Do you think a "Fire Sale" is possible?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_sale

Wait... no this one :

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24042

Credit for this idea belongs to Captaincranky, as he posted it in the TV and Movies subforum.

Is it a joke? Is it something made to scare us?

I doubt it.

People take things for granted. Especially people in the USA. Light, heat electricity, water, food, even correct billing information, are always at our fingertips. But these things are more interdependent than we believe. I think it's only necessary to risk implementing a "fire sale" if you're in a hurry. We're doing a pretty good job of losing everything on our own.

Any war is a fire sale in a manner of speaking. Destroy the infrastructure of a country and you introduce panic, confusion and human suffering. Everything fails at once. The next step is to make the vanquished dependent on the victors. Once that occurs, all necessary services could be given or taken, at a moments notice. You would no longer need religion to control the masses through fear.

If you examine the events of 9/11, there were huge gaps in information, confusion, panic, and misinformation. Had the scope of the attack been more comprehensive, who knows the extent of the damage which might have been inflicted.

So, I think a fire sale is possible, but I don't think a tidy gang of a dozen or so people could pull it off. I actually think that planning for a fire sale sequence of events is probably well along in contemporary military strategy plans. But, it's also most likely wedded to not so subtle conventional warfare methods. Does the phrase "neutralize command and control" ring a bell?

I thinking that a purely electronic approach would be very successful at pissing everyone off, and inconveniencing them to no end, but you would need too much "infrastructure" to take down the government's infrastructure. Although, that said, the power grid in the NE United States is always on the verge of collapse anyway, it'd be the perfect place to start. DISCLAIMER: The foregoing remark was only meant as theory!

So, I don't think one person sitting at a work station could pull it off. But then, I didn't think that Rambo could have gotten out of Afghanistan alive either, so what do I know.

banking world has a concept called 'business continuity planning' these days. Its become a very big deal since 9/11. The idea is that the banks consider the very worst scenarios, such as entire trading centres being removed, mass data loss etc....then devise and have a plan-B in place. Should the worst happen, the plan B is designed such that the bank can re-generate itself to a reasonable (albeit reduced) working state in a matter of days.

Of course, over-reliance upon redundant components of a system is a well renowned cause of major accidents. Still, its a lot better than what we had prior to 9/11 which was over-reliance on an "it'll never happen" mentality. Banks nowadays own numerous empty offices, sat ready and waiting to be used should their primary offices (working spaces, servers and so on) become unusable, they can move into these immediately and have all software and data backed up and ready to roll. This is the type of measures gone to to prevent such economic disasters. And hey, if the world economy could recover so quickly from 9/11, can't be that brittle eh.

We are talking about a "fire sale" here. In this scenario the point as to whether the banks could get up and running is somewhat moot. If it's done "right" there would be no power grid, no traffic control, no phone or internet. So, unless these people are going to bank amongst themselves with walkie-talkies, their ability to recover would still be dependent upon the rest of the services ability to recover.

Although I have to say, the parasites on Wall Street have found ways to make their millions even if a stock tanks. After the apocalypse we'll probably have ****roaches, lawyers, and stockbrokers. Saying that's not very nice is it?

I don't believe the site is censoring "****roaches".

Anyway, I should probably take the high road and say that's commendable on the part of the banking industry. We can only hope that other utility sectors have undertaken prudent steps to plan for disasters in spite of the fact that they weren't the ones hit.

To me though, that doesn't sound very much like human nature. Human nature sounds more like this; gas is so high because we don't have enough refining capacity, and we aren't building more refineries because we're busy counting and then pocketing our billions in profits that we're making because we don't have enough refineries. Now if someone could explain the difference between "supply and demand" and "price gouging", I could go to bed tonight feeling more compassionate towards the poor millionaire oil company execs who have to answer the same stupid questions to their bunkmates in the senate. Although our elected officials apparently think there is a difference between "supply and demand" and "price gouging". Actually there is a difference, "supply and demand" carries with it much larger campaign contributions than "price gouging".

Off topic, a little maybe. Heartfelt, you betcha!

my point was theres often more backups in place for these systems than you realise.

