en-us http://www.keithwatanabe.net/index.php Keith Watanabe's Website http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/27/97ecbae9ba07b67bb8c5ed2d49717130.html
The frustrations of seeing these things happen are just unbelievable. I'll probably end up moving my money, since obviously keeping it in Wamu is just too much of a risk at this point. But I heard people talking about a bank run, which would lead to even further collapses with the possibility of banks not being able to retain their money. That would result in banks just halting any transactions, leaving people to be unable to touch their money for a while. Some scary thoughts on those possibilities.

Originally, they said it would be Citigroup taking over Wamu's assets. I really feared that scenario because I straight out hate Citigroup. In the end though, it happened to by the government that took over Wamu. Again, I think the idea is terrible but small people like me can do nothing about it.

Right now, you can't trust banks or financial institutions. The whole thing is rotten. It's really unbelievable just how bad things have come. This definitely is far worse than the dot com bubble.]]> Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:15:48 -0600 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/9/27/97ecbae9ba07b67bb8c5ed2d49717130.html http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/12/22/9d27f271bdddd12056a40edd9f5bcfc9.html
Just as the federal government is throwing lifelines to the banks, you would think that the banks would likewise trickle down their money to these suffering companies.

Not at all.

There's no clear evidence of how the money is being used dollar-for-dollar. However, we haven't seen companies like Circuit City, KB Kids, Mervyns, etc. receive anything outside of notifying their employees that they won't have any jobs i the near future.

Wouldn't you think that there would be a symbiotic relationship between banks and companies in America in terms of unilaterally helping each other through this difficult time? Or is Wall Street selectively filtering out those who aren't their favorites as if listening to an mp3 playlist?

The money never was intended to help us. It's only used to circulate among the elite of society. But for some reason the continuous discourse every where about the economy has forced people to turn their attention and care about what goes on in Wall Street.

Here's my thing. Fuck Wall Street. Let them rot. Laugh every time the stocks drop. Celebrate when you hear a company go out of business.

The whole thing ought to be that these companies should somehow attempt to determine a way to help us. They haven't. Instead, to preserve their precious stock prices so that their high up executives can receive their bonuses, they cut us.

But stop worrying about the economy, losing your job and the pathetic media that transmogrifies this situation into something bigger than it is. It doesn't help anyone that you're worrying about someone else's problem. We're not bankers. We're not investors. We're not finance people. Let Wall Street and only Wall Street worry about Wall Street.

Instead, turn your attention to yourself, your community and your lives. A friend said that a problem in society that has come about as a result of the proliferation of the internet and the expediency of news is the loss of local community. Now, we're caring far too much about other people's lives rather than our own.

I do agree with that thought. News is interesting and helps prevent boredom when there's nothing else around. But we've gotten too far away from just ourselves.

For myself, I just stopped caring. And if some issue happens, I laugh it off. But I refuse to allow the negative press affect my mental state. It's not worth the time and effort to go about each day worrying about an issue that doesn't really affect me. Maybe on the global scheme of things or down the line, but you can't just live for theory. It's like taking an astronomy class and worrying when a black hole will gobble up the galaxy, or when the sun will go super nova or figuring out when the universe began/ended. If you like to theorize about things like that, fine. But for all practical purposes, things like that have no meaning to our daily lives (unless you're a professor on said subjects).

Oh, and here's another little piece of advice/way of thinking of things: no news is sometimes very good news.]]> Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:25:39 -0700 http://www.keithwatanabe.net/blogs/2008/12/22/9d27f271bdddd12056a40edd9f5bcfc9.html