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Speaking Of Failed Banks, Mine (Netbank) Failed In 2007: Business, Banking, And Predicting The Rescession - Update in 2009
Astrology in real life
Re-posting this with an update because 81 banks have failed this year and analysts say 150-200 more will probably fail.
About the failing banks, mine (Netbank) failed in 2007. I was with Netbank for about 9 years and one day I signed on and was gone. As soon as I saw the (government) notice, I knew two things:
I knew I was lucky because surely there would be more banks to fail and since mine went early, there was a buyer. I also knew I was a canary in a coal mine and this was harbinger of things to come. I seem to be ahead of the curve like this for good or ill and I am not sure why.
Some months later I was in the grocery store and I witnessed a man unable to pay for his groceries. This was just a few weeks after a friend confided she’d not been eating because she had no money for food. Pluto In Capricorn - Recession, Hunger, Sense Of Responsibility… I am pretty sure she is another canary.
It’s very hard to write about this stuff - People don’t want to know. Writing about reality (Saturn in Virgo) gets you accused of spreading fear and who wants a burden like that?
~~
Update in 2009…
I see a lots of businesses closing, and the ability to buy basic things locally. Things like brown thread and/or a man’s terry cloth robe.
The libraries here are closing or drastically curtailing their hours.
I see the black market continuing to expand (black market - tag boards and blog)
I see a lowered tolerance for crime. That is, break into someone’s house or business at your own risk because if the owner shoots you, no one is going to care. Seen this in Colorado, New York and North Carolina. Notice in all three stories, the shooters are OLD MEN (Saturn).
Anyone else on the front line want to speak up? What have you seen and what do you think it portends?
31 Responses to “Speaking Of Failed Banks, Mine (Netbank) Failed In 2007: Business, Banking, And Predicting The Rescession - Update in 2009”
I don’t know, but my bank did it last week.
I am already sick of OMGSOMUCHFEAR WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE, though. But…I guess there is no hope of anything else not horrible happening?
The problems of the aging are being brought to the forefront in my life. My parents aren’t yet 50, and I don’t interact with the grandparents (2 dead, 2 just not there) but I’m encountering the way over 80 and 90 bunch (one in the form of a neighbor, one married into my b/f’s family) and they truly get the shit end of the stick. I don’t think anyone realizes how hard it is for the aging, even if they are financially set. Life is more than just money!!! Just going over and talking to my neighbor (been helping her with something medical that she just can’t do physically) and the talking does more for her than the medicine! I wish there was more I could do for this age group, and I really wish that family responsibility was non existent in this day and age. I wonder with Pluto in Capricorn, if this issue will be brought out more in the public.
“That is that Pluto’s transit through Capricorn is going to shake people at their foundation and unleash powerful feelings of insecurity.”
I feel it! I don’t feel secure about a thing. How do we cope?
I don’t like feeling insecure. I’ve used the word “scared” so much that my mom thinks I have kind of problems. I’m a young girl with resolvable issues and used to feel very optimistic about them, but now blithe optimism isn’t so easy. I turn to some denial like “It can’t be that bad, what would we do?” How are other people with planets in Cancer dealing with it? Are they supposed to feel it like Capricorns feel it?
P.S. Please keep writing about Pluto in Capricorn, Elsa. You’re helping me understand it better.
I’ve been doing my own gardening & crocheting & some woodworking for the last couple of years, and have been investigating doing my own canning…I’m seeing this year a HUGE surge in people wanting to learn these “folk” arts…I think even people that can’t see bad news on the horizon are feeling it like animals before an earthquake.
I got paid today. I now have $263 left until next payday after paying the bills. It’s been like this for months and I don’t know if relief will ever come. I know I’m not the only one in a situation like this, but that doesn’t make it any less scary.
In late 2006 there were terrible wind storms and the power was knocked out all over. Then there was rain that caused turbidity in the water and we were on boiled advisory.
Then (then, yeah it was getting ridiculous at that point) there was a massive snow storm, our pipes froze…I called the landlord to warn him the roof was going to cave in but he ‘couldn’t do anything’ and so collapse it did.