Backup generators would supply the power to critical components and despite large latencies, throughput has found to be very high on such internet systems as IPoaC

Your link looks suspiciously like Rambo's plan for getting out of Afghanistan. Not to mention it was released on April 1, 1999. In any event it probably needs updating. Maybe we'll we'll get a 2.0 version next April Fool's Day. I think PETA might have something to say about the stuffing bottle rockets up the bird's butts idea. Maybe they'll come up with something more humane like steroids.

You did solve one mystery for me. I always suspected that AOL dial-up internet used carrier pigeons, but I could never prove it!

Oh, the backup generators, yeah right, I forgot about them. Could you picture 100 million morbidly obese Americans without their air conditioners?

pfft, stick a 2GB usb stick up a pigeon's backside and it'll reach its destination within the day. Have you tried transferring 2GB on an AOL connection? Sorry but IPoaC is far more advanced than whatever AOL use (perhaps yoghurt pots and string).

Sounds like a road trip in texas.

Anyway, I did say its likely they keep backup generators for critical components. I'm sure thats near the top of the most critical list.

Is this what is meant by "upload speed"? Not to mention all the windscreens that would be spared of the pigeon's fecal wrath!

But who gets to retrieve the jump drive? Volunteers? Or perhaps those with community service sentences to carry out?
I don't think it's politically correct to single out Texas in a fat person joke. It's also factually and statistically incorrect, since it sounds like a road trip to anywhere in the US

I say we keep the backup generators hooked up to the liposuction machines. That way we'll be able to tallow them out for candles.

Who cares if it is politically correct to single out Texas? I think that is one major problem in the world today, simply because you cannot even state your own opinion without going to jail for a "hate crime".... not that I have been threatened by the police or anything...

I think that may have been a joke, but it still hit somewhat of a nerve.

I don't see being told what opinions you can and can not express as being right. At least not in America. I need education on this, as I have not yet taken American Government, etc. and know nearly nothing about law, but I do know we are supposed to have the freedom of speach. Where does that line get crossed?

Anyway, back on topic.

I see it happening in the near future, if by a person from the same country, a terrorist, or someone wanting revenge does not matter.

It will cause panic and possibly mayhem in the country it occurs, and most likely, if I am alive, I will up and leave. Whether that will be for the better or worse, or if it is the right thing to do does not matter to me. If someone is to purposely do something like that, something far worse is liable to be right behind it, so yes, I would get the hell out of there.

Note that my opinion is not made up, and I am not closed-minded, so I take in and do examine other peoples opinions every time someone contradicts me, unlike my dad... :P

Dude....,don't go all "twite" on me. After all, I did turn around and insult the rest of the country for being too fat. How could it be anything but a joke? Actually it was also an acute observation, and it couldn't be said it wasn't the truth either. You should be in my neighborhood, nobody has a job, but weights for women start in about 260 pounds, and top out at about 450. Well hooray, I guess the food stamp program is really working. Was I allowed to say that? Meh, who cares. So, while I suggest diet and excercise, somebody else will either put up with it, or decide that our standards for beauty be changed to suit them. I almost forgot door number four; the taxpayers pick up the tab on a gastric bypass.
The American ideal of freedom of speech, has absolutely nothing to do the political landscape of 2008. The country is chock full of really creepy people who basically sit around and wait for someone to say something that they can offended by, and then turn the situation to their own advantage. Some groups of people are allowed to hate and talk about it openly, while others are stifled and even prosecuted for it.
Bush and Cheney are actually doing a pretty fair job of creating a "fire sale" all by themselves. This is likely to happen when you elect a figurehead as president who amonts to not much more than a high functioning *****. Just spend all your money overseas in a war that didn't need to be waged, continue with a overspend and cut taxes economic policy, and angry up the middle east so as they raise the price of oil to $125.00+ dollars a barrel, then give the rest of the treasury to the Chinese, while losing most of your jobs in manufacturing in the process, and low and behold, instant fire sale.

Now, after the whole country has gotten itself hooked on SUVs, which kept getting bigger and bigger because many people enjoy looking down on their fellow drivers, and allowing truck fuel efficiency ratings to be mostly unregulated, WTF did anybody think was going to happen, our old enemies the Russians were going to take up the slack in our oil supply deficit and give us oil at the old price of 25 bucks a barrel? Not bloody likely! S*** off topic again. So, solly, he typed, mimicking a Chinese accent. Actually, you wouldn't need a fire sale, just invade at rush hour, when they're all struck on the freeway.

