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which history?

February 1st, 2010 at 04:04 am

Sunday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $3.88 coffee, bagel + $12 kaiten sushi lunch
Found money - $0.06 (road)

Saturday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $14 breakfast + $11 2 bread pans + $2 coffee, energy bar
Found money - $0.31 (sidewalks, road, bus stop, grocery store checkout floor)

Friday
Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $0!
Found money - $0.03 (escalator edge, parking meter, bus stop under seat)


$22.66: 576 pennies, 21 nickels, 96 dimes, 21 quarters, $1 bill

Did my 5 mile walk-some jog today, listening to my tunes. I performed a cleanse on my MP3 player last night, and put a new configuration of songs. My MP3 player is nearly 4 years old, and is showing its age in the battery life (about 3 hrs) and in the capacity (a mere 20 Gb). Still, I'm kinda loathe to replace it - I'll wait until the battery can only hold an hour charge.

Anyway, my walks with the soundtrack give me plenty of time to think. This afternoon I thought about our US financial situation and the saying "history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes". I guess I'm trying to figure out what history our times are rhyming with. The Great Depression is the obvious rhyme circa late 2008, but I think we skirted that shoal.

I feel like its Japan, circa 1990 - present. Japanese banks were too big to fail too, the banks tightened credit, their version of the Fed dropped the interest rates to 0% (and they are still there), some banks turned into "zombie banks", their gov spent on various stimulus programs to keep some semblance of the population working. But the rhyme doesn't fit completely either - the savings rate in Japan leading up to their issues was very very high compared to the US. The banks could hold out, so could most of their population that was still working could also. And they both have been, off and on, for the last 20 years. I don't hold out any hope that the US population would be able to live on their savings for even a year, not to mention 10 or 20 years. Something has to give.

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