_wiz wrote:
I just don't understand... if this was happening over a period of time and not just in 2008 January lets say, what were people like auditors and so-called "financial industry ahtorities" (FSA in UK for example) doing? Just taking salaries
Interesting that you should mentionn FSA. Here is a news story on BBC from 2005, after UK Prime Minister Tony Blair criticized the FSA: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4613661.stm[^] Blair claimed that "the actions of the regulator - which oversees mortgage, pension and insurance sales - were seen to be harming well-run businesses. " and "that the FSA was "seen as hugely inhibiting of efficient business by perfectly respectable companies that have never defrauded anyone". " Regulation is always a tricky thing. Nobody likes it when 'things are going well'. Bijesh p.s I think it is the corporate culture in general that is to blame for this mess.
-
Yea it doesnt make any sense to me... it just seems like a big scam to steal money.
"I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." Einstein
During times of profit: Money goes to pockets of the big wigs, and some reinvested. None saved. File for bankruptcy: "Sorry, we pissed away all our money and forgot to save for this sort of thing. Our bad. Can we have some free money now?"
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
-
I understand that the economy around the world has dived deep into the ocean... but i still don't know what the start point of all this crisis is, which has even brought largest companies to crash to ground all of a sudden "out of the blue" - i.e. we never heard anything from these companies in 2007, did we? Some say its all due to consumer over spending on credit cards, people buying houses on mortgage without being able to pay, etc... but seriosly, poeple were spending on things all the time... not just in Jan 2008, to cause all this. Forgive my ignorance of this "economic crash" thing... what caused all this? Some friends of mine said it was just the Lehman brothers crash that caused it all to start with? I just don't understand... if this was happening over a period of time and not just in 2008 January lets say, what were people like auditors and so-called "financial industry ahtorities" (FSA in UK for example) doing? Just taking salaries :-) They could not spot all this coming? Scary world we are living in!!!!! All this tells me that the aspect of "giving away" - donations, and the like, is dangerous these days. Because I always thought that we could/should give away if we have things beyond our needs. But with these un-predictable crisis things, one never knows how much we will need for our own future, since banks can collapse all of a sudden, and wipe out all our savings in a fraction of second, leaving us with nothing. If we had given away part of fortune thinking that we have enough for us, it would be a risky assessment - wouldn't it? Since banks collapsing would wipe out all our savings in a minute :-( Just a sily thought, because of all this scary crisis thing. I still think we should/could give away whenever we can. Very scary world!
modified on Monday, June 1, 2009 5:47 PM
code_wiz wrote:
but seriosly, poeple were spending on things all the time... not just in Jan 2008, to cause all this
It's business cycles. They take time to play themselves out. The difference is that this one happens to be especially severe for various reasons. Some say business cycles are an inevitable feature of the market economy. Others say they are caused by government "fiat" money and central banking which distort economic calculation and create "malinvestment." With GM it looks like it was in an unhealthy state anyway and the financial crisis has just pushed it over the edge.
Kevin
-
code_wiz wrote:
but seriosly, poeple were spending on things all the time... not just in Jan 2008, to cause all this
It's business cycles. They take time to play themselves out. The difference is that this one happens to be especially severe for various reasons. Some say business cycles are an inevitable feature of the market economy. Others say they are caused by government "fiat" money and central banking which distort economic calculation and create "malinvestment." With GM it looks like it was in an unhealthy state anyway and the financial crisis has just pushed it over the edge.
Kevin
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
. Others say they are caused by government "fiat" money and central banking which distort economic calculation and create "malinvestment."
