This is so funny! OK, another mom of autistic son here, 5yo wih High Functioning Autism and twin sister with Sensory Processing Disorder (aka autism w/o the social delay)... You know you have too many daylilies (and are totally obsessed) when: 1. Every time you take your kid to the occupational therapist you wander around the commercial landscape crossing the daylilies and then checking to see if the pods have ripened. 2. You no longer accept the freebies at club functions because you already have the ones everyone else brings. 3. You take the kids to respite care so you can attend daylily events all summer 4. Not only do you have more pictures of your daylilies than your kids, but all of your daylily photographs have captions and are cataloged. 5. You make Powerpoint presentations with pictures of every cross you make during the summer. They are organized by Tet and Dip crosses plus any that fail to set are put into the back of the deck. Then you print out the "notes" pages so that you can make a booklet to carry around with you for the next 3 years while you dream about what the seedlings might look like. 4. You spend all winter making the same type of Powerpoint presentation as #3 but this one is for planning your crosses for next summer. 5. You wander through your garden checking for ripe pods at least twice per day. 6. You'd rather save your vacation for a daylily convention than visit family that you haven't seen in 5 years. 7. Instead of learning to plant beans like all the other pre-schoolers, your kids learned how to plant daylily seeds. 8. You have to keep your daylily database on your pda so that you can reference your "want" list, your "have" list, and several hundred others at any moment. When you walk through the garden center you use it to reference the height, bloom season, hybridizer, and other details of each daylily that they carry. 9. You set up your cell phone with internet access to this forum and the e:mail robin so you won't miss anything while you are away from your computer.

When interest rates are low, usually the payout offered by an annuity is low, as well. Once an annuity is bought ... that rate continues throughout its life. Some say that interest rates will remain low, but I don't think so. Your country has been printing money like it's going out of style ... plus, carrying huge debt earlier, is going much more heavily into debt, and it looks as though these bailouts aren't nearly over. Which leads one to think that the value of the dollar will shrink, and would-be borrowers, including the government, will need to offer major incentives in order to induce(seduce?) potential lenders to free up their money ... which usually amounts to offering higher interest rates ... you know what rates junk bond borrowers need to pay. I've just been reading an article about a financial advisor who appears to have some qualifications who, when asked how long one should carry a certain type of investment, similar to a bond, if I remember correctly, said that it should be about as long as one held a grenade between the time that one pulled the pin and threw it. Actually, one can hold it for some time, safely - just as long as one holds the lever down by hand that the pin secured in place previously ... just be careful not to relax your grip, so that the lever can't spring up, unnoticed. Good wishes for making choices regarding your assets that you'll continue to be pleased with, later ... and later ... and later. Many say that quality stocks are on sale. They may be on fire sale later. But for money that I don't figure to need for the next five years or so, I think that it's wise to put at least part of it into well-chosen equities. Not bought in big chunks at a time, though ... unless one can be sure that that time is the bottom of the market! Having celebrated my 80th birthday earlier this year, I'm about 80% invested in equities ... but there's a major proviso: living fairly frugally (I spent much of 10 years helping refugees with nothing get back on their feet) I live on less than my pension income ... so you could make a good case for claiming that my invesments are sort of like play money, not the kind that I depend on to put bread on the table in the near future. ole joyfoul

Tomorrow is the soonest I can get my money out of there. I have a nice conservative bank right down the street rated 5 stars that is going to get more business from me. IndyMac was our favorite bank.

