X-Message-Number: 31117
References: <>
From: Kennita Watson <>
Subject: Re: How will Alcor & CI handle a bank holiday? 
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:48:14 -0700

On Oct 12, 2008, at 2:00 AM, CryoNet wrote:

> From: Mark Plus <>
> Subject: Re: How will Alcor & CI handle a bank holiday?
> Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:49:40 -0700
>
> Kennita Watson writes:
>
>> (Sigh; catastrophising...)
>
> Libertarians have depended on "catastrophising" the effects of a  
> regulated economy for the past 50+ years to promote their beliefs.  
> Yet they tend to dismiss other people's warnings about  
> environmental problems or resource depletion as "doomsaying."

What does any of that have to do with all of
America's banks closing for an extended period?
>
> Now that reality has started to resemble the plot of a bad  
> libertarian novel, apparently the rhetoric has changed to: "Uh, no,  
> wait! We didn't mean it!" (Especially because they haven't received  
> their invitation to join the survivalist hideaway in the Rocky  
> Mountains with the other "men of the mind"?)

BTW, I still don't think a Soviet-style
regulated economy, or even an EU-style
economy, is the solution to our problems.
>
>> Personally, I'd put the chances at less than 1 in 2000.  There  
>> would be a state of national
> emergency declared if banks threatened to close their doors for any  
> extended period.
>
> The situation could deteriorate to a banking collapse in short  
> order. Yesterday the Italian prime minister apparently created a  
> security breach or diplomatic embarrassment when he referred to  
> high-level talks about shutting down the world's financial markets  
> for an indefinite period...

FTR, shutting down the world's financial markets
!= closing all of America's banks.
>
> Apparently ~ $2 trillion worth of "the sky" has already fallen,  
> wiping out the retirement savings of millions of Americans. The  
> U.S. Treasury Secretary has even started to nationalize banks with  
> his bailout money.  In the context of our unprecedented financial  
> crisis, and the likelihood that the interventions probably won't  
> work (if they did, economic libertarians would have some explaining  
> to do), does the prospect of a banking collapse sound all that  
> implausible?

Less so than before, perhaps, but I still think
the banks' doors will stay open.

Live long and prosper,
Kennita

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