I had a moment in my candlelit bathroom at night, when it was freezing cold, listening to the water trickling in the roof with the containers of boiled water and I thought: gee, I guess this is what life will be like when I’m old. I can deal with this.
If I can sit in my home in one of the richest cities in my country where the average home sets someone back $750,000 and have NO clean water, NO heat, and NO power…well welcome to how BILLIONS of people on this planet live.
My mantra these days is “Buck Up” and I say this not to slam anyone else’s coping skills but I’m exactly where I need to be. So if life gets more tough well I’m going to get more tough too, that’s all there is to it.
Nashville was out of gasoline right after Hurricane Ike. Still spotty here.
“That is that Pluto’s transit through Capricorn is going to shake people at their foundation and unleash powerful feelings of insecurity.”
I wonder if Cap Risings will feel more secure or less secure? I mean internally. Not about outside circumstances.
I asked my dad (hard to communicate with him because he has Parkinson’s real bad) about growing up in the Depression (he’s 82/Virgo) & if he could have picked something to purchase beforehand he said good sturdy shoes.
My family lost everything in the bad recession in Detroit 82-83 but he was a great example of how to act during times like that — he fed a lot of people for free.
Madeleine, you just mentioned my favorite movie of all time…and this is not the first time I’ve thought of Dorothy in these last few days…I wonder if she was a Cappy??
Jilly I think that’s great advice from your Dad.
New Dylan record is available to listen to online. Click my name. heh, first track:
Mississippi
Every step of the way we walk the line
Your days are numbered, so are mine
Time is pilin’ up, we struggle and we scrape
We’re all boxed in, nowhere to escape
City’s just a jungle, more games to play
Trapped in the heart of it, trying to get away
I was raised in the country, I been workin’ in the town
I been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down
Got nothing for you, I had nothing before
Don’t even have anything for myself anymore
Sky full of fire, pain pourin’ down
Nothing you can sell me, I’ll see you around
All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime
Could never do you justice in reason or rhyme
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long
Well, the devil’s in the alley, mule’s in the stall
Say anything you wanna, I have heard it all
I was thinkin’ about the things that Rosie said
I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie’s bed
Walking through the leaves, falling from the trees
Feeling like a stranger nobody sees
So many things that we never will undo
I know you’re sorry, I’m sorry too
Some people will offer you their hand and some won’t
Last night I knew you, tonight I don’t
I need somethin’ strong to distract my mind
I’m gonna look at you ’til my eyes go blind
Well I got here following the southern star
I crossed that river just to be where you are
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long
Well my ship’s been split to splinters and it’s sinking fast
I’m drownin’ in the poison, got no future, got no past
But my heart is not weary, it’s light and it’s free
I’ve got nothin’ but affection for all those who’ve sailed with me
Everybody movin’ if they ain’t already there
Everybody got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now
My clothes are wet, tight on my skin
Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in
I know that fortune is waitin’ to be kind
So give me your hand and say you’ll be mine
Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay
You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long
it’s been bloody hard ever since i had my son. i’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but this house depends on two incomes and one just disappeared, again.
i know, if all goes according to plan, come next year, i’ll be ok, but i can’t really depend on that, can i? there’s so much up in the air, and if people start breaking down rather than bucking up things could get a whole lot worse for everyone.
i have some contingency plans, but they’re by no means secure at present. we’ll see. but i’m liking the idea of completing credential requirements for this state and moving up into the mountains. or somewhere a little less urban.
i’m shocked that people are surprised, though. all of this stuff has been building for awhile, and the signs were pretty obvious at least five years ago, if not longer. the recession of ‘03 was like the first wave.
i just hope people remember to take care of each other. so much more is possible if we work together.
Amen Wyrdling, on that last part - exactly how I feel.
I think circumstances will be such that there will be the gated rich, who can be more autonomous, and everyone else - who won’t have a choice but to work together.
