Go look at what has happenned to bitcoin in the last 48 hours..not too pretty if you were holding some of them.. Now it may come back but I personally wouldn't bet on that..OT but to me if there is anything I would invest in that I beleive to be way undervalued it is 1) silver and then 2) gold..

So how many days lag is it taking to get ripples?
I'm on like 3 days and nothing yet (it is counting my hours)

OT #2 FWIW I personally believe investing in commodities like gold and silver is a bad idea for the long run. When our house of cards collapses, and (with $17,000,000,000,000 in debt and counting) it will collapse, the only commodities that will be worth having are food, water, and ammunition to protect said food and water. JMHO

On another note I have a math question for y'all. If the US government could somehow pay off our debt @ $100,000,000,000 per day @0.1% interest how long would it take them to pay that 17 trillion off?
I think you'll be shocked by the answer but that's what 17 trillion in debt really looks like and that only works if we stop running up our debt and start paying the debt down. Can we have a show of hands for those that think there is any chance in h**l that will happen.
Carry on.

I have always approached HUGE problems, the ones that look undoable, with the thinking of "pick at it" and slowly over time you can get it done. The same approach should work here. First we need to look at what the problem really is and that is spending more than is coming in..
Now that we realise that two things can be done to work the problem:
1) Spend less than we take in
2) Do what we can to bring in more
3) Admit publically that this issue is THE issue of our time and this has to be addressed or the country is at risk as a entity.
To me the first thing that needs to be done is eliminate all the BS expenses that Congress passes.
A small example of this was that 85 BILLION dollar package to help out the people and businesses effected by Hurricaine Sandy.
One earmark on that bill was $40 million given to NASCAR for them to promote NASCAR.
Yes, you read that right..
Some Congressman essentially said to the country "If you want my vote on this package to help those devastated by a Hurricaine then your going to give (speal) $40 million from the American taxpayer to help out my buddies in NASCAR"
Twofold problem here: earmarks themselves are one part and they should be eliminated and the bigger problem is this POG had the audacity to steal $40 million from us for his pet project of his buddies and Congress let him get away with this.
There is no accountability and this has to stop and the best bet is term limits for a starter.
Next, we have to have a budget that is less than what we take in so that we can work on reducing the principal on the devt and not just paying the interest on the debt which is currently 43 cents of every dollar the Govt takes in.
It's not easy, and it won't be without pain to all of us but it has to be done.

I'm not sure how this thread got so consistently off topic, but there's something I feel obliged to point out as a public service, since it's this sort of talk that I think keeps people afraid and prevents them from investing wisely.

I've heard this sort of talk for ages - literally since Reagan and absolutely nothing has come of it - nada, zip, zilch. And you know what. It's not likely anything will. If you want to worry about something, worry about the possibility of inflation if the economy suddenly starts to accelerate faster than expected. Now THAT is a legitimate concern. The debt really isn't. And if someone wants to start another thread on this I'm more than happy to debate the topic but I won't contribute to derailing this thread any further.

I'll just say that as someone who is an active trader, and not just stocks but mostly high risk investments like options, things that can affect the economy are the sort of stuff I pay particular attention to. So I couldn't possibly care less about the debt - and neither could virtually any other investor. What most people are concerned with right now is what the federal reserve is or isn't doing. THAT will move the market on any given day. The debt is utterly irrelevant at this point.

So if fear of some sort of financial Armageddon is keeping you from investing, let me just point out a couple of basic facts. One is that from the market lows in March of 2009, the S&P has increased by roughly 150%. And if you think things like bonds are necessarily safer than stocks, that's completely false when interest rates suddenly rise as they did in May of this year - since bond prices move inversely with rates, especially for long maturities.

It's certainly possible that we could have another financial meltdown like we did in 2008, but if you're going to sit around waiting for that to happen again, I suspect you will be in for a very long wait and that by the time you finally do decide that it's safe to get back in again, you'll be just in time to catch the next recession. I'm not saying jump in with both feet now necessarily. After all, a lot of stocks are at historic highs. But I don't think stuffing your money in the mattress is the answer either. The point is that little perspective goes a long way.