Posted By:
Jerry Hrechka Quite frankly, the bankers, investment houses, financial ministers et. al. do not understand the financial markets. If they did they would be able to place an accurate valuation on the complex derivates that have been poisoned by the mortgage defaults.
Right now, no one knows which institutions are solvent & which ones aren't - a big reason for the panic on the worldwide exchanges.
Unless the Central Banks start printing money, there is not enough cash to cover all the guarantees.
Current deficit is in the 3 to 400 billion dollar range, national debt is 10 Trillion - the last figure I saw for unfunded Govt. liabilities (Social Security & Medicard) is in the 30 Trillion dollar range. To this add all the local govt. debts & liabilities plus personal debt. Many more trillions (Don't have any numbers on this).
Soon we'll be talking about quadrillions, quintillions, sextillions, septillions, octillions, nonillions and maybe even decaillions of dollars (Sorry couldn't resist).
The debt house of cards is collapsing. Where it will end I don't know.
Anyone want to go back to the Gold Standard?