Living in the metro Detroit area, and I’m sick to death of newspeople blithering about ‘oh noes, recession is coming!!!!’ Obviously these people are nowhere near Michigan, and haven’t visited in a very long time. We’ve been in a recession for quite a while, and it’s only getting worse. My fiance lost his house in 2006, due to a nice combo of divorce and a mortgage he never should’ve been given. NOW the feds want to do something about predatory lending! Nice, eh?
I think it’s going to get much worse before it gets any better. I think we’ve got some tough years ahead, but if we keep our heads and focus on getting through it, we’ll all be ok in the end. It’s just going to suck for a while.
Gulp. I’ve been mindlessly freaked out for a while now. Lately, I’ve been grateful for the saying, “one day at a time.” That’s how I’m trying to live it. And I recently got a little perspective from my own dad, about how fear can manifest in any era..any time. He told me that in ‘68.. with four young children and a wife depending on his meager salary, with protest around the country, a war raging, and mayhem everywhere..he had a recurring dream that he was digging a cave onto the side of a mountain, about an hour outside the city, for all of us to live in when the shit hit the fan. In the dream he could never finish digging. The task was endless.
That nightmare was more than 40 years ago. I knew my dad sometimes struggled, but I didn’t know how scared he felt inside.
I know this: I will be okay as long as I help lift other people up. Gotta be of service, even in the simplest of ways. I’m not equipped to take on all the world’s problems, but I can be kind. It sure as hell feels better than worrying about the 401k and war with Russia and the apocalypse and, well—that list goes on and on.
I have a friend who’s house rent keeps growing and growing, another 50 euros, more, and more and more. She’s also paying for a car. She wants kids. I’m afraid to tell her that the money that they both earn (she and her husband) pretty soon won’t be enough - that things are getting worse and worse. She’s a capricorn sun. My friend is very ambitious and I think that loosing these material things would crush her.
And pluto hasn’t even reentered capricorn… :/
But, honestly, I think I should have a talk with her.
My mate and I have been on the road since 2004 with environmentally triggered illness called multiple chemical sensitivities … as a flock we are called “Canaries.” Someone described me: “She’s allergic to the universe!” Thing is … like Elsa, I have been out in front for good or ill most my life. At 61, we have built a tiny home on wheels and carry our whittled down life fueled on faith.
Pluto in Cap (I am Scorp Sun-Cap asc and Moon) safety and security are awhirl with new definition. We work for food in an organic food sometimes, educate ppl about why I wear a mask/disappear from sight/’live in a cave’ (it’s a vardo really) and write fairy tales to understand the nonsense of the real world.
It’s what needs to happen. Blame? That’s futile if I don’t have a better angle on my place on Earth now.
Banks and institutions don’t know how to respond to my illness … in so many ways it’s totally uncomfortable to believe my condition is not ‘just in her head.’ Smoke screening is so much easier than putting out the fire.
Me and my man are modern Gypsy with a contemporary history. Dylan has been a poet for the age, and I am his age! The sky? She has fallen, Chicken Little. And yet in the morning, I hear the wind blow through the trees and when I last checked I am still here.
We are stronger together…that’s the slogan on one of the MCS-Canary places … The Canary Report if any are interested. http://www.thecanaryreport.org
Villifying the poor. “Leaches” “lazy-asses” “good-for-nothings” etc. People get understandably upset when they some folks abusing the system..but lumping all poor people together, I guess I see more and more of that. (Maybe I always have..natal Saturn in Capricorn??). I work with impoverished kids, some of their parents are first-class jerks, but many are simply overburdened working poor, and these kids are painfully aware of how their families, their neighborhoods and even their cultures are viewed by society-at-large.. it is hard for me sometimes to witness their shame. The poverty rate in the urban area where I live is astronomical and growing by leaps and bounds and addressing it must be a mind-bogglng dilemma for even the wisest of leaders among us.
