My sister and brother in law used to be mid-level executives at Regions. I am shocked their stock stayed up as long as it did. That has been a house of cards since it swallowed up Amsouth. I think everybody accepts that we are in a recession.....and most people paying attention think that this is the biggest one in quite a while. I think everybody expects that the 700 point drop is just a taste of what is coming. The coal company we have been dealing with these many months has lost $60 million in market cap in just the last week. Will they even exist a month from now??? People are losing their jobs. People are losing their homes, their cars, their businesses, their dreams. A lot of people who are eating CAB filet mignons at the restaurants will be grilling Choice ribeyes at their house. A lot of people who are eating Choice T-bones now will be eating Select sirloins soon and "fajita meat" is going to be more popular in a lot of homes. People will be eating out less. Fad diets will be replaced by pot roasts. Pizza delivery will be replaced by meat loaf. Underneath the branded beef, the fine dining, the $100,000 Precision daughters, the $50,000 duallies, and the $8000 show heifers this is still a commodity business and always has been.
While we struggle through the bank failures, the foreclosures, the market corrections, the stockholder losses, the bankruptcies, the court ordered auctions (one reason we carry no mortgage on either house or any of our 487 acres...and have not since 1972), etc people are still going to eat and folks that eat meat now will try to continue to eat meat in the future. My point is the sun will come up tomorrow (even if unemployment hits 12% by March). We have been through worse (....well at least my Grandfather had) and we will get through this.
Does anything here ring a bell?
"Hoover was one of the most able men to be elected as President and also one of the unluckiest. He was inaugurated on 4 March 1929. Seven months later the Stock Market crashed. The new President was a believer in self-reliance and self-help and was loathe to see government intervention in economic affairs. He sought, ineffectually, to encourage expansion through a tax cut and by urging business to expand. Spending measures passed by Congress that threatened a balanced budget were rejected. As the ranks of the unemployed swelled, Hoover's popularity plummeted. Soup kitchens became common sights. Many factories became desolate sites. The production index fell to its lowest point in the country's history.
"Settlements of unemployed men sprang up and were dubbed "Hoovervilles". The army was used to remove war veterans who had marched to Washington, DC, to ask for advance payment of their war bonuses. Hoover stuck to his principles and continued to urge local and state action. The states proved unable to cope. As conditions worsened, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to lend money to firms that could offer collateral, but it had little impact."
http://www.answers.com/topic/herbert-hoover