Any idiot who thinks that obviously doesn't have a clue about late 18th through early 20th century US economic history. The swings were far wider and the big ones much more frequent than they've been since we left the gold standard following the great depression. In the panics of 1893 and 1907 J P Morgan spent gobs of his own money stabilizing the economy and mitigating the damage, the current powers of the Fed largely came about because none of his successors had a large enough share of the economy to do the same in 1929.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
-
I understand that the economy around the world has dived deep into the ocean... but i still don't know what the start point of all this crisis is, which has even brought largest companies to crash to ground all of a sudden "out of the blue" - i.e. we never heard anything from these companies in 2007, did we? Some say its all due to consumer over spending on credit cards, people buying houses on mortgage without being able to pay, etc... but seriosly, poeple were spending on things all the time... not just in Jan 2008, to cause all this. Forgive my ignorance of this "economic crash" thing... what caused all this? Some friends of mine said it was just the Lehman brothers crash that caused it all to start with? I just don't understand... if this was happening over a period of time and not just in 2008 January lets say, what were people like auditors and so-called "financial industry ahtorities" (FSA in UK for example) doing? Just taking salaries :-) They could not spot all this coming? Scary world we are living in!!!!! All this tells me that the aspect of "giving away" - donations, and the like, is dangerous these days. Because I always thought that we could/should give away if we have things beyond our needs. But with these un-predictable crisis things, one never knows how much we will need for our own future, since banks can collapse all of a sudden, and wipe out all our savings in a fraction of second, leaving us with nothing. If we had given away part of fortune thinking that we have enough for us, it would be a risky assessment - wouldn't it? Since banks collapsing would wipe out all our savings in a minute :-( Just a sily thought, because of all this scary crisis thing. I still think we should/could give away whenever we can. Very scary world!
modified on Monday, June 1, 2009 5:47 PM
code_wiz wrote:
Some say its all due to consumer over spending on credit cards, people buying houses on mortgage without being able to pay, etc...
It is not just people. Banks themselves overextended. With banks overextending and then people overextending... BAM.. Forclosure, Forclosure, Forclosure... Bank collapse. Bank collapse... Company Collapse. Company Collapse. Multi x100 Now where does that leave us? A but load of jobless people with no money. What does that mean? Company Collapse, Company Collapse, Company Collapse. Once again more jobless poor folk. What happens then??? Well either total collapse or a big freaking crutch to limp us along until there is a spark in the economy. Until that spark happens the collapsing and continual layoffs will persist.
-
I understand that the economy around the world has dived deep into the ocean... but i still don't know what the start point of all this crisis is, which has even brought largest companies to crash to ground all of a sudden "out of the blue" - i.e. we never heard anything from these companies in 2007, did we? Some say its all due to consumer over spending on credit cards, people buying houses on mortgage without being able to pay, etc... but seriosly, poeple were spending on things all the time... not just in Jan 2008, to cause all this. Forgive my ignorance of this "economic crash" thing... what caused all this? Some friends of mine said it was just the Lehman brothers crash that caused it all to start with? I just don't understand... if this was happening over a period of time and not just in 2008 January lets say, what were people like auditors and so-called "financial industry ahtorities" (FSA in UK for example) doing? Just taking salaries :-) They could not spot all this coming? Scary world we are living in!!!!! All this tells me that the aspect of "giving away" - donations, and the like, is dangerous these days. Because I always thought that we could/should give away if we have things beyond our needs. But with these un-predictable crisis things, one never knows how much we will need for our own future, since banks can collapse all of a sudden, and wipe out all our savings in a fraction of second, leaving us with nothing. If we had given away part of fortune thinking that we have enough for us, it would be a risky assessment - wouldn't it? Since banks collapsing would wipe out all our savings in a minute :-( Just a sily thought, because of all this scary crisis thing. I still think we should/could give away whenever we can. Very scary world!
modified on Monday, June 1, 2009 5:47 PM
First, with all due respect to the others in the thread, no short answer is correct. And this forum doesn't work well with an answer of suitable length. Second, no one cause brought this about so there wasn't a single point of failure. That's not how big systems work. Usually a small point of failure breaks something that if broken causes big problems. Think of it this way, if you have a big server doing a lot of jobs and it suddenly starts developing regular performance problems you would start getting your tools out to ascertain the problem. But wait, your boss says, you may not use those tools. They are not allowed. You must ascertain the answer through web logs and reason alone. You argue that you need the other logs as well, your boss says, too bad we don't keep those logs and it is against company policy to do so. Then you realize this is an operating system that has no real documentation, just a bunch of web pages with opinions on them as to how it works. That's the economy. But the tools we need to analyze the problems don't really exist. We look at GDP, Durable goods sales, Money supply numbers, Market Averages, and all of that but those are about as good as web logs. Helpful if the problem is in the web server. Lousy if it is in some other place. Here are two examples of longer answers that might seem more suitable. At least they might give you more clues. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Crash_of_2008[^] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932009[^]
_____________________________ Those who study history are doomed to watch others repeat it. -Scott M.