Just a little bump here, to share a fear of an acceleration of your timetable.

There's some jockeying going on in the Eurozone that makes me wonder if we might not be closer to a financial armageddon than anyone thinks.

It has to do with a bit of legerdemain in the ECB, whereby they may be reclassifying government bonds as collateral. I don't pretend to understand this, but the problem comes from the rolling over of Sovereign debt... this time, Italy. As I understand it, Government bonds are not classified as collateral... ie, material goods used to back promises in a credit transaction.

Because the European banks are in a liquidity crisis, the threat of a Bank Run is possible. If the banks have collateral, and can come up with money or goods to satisfy demand noted, then there is no likelihood of a "run". The Collateral is the key.

It appears that there may be an attempt to reclassify some long term bonds (government debt) as collateral, which would then allow the regulators to state that the capital requirements of(a),(the) bank would be met. this would effectively give a government stamp of approval on the risk.

Whether the public or the banking industry approves this may determine the surviveability of the entire system... Europe, the United States an basically the world.

IMHO, we could be closer to a financial crash and a full blown depression than anyone has even dreamed of. There aren't too many more ways to kick the can down the road.

Life is Good!