Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

I am very curious to see where all this economic doom-n-gloom winds up. Theres no shortage of opinion and conjecture out there. You’ve people saying that this is the slide into economic disaster of unprecedented magnitude, and you have others saying that this isn’t as bad as the media makes it out to be.

Fun thing about economies is that it seems like you dont need facts, you can have the facts make themselves. For example, a bank may be 100% solvent, but if you start a good enough rumour that it isnt then people start pulling out money and the bank collapses – self-fulfilling prophecy. I wonder how much of that is going on right now. People say the economy is tanking because of [reason], so people put thier money elsewhere and as a result the economy does, in fact, take a hit. Im sure the Bilderberger Trilateral Zionist Illuminati UN Freemason CFR Vatican conspiracy theorists believe that this is all the work of one person out to destroy the economy.

Or, it could just be the normal and fairly predicatble result of years of unsound fiscal policy and practices.

Whats it mean to me? I have almost no investments, I dont carry any debt other than a fixed rate mortgage,  and I sure dont have thousands of dollars in the bank depreciating. On the other hand, I need gasoline, food, electricity and other consumer goods just as much as the next guy. (Well, maybe not quite as much.) Fuel prices will go up, food prices will go up, purchasing power goes down, etc, etc.

These are going to be interesting times to look back on. Im curious to see how it ends, who the winners and losers will be, and what things will look like once all the dust settles. I predict larger .gov involvement in finance and economic matters as well as some sort of new .gov agency dedicated to ‘helping homeowners’. No problem so bad that a new .gov agency can’t make it worse.