Day one
You roll over, and look at the digital alarm clock beside your bed. You realize you were supposed to be up 20 minutes ago. Despite your grogginess, you come to the realization you must have forgotten to put your phone on the charger last night, which acts as your alarm now, and has made your actual alarm clock all but obsolete. Luckily, thanks to years of waking to a 7AM alarm, your body has developed its own internal clock.
(Feel free to watch the video, or read on below)
You woke up late, but as you stumble out of bed, you calculate that you should be able to make it to the office by 8. You put on your usual, business casual attire, kiss your significant other goodbye, grab your briefcase, and head out to conquer your morning commute. It’s only Tuesday, and you’re already ready for the weekend. You turn on your favorite talk radio station; they’re talking about Trump and some policy proposals. But you’re not really paying attention to it, because traffic is moving slow, and you’re just about positive at this point that you’re going to be late.
You pull into the parking lot as the clock strikes 8 AM. While you find a parking spot, the 8 AM news brief comes on. The top story is about European stock markets, something about how trading was suspended due to panic selling, and markets plummeting. They say on the radio that maybe it was due to a glitch. You catch something about the ECB (European Central Bank), and something about the Euro. Your attention would normally be piqued; you’ve considered yourself a financial and political news junkie ever since your co-worker and friend convinced you to look into precious metals a few years ago. But you’re late for work, and you neglect to listen to the full news brief.
You walk into the office, politely greet the receptionist in the same manner as you always do, make your way to you modestly sized office, take off your jacket, and relax. “It’s only Tuesday, the big presentation isn’t until Friday” you tell yourself, in your typical procrastinating fashion. You’re about to go on your computer, and read more about the news reports you heard on the radio, but the phone on your desk rings. It’s someone from corporate, reminding you about the conference call you this afternoon, with a client that your marketing firm works for. You thank them, acting like you remembered all along, and are prepared to wow them. Only, you didn’t remember, you aren’t prepared, and you realize you need to write up a report to show them this afternoon. You close out of your browser on your PC, and get to work, and before you know it, it’s 10 AM. You decide to take a coffee break; it’s a wonder you’ve made it this far without any.
While you’re up, you check your smartphone. There’s a text from your spouse, asking about dinner plans that night. A Facebook notification, a couple emails, nothing exciting. But what’s this? One of the emails catches your eye. It’s from your go-to online bullion dealer. You’re used to click-baity text in these emails, but this one is titled “Silver up 14%, gold up 9%, buy now before they rise more”. You assume they mean 14% and 9% over the past week, or month, surely they couldn’t have risen that much today, it’s only 10 o’clock. You open the email, it seems too good to be true. As soon as you skim over the first few lines, something clicks. The news report on the radio this morning. Something isn’t right. You hurry back to your office, forgetting your coffee, while also ignoring a co-worker’s obnoxiously cheerful greeting they give you every, freaking morning. You skip going to CNN or the Wall Street Journal, and go straight to Zero Hedge, your one stop source for financial and political news.
The top article is titled “European Stocks Down 28%, Trading Halted, as the ECB Scrambles for Answers”. You skim the article. Allegedly, a there was a leak from within German banking giant, Deutsche Bank, claiming that the bank was essentially insolvent, due to a recent increase in the rate of large and small depositors emptying their accounts, along with the fact that Deutsche’s derivative bets had gone very wrong. The leak also detailed that this turmoil would also affect other large European banks, including UBS, HSBC, ING, Barclays, and more. It also mentioned that nearly every large bank in France, Italy, Greece, and Spain, were essentially underwater, due to their high exposure to Deutsche Bank, as well as derivatives. Deutsche Bank, as well as the ECB, tried to dispel the rumors, but they had no such luck. No one was buying it. Every European stock exchange closed within 2 hours of the announcement, with many of these very bank stocks dropping by more than 40%. Of course, trading was halted, before they could drop any more.
You quickly check the U.S. stock market, only to find that the Dow Jones has dropped 4,000 points, tripped the circuit breakers multiple times, and is closed for the day. You spend the next hour perusing articles, and watching news about this ongoing crisis. You’re nervous; you know what this means for the economy, and what it likely will mean for your own job. Your precious metals stacking co-worker comes into your office, to discuss the events in the news. The two of you both realize the pain that is coming due to this crisis, but you both also are watching the news with a form of sick excitement. You realize many will lose their jobs, their houses, their livelihoods due to this. This will be far worse than the great depression, the two of you agree. But you wait in anticipation, to see what this means for the banking sector, central banks, and the world’s fiat currencies. Could this be what brings it to an end? You hope so.
It’s now lunch time, and the two of you go out together to grab some fast food. Going through the drive-thru, the two of you try a total of 7 debit and credit cards. None of them are working. According to the fast food employee, very few cards have been working today. He says it’s a glitch, but you know that this is no glitch. You foot the bill with cash. Out of curiosity, you stop at a gas station to try the ATM. The line to the ATM fills up the entire store; apparently many people had filled up with gas, only to find their cards weren’t working. In addition, the ATM is only giving out a single $20 bill to each account. Again, you and your co-worker are not surprised. The two of you, again, out of curiosity, check out the local bank you both bank at. Similar to the ATM, withdrawals were capped at $20, but the teller was very clear that the bank was more than happy to accept cash deposits. You decide not to wait in line, and return to the office. Immediately upon walking into the office, you remember the conference call you have scheduled for 30 minutes from now. You panic, you are nowhere near ready to give a presentation. However, the receptionist notifies you that they called earlier, and cancelled. You call them back, only to discover they have cancelled their contract with you. They begin to explain why, citing market and economic uncertainty, but you already know why. What good is marketing, if you have no one willing to buy a product? You stop by your manager’s office, but he’s on the phone with his supervisor. As soon as you return to your office, your manager stops by to tell you you’re more than welcome to head home for the day, stating that most of your firm’s customers have put a freeze on ongoing marketing projects. An ominous sign, but you aren’t surprised. You call your wife on the way home, to let her know you got off early, and that you’ll have to cancel dinner plans for later; you only have $18 in cash.
You spend the rest of the drive home kicking yourself for not having more cash on hand. You always prided yourself on having thousands of dollars worth of precious metals on hand, but you failed to realize how the fiat currency you despised for so long, would still be so important for quite some time. You get home, and spend the next several hours reading up on the state of the financial crisis. You watch YouTube videos, read articles, watch some news. You find yourself even more conflicted; you’re excited and somber at the same time. You’re so engrossed in the news, that you realize your wife has been home for half an hour already, and you’ve barely said a word to her. You decide that, no matter how closely you follow the news, it won’t change what happens in the following days and weeks. You decide to stay off the web for a few hours. Your wife and you talk about the news for some time, but eventually you unwind, and watch some show on Netflix for a while. You’re used to busy evenings; such a relaxing evening is refreshing to you. Little do you know that, whether you like it or not, these evenings will become more commonplace, as your life slows down in synchronization with the economy. You spend some time reading up on the events before you go to bed, but at this point, it’s mostly analysis. The Asian markets didn’t even bother opening; the respective governments called a holiday, in anticipation of more panic selling. Trump delivered a speech, but you don’t find it comforting at all, he mostly talked about the irresponsibility of European banks and governments, as if the U.S. government had clean hands. You know that he knows he is essentially powerless against the fury of the markets at this point. You go to sleep early, but your sleep is uneasy.
Stay tuned for the next episode.
Image Sources:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Oe6hZj_X4BnYgCwrvo6f-agYOEN6kjjNWpf0b2RVT1I/edit