Things I've Heard Today

From someone I know in SF who's been working on an advertising technology startup:
"My project's going great and really bad. Great in that we have a working prototype of what we're building; bad in that funding's totally dried up, so I just spent 30 of the last 50 days traveling the world."
That, folks, is what many in the early-stage startup community are finding now, and is what the startup community as a whole should expect for, oh, 3-5 more years.

While discussing the safekeeping of gold & silver:
"I had a friend in banking and there was a memo that said the gov't can declare an emergency and not allow the removal of anything besides cash from a safety deposit box."

and from a guy who's been predicting this crash for 2+ years:
"Get ready for foreign exchange controls"

Yes, folks, things may - indeed most likely will - get so bad that the government will prevent us from exchanging our depreciating dollars for foreign currencies.

While discussing the collapse of world financial markets and the proposed govt bailout:
"So our gov't is single handedly going to destroy our economy"
Actually, my colleague has it wrong - the govt is not responsible for this. We're in a democracy, and ultimately its the citizens who are responsible for what's happening. We've so thoroughly abdicated our citizenship responsbilities that naturally greedy and self-interested people in govt, banking, mortgage banking as well as housing buyers have royally F'd us all. Anyone who blames this on govt, banks or any particular political party overlooks the fact that this is a democracy wherein we're all resopnsible for electing the govt that represents us and holding them accountable to their actions.