I sat in the gas lines of the seventies, and they were really unpleasant. Now, we have a nation of imbiciles behind the wheels, who firmly believe that dollar a gallon gasoline is another one of their social entitlements. Boy, are they in for a big surprise. Again, so solly!

If you really like ironic, edgy humor, rent yourself a copy of "Idiocracy", and read or reread Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".

Interesting. Have you heard of SPIN or Window Dressing?

Real Estate normally runs in 7-8 year cycles.
Agents, Brokers, Bankers, and even community leaders all have a vested interest
in the housing market NOT collapsing nor having a major 'run on the bank' or 'fire sale'.

In our area, the marketing hype is "one of the safest communities in ___",
"best schools in ____", and the perception of being an affluent, suburban, upscale
community. (however, drive the streets and look carefully and you find empty homes
without forsale signs but with agent keylocks on the door handle).
There are several ForSale signs up and down the streets, so the agents keep the
property values high by managing the appearance of "no fire sale here".

Results are best when one knows how to manipulate the buyers emotions and the
appearance of short supply.

Frankly, I do believe it (ie fire sale) is occurring as HELOCs are being adjusted downward
(ie the limit on the amount one can draw against a property) indicating
a reduction in housing values.

The next thing to watch for (or demand) is property tax reductions.

mopar man: Very thoughtful of you to remind everyone this is a public forum and
our conversations here at T.S. are seen on a much broader scale
fyi: google +Julio +techspot just to make the point

Actually, the current real estate issues are as a result of human stupidity and human greed. History ignored is thus comdemned to repeat itself, so that may or may not result in a cycle of determinate period for the housing market's recovery, or for that matter a continuing or future crash. I guess what I'm saying here is, I don't believe our housing market is an issue onto itself, but rather merely a symptom of far greater problems in our current economic model-slash-woes.
In America, no one is responsible for his own actions, which is why people are so amazed that when a variable rate mortgage varies, it goes up, and everybody starts crying the blues.

Herewith an imaginary seller's tale in a "sellers market"......,
"I gave you a low interest in the first place, so I could charge you much more than the property was actually worth, and some parasite middleman could make a s***pile of money duping you. Now you're crying. If you're so insufferably stupid that you thought you could put yourself in a half million dollar house for $2,000.00 down and then the payments weren't ever going to go up, you really deserve what you've gotten. I won't help you, the bank won't help you, and the government shouldn't help you."

I'm on board with your demanding reductions on real estate taxes, you know yourself though, the municipalities would just threaten to cut services. Well, except their own salaries and benefits.

If any commodity conspiracy is so deep that it can create "imaginary" shortages at will to manipulate the people, I would think that that should concern us more than if the shortages were real. It's a life and death version of the old "dollar on a string" trick.

This country used to be able to build a P-51 Mustang in a day or so. Now we'd be sitting around for 2 months arguing work rules, before the first rivet ever went into place. There is one thing you could bet on, that in the mean time, some parasite on Wall Street would be making money while North American Aviation's stock plummeted.

Well, I have still yet to find that reminder that this is a public forum, jo.

Anyway:

After re-reading it, I noticed that I read it wrong... X_D

When it comes to the last stuff you said, your right, these kids tend to think they have so many rights, such as to drive, and ARE in for a huge surprise when this happens.

Heh, and I'm a kid.

first line of the poll
"Be advised that this is a public poll: other users can see the choice(s) you selected."

is this boilerplate for all polls? I don't recall seeing it before?

I set it to where you can see who voted what....

I still can't figure out how to tell, though! X_D

Well, I think it's possible... very possible, but there are some things that just don't seem incredibly likely. I put 'maybe'.

Men, if you recall, Matt says, "Everything can't be done with computers." And, Gabriel sends Emerson to secure the backup facility. And Mai personally has to go to the power grid's hub. So, to pull off something of that scale, you need to have enough power and access in the first place. And THAT isn't easy. But hey, it's not impossible.