Wall Street Reeling As Banks Fail

AIG to be bailed out by the FED. They'll have to get Congress to give them authority to even do this.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html

Welcome to our new Socialist Paradise, Comrades! Our government now runs the mortgage AND insurance industries, as well as not a few banks.

Excelsior!

Cycloptichorn

Bush has been a successful conservative, changing our economy from capitalism to socialism is just eight years! That must be a new feat in world history.

Freddie, Fannie and AIG are TEMPORARILTY controlled by the Government, and their is precedence for this: When Penn Central went bankrupt and no one would buy it the government took it and ran it is Conrail for many years, ran it very well in fact.

Thank you, realjohnboy.

Oh, btw, Rama, I'm a "Miss," not a "Sir!"

Does not matter.
I am a human like you and i have no conflicts with anyone one.
My indian name is Rama and German addition is fuchs
Rmafuchs.

Are we not wasting our talents about the two pitiable candidates who dance according to the tunes of sponsers,?

The first step is the die hard( compassionate) party to make a break.
The next step is to expose the AMERICAN DREAMERS to stop their their patriotic fervor.
The ideal step is to understand the views of others(Anti-americans, non-Americans care a goose-americans)

No problem, Rama. Sometimes it's hard to tell with these usernames!

Getting back to realjohnboy's point about the rising gas prices vs. dropping oil prices: yes, I think you're definately right about the hurricanes in the Gulf being a factor. I've also heard that OPEC is planning on cutting back on production soon, and that is factor too.

Anyone else hear anything about that?

I haven't read any serious reporting about the big oil producing countries cutting production in an effort to drive up prices. (Oil rose from about $94 to $97/barrel today, I note). It would be, I guess, in their short term interest to do so, but economists in those countries probably realize that the economies of many consuming countries are in trouble. For them to exacerbate those problems is not in their best interest.

That's right. If we said shove your ******* oil all they would have is a thick black goo.

hawkeye, The government created an untenable situation for railroads by their restrictions on mergers of the railroad companies, because the government invested in roads, air, and waterway transportation systems. They created the problems for the railroad companies, and ended up making them public after they all went belly up.

Ya, and the government also took the passenger trains off of the railroads hands by creating Amtrak for the same reason, to atone for decades of mistakes in regulation which brought the corps to their knees. But this does not change anything.....we need a rail system and when the private sector can not execute the function then the public sector must. We need a financial system,and the feds helped to create the current problems (more than helped actually) by poor regulation and law making. So now that the private sector can not perform the financial transactions that our society must have the public sector must do it. For sure firm and investors who contributed to the problem have to pay in the form of financial loss an some firms by way of death, but it is America that matters at the end of the day, not wall street.

amen to that!

Don't strain yourself c.i.

spendi, You're the one who's straining - by following me around like a lost pig.

Alan Greenspan calls the McCain Economic Plan a Disaster for the Country

Over the weekend Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, told Bloomberg News that he was "not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money" and that the United States could not afford big tax cuts such as those proposed by Republican John McCain. Alan Greenspan went on to say that the current economic crisis, that began with the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market last year, is so bad that he called it "a once in a century" crisis and will lead to the failure of more firms.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Alan-Greenspan-calls-the-M-by-E-Nelson-080916-370.html
I am not a fan of Greenspan but i had follwed his footsteps during his stewardship.
In this case he speaks my language with better English.
Rama

Looks like my prediction that the DOW will hit 9,000 was not knowing about the governments bailout of the banks and investment companies; a real stupid mistake again.

What can I say? The government stepped in where they have no business; it's no longer capitalism but socialism. This bailout helps the wealthy (who have most of the investments in these institutions) - not the middle class and the poor.

jeezuz, we're screwed!

hawkeye, What exactly do you mean by "temporary?" The federal deficit was untenable before the bailouts, and now the feds are spending money that's not even backed up by bonds.

Do you understand anything about macro-economics?

http://able2know.org/topic/122739-1

BBB, you must have ESP! I was just going to post that many people are now losing money on their 401k's, and wondering if they will ever see retirement. What a sad mess!

In fact, our economy is such a big mess now, I don't know where to begin: the worst housing market since the Great Depression of the 1930's; the worst loss of jobs since 1981 (unemployment at 6.1%); oil prices shooting up; now these banks failures.

So it looks the government will be bailing out AIG to the tune of $85 billion dollars! I can't even wrap my head around how much money that is! And how are we supposed to do this when our government is already so far in debt? This country needs to cut up its credit cards.

I will be interested to hear what the guys at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have to say today. After all, they stood to benefit from the demise of Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch. Something smells rotten on Wall Street.

$85 billion is about $300 for every person in the US. £160 our money. A fleabite. Dinner for 4 at a medium range restaurant.