Suggest everyone research Pluto in Capricorn and stay reasonable and out of fear. Its fine to face reality but its also necessary to realize that everything cycles and that maybe pluto is doing something good and right by restructuring banks/money and forcing things to rebalance after the wildness of the past that has lead up to this time, i.e. the hoarding of all the weatlh. I sense a real time of getting back to what people really need, locally, as opposed to just consuming anything for the sake of consuming. Eating with thought, buying with thought, etc. Fear mongering is dangerous and preys on the weak. Stay alert and research things on your own and don’t fall to the dark side of the moon.
the first places to board up are the brand spankin’ new store fronts.
but we lost an eighty year old cobbler shop downtown, too 
i will go local to get real service from people who know what they’re talking about even if it means paying more. sometimes you really do get what you pay for.
and maybe there’s a good side to having to make more choices about what’s actually worth spending money on rather than living in a disposable reality…
This continues to be a great blog. I like all the new comments, especially dana’s
The youth centre where I work is going to close unless we can raise a helluva lot of money between now and January. And we’re so bogged down in internal beaureaucracy I’m afraid we might not be able to pull through. Gonna give it all I’ve got to fundraise between now and then though… Trust me, the neighbourhood wants these kids at the youth centre rather than out getting into trouble, which they usually will if left to their own devices. We work with the kids that are already falling thru the cracks… this is just another way the system is failing miserably.
i like how only a year ago that i was going to get tougher. that simply isn’t happening. i am quieter, though. maybe somewhere in the world quieter=stronger.
I believe I am on the front line. My hubby and I called the internet bubble and the housing bubble. We tried to tell people early on that housing prices would not last. People told us “real estate always goes up.” That is simply not fact if you look at history.
Since then, we bought an old farm and have built a sustainable “green” home.
We always do our best to let people know what we see, but I think most people want to live on hope.
What I see happening is a “W” shaped recovery. Things will go up, but then go back down before they go up again. It will take years.
FYI, I’m an economist by training.
-Pisces
Pisces- good call. This is what happened in Japan during their lost decade. They resurfaced out of recession briefly several times. Maybe it will be like two W’s side by side.
Rand,
Indeed, it shall be a bumpy ride. I still suspect we’ve not seen the worst of it. We could go into a deeper recession (dare I say the “d” word), or serious hyperinflation. I think hyperinflation would suck (it sucks for anyone who has saved any money b/c it becomes worthless).
A good way to hedge bets against hyperinflation is to buy things now (like shoes:) if you have the money.
We looked at a graph this week of the S&L crisis and it took 15 years to really feel the affects of it. I’m afraid we’ve only just begun.
I have a lot to say about this topic, but don’t want to ramble on, of course;)
Pisces- hyperinflation in the US is a strong possibility as the country imports so much of what it needs. In an environment where the government keeps borrowing trillions of dollars, the money supply explodes and the value of the US dollar keeps losing purchasing power. Other countries that have better managed their finances, are subject to stronger currencies and possibly deflationary forces. Lot’s of chaotic crosscurrents, which I agree will last many years. I suspect that stock markets which fell 50% from say 10 to 5 and then rose 50% from 5 to 7.5 may now fall 50% again to 3.25. Does this make sense to you?
Ooops that should read 3.75, but frankly falling back to 2 wouldn’t surprise me.
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I’ve been peppering my usual upbeat blog with some reality-bites along with the inspiration– fearful my readers are not interested in the news,just the inspiration-trying to keep it balanced.. even Dorothy had to fight back those monkeys.. she couldn’t sleep in the poppy field all day..
Also–in my husband’s chiropractic office, an elderly woman that the western medical docs gave up one came in on a referral from another patient of ours. Her painful leg condition was not important to any of the docs who operated on her a year ago–she was “released” from care. ! She broke down in tears at the copay and said she has not been eating.I got a lump in my throat. she lives alone. A friend paid her first copay but she was not going to make any more appointments.
In our office we do treat a certain number of elderly for free and we added her to our list.
It’s hard times. When we can, we must help one another. Losing a portion of your stock portfolio is one thing, elderly neighbors who cannot afford to EAT is altogether another..
I am making a point of buying a few extra groceries each time I go to add to the St.Vincent De Paul’s collection basket in the supermarket. If you can,do.