Dude, where's my bank?

So the guv'ment came and repossessed my bank yesterday; isn't that an odd turn on the standard line? Now, I am no money man, but I had no idea things were this bad back in the ol' US of A - that something you read about in the news would actually directly impact me. My primary savings and checking accounts are at WaMu and my good friend Agra works for WaMu corporate. My accounts are no where near the FDIC limit so I am pretty safe, but I am not sure I can say the same for Agra, who will need to change her business cards to Chase, at the very least!

That's not to say that everything is peachy Down Under - we have been in a technical recession for at least 6 months, I believe, and a pile of finance companies, from petty to major, here have failed. There is also no FDIC in New Zealand, so if your bank goes under, you have no recourse. In addition, there is really little oversight of business here so some pretty shifty stuff goes on and if a financial institution goes under, the management can walk away without much consequence. Housing prices have peaked and started going down too, and the engineering market is a little quieter than any of us would like.

However, in spite of all this, I have managed to steer clear of any messy situations here, until WaMu went and got itself stuck in a sub-prime mess. Well, that too will pass, but it does drive home the seriousness of the economic situation in the States. The economists I follow here seem to think we'll be getting out of our current economic slump within the year (or sooner) and Oz is still going gangbusters across the Tasman Sea (I've had two calls from recruiters this week alone, if anyone is looking for an international job!). But it does not seem to be the case in the US, where I think we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Due to a number of issues that I have come across in the last six months (which I shall detail in a later posting), I am now leaning towards re-emigrating back to the States at my earliest opportunity - 1.5 years from now - instead of waiting longer for my citizenship. Of course, a lot can change in 1.5 years (and I hope the US economy does!) so this is by no means any kind of final decision, but it does mean I am watching all the US economic news very closely.