>patser-I worked for 30 years in the investment industry up until this past April. For the last 5 of those years I worked overseeing the riskiness of my bank's securities trading groups, specifically the bond trading groups (which includes mortgage backed securities trading). We oversaw trading in the far East, Europe, and North America. In the early part of my career, I worked in the treasury group of a major US bank which had financial problems and was ultimately absorbed into/bought by another major US bank. My group was the area that was in daily, direct contact with the US regulators and I was involved in way too many conversations about a bank that was going down. I ultimately lost that job due to a later and different merger 10 years after the original financial problems. I consider myself to be a well informed pretty recent ex-banker. "Involved in way too many conversations about a bank that was going down?" What is that supposed to mean? Now that you are no longer working there, would you care to share what these specific problems were? "I consider myself to be a well informed pretty recent ex-banker." Did you know Fannie and Freddie were going to be taken over by the government over the weekend? Does it matter that their shares have plummeted over 90% in value over the past year? Do you have stock with either of these companies and did you buy or sell any shares within the past 6 months? Do you think the Fannie and Freddie CEOs that were pushed out by the government this weekend should be rewarded with fat pay packages, go on to live in massive homes and become high-paid consultants? Or do you think a jail sentence is in order? >I would have absolutely no hesitancy about putting up to $100,000 into an FDIC insured account at Bank of America or Wachovia. Quite honestly, I think the original post in this chain is very similar to chicken little saying "the sky is falling, the sky is falling". While some financial entities clearly have been negatively affected over the last 18 months, to imply a widespread panic is around the corner is malicious fear mongering - in my opinion. I find it both interesting as well as amusing that you would accuse tricia, a fellow member of the industry, of being a fear monger. She posted information about the FDIC that SHOULD be freely available to the public yet you think this is 'too much' information for the average taxpayer to be able to absorb without 'overreacting' in a way that might protect their life savings. Sharing information with the public about damaging accounting scandals, questionable management, inadequate capital reserves and a crashing residential real estate market, is NOT fear mongering. I think most of the readers at the GardenWeb forums are mature enough to be able to tell the difference. As for 'implying a widespread panic". What is your opinion about the many high-ranking government officials in the 1970s who swore the S&Ls were safe, even as thousands of thrifts were failing all around them? How about those FDIC and Federal Reserve officials in the 1980s who vehemently denied the threat to commercial banks, even as the bank failure rate surged to the highest since the Great Depression? Or the state insurance regulators in the 1990s who swore to the safety of annuities and life insurance policies, even as six million policyholders were being trapped in failed companies? Last but not least, lets not forget the auditing firms like Arthur Andersen, KPMG, and Deloitte and Touche that facilitated or even encouraged accounting distortions and cover-ups and those major Wall Street firms of the early 2000s that consistently affirmed "hold" and "buy" ratings for the shares of hundreds of companies that were going bankrupt. What has changed to correct this? Nothing. The lies continue, no one gets punished and fat cat CEO's continue to prosper at the TAXPAYERS expense. Is it any wonder why investors don't want to play this 'casino game' anymore, or why depositors don't trust their banks to tell them the truth? I think it shows utter contempt for the American people to assume we are too stupid to be able to be told the same things that insiders already know about our crippled economy. I don't know when the reality of this will dawn on the "denialists." But when it does, I'm sure they will be remembered along with some of the 'experts' (below) who thought everything would be just fine 80 years ago. September 1929 "There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue." â" Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury. October 14, 1929 "Secretary Lamont and officials of the Commerce Department today denied rumors that a severe depression in business and industrial activity was impending, which had been based on a mistaken interpretation of a review of industrial and credit conditions issued earlier in the day by the Federal Reserve Board." â" New York Times December 5, 1929 "The Government's business is in sound condition." â" Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury December 28, 1929 "Maintenance of a general high level of business in the United States during December was reviewed today by Robert P. Lamont, Secretary of Commerce, as an indication that American industry had reached a point where a break in New York stock prices does not necessarily mean a national depression." â" Associated Press dispatch. January 13, 1930 "Reports to the Department of Commerce indicate that business is in a satisfactory condition, Secretary Lamont said today." - News item. January 21, 1930 "Definite signs that business and industry have turned the corner from the temporary period of emergency that followed deflation of the speculative market were seen today by President Hoover. The President said the reports to the Cabinet showed the tide of employment had changed in the right direction." - News dispatch from Washington. January 24, 1930 "Trade recovery now complete President told. Business survey conference reports industry has progressed by own power. No Stimulants Needed! Progress in all lines by the early spring forecast." - New York Herald Tribune. March 8, 1930 "President Hoover predicted today that the worst effect of the crash upon unemployment will have been passed during the next sixty days." - Washington Dispatch. May 1, 1930 "While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There is one certainty of the future of a people of the resources, intelligence and character of the people of the United States - that is, prosperity." - President Hoover June 29, 1930 "The worst is over without a doubt." - James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor. August 29, 1930 "American labor may now look to the future with confidence." - James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor. September 12, 1930 "We have hit bottom and are on the upswing." - James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor. October 16, 1930 "Looking to the future I see in the further acceleration of science continuous jobs for our workers. Science will cure unemployment." - Charles M. Schwab. October 20, 1930 "President Hoover today designated Robert W. Lamont, Secretary of Commerce, as chairman of the President's special committee on unemployment." - Washington dispatch. October 21, 1930 "President Hoover has summoned Colonel Arthur Woods to help place 2,500,000 persons back to work this winter." - Washington Dispatch November 1930 "I see no reason why 1931 should not be an extremely good year." - Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., General Motors Co. January 20, 1931 "The country is not in good condition." - Calvin Coolidge. June 9, 1931 "The depression has ended." - Dr. Julius Klein, Assistant Secretary of Commerce.