Comments on: Lehman Brothers Set to Become Bear Stearns #2

By: T-Bear

T-Bear — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:36:39 +0000

This morning the dollar was trading $1.40 per Euro, last night it was $1.39. What is happening to support the increase in value of the dollar is invisible, no obvious fundamental change. It is contrary to what should be expected with interest rates set by central banks for both United Kingdom (5.0%) and the Euro Zone (4.25%) with the US at 2.0% (figures are from memory). With most major EU governments in the hands of neocon believers, it would not be surprising that there is hidden central bank support for the dollar so as to influence the elections in the US, much the same way as the oil barons are doing with the price of oil. FWIW the dollar has gone from a bottom of $1.60 to $1.40 within six months (up 12.5% off the low, a significant change). Have fun speculating!

By: MarkH

MarkH — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 05:39:56 +0000

Democrats in Congress have limited power and time, so they should probably just get on with their work and let the Republicans take the blame for ruining the economy — after all they have.

Bernanke will try to limit the damage and he will get some advice from Paulson, so I wouldn’t criticize him for whatever he decides. It’ll probably be an attempt to save some assets, but the government is in the bathtub and the water is running, so some private assets are likely to get spanked.

It’s Bushonomics and Phil Gramm as John McCain’s economics adviser who should be in jail for this crap.

By: MarkH

MarkH — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 05:33:37 +0000

All the big financial institutions and banks are guilty of the same and all will fail.

Does this mean Phil Gramm, George Bush and Wall Street (the financial market which is in fact world-wide) work for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda?

I don’t see anything ObL has done which has ruined America financially, but these other folks have really found lots of ways to hurt us.

By: Ian Welsh

Ian Welsh — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:16:57 +0000

Not to say you /should/ do it that way, mind you.

By: Ian Welsh

Ian Welsh — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:15:45 +0000

You don’t do it FDIC style. You take it’s lousy debt onto the Feds books and keep it on life support so it never officially goes under. It can be done. The Fed can, in effect, print money, remember.

By: 8nando

8nando — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:06:51 +0000

This was the kind of thing that brought Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher into power. And these guys call themselves Republicans? Haven’t seen such brutal attacks on the free market in decades. Those [insert scathing characterization here] are using the taxpayers’ badly needed money to finance the safe landing of bankers who don’t know how to run their own banks but know how to mess up our lives.

The capitalist establishment is using the taxpayers’ money to continue ruling over them.

We are truly seeing new levels of financial lunacy this past year. It’s now impossible for a bad company to fail. What used to be Seventies Socialist tactics has become the cornerstone of Bushonomics.

Perfect. I never thought I’ll live to see this…

By: bigbrother

bigbrother — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:59:57 +0000

Unless you have been in a boilerroom sales environment you cannot possibly understand how this marketing works. Closest is the film with Tom Cruise “Wall Street”.
The “Boss” orders the ovepaid salespeople to make a market an investment vehicle so they talk their investors large hedge funds, pension funds, and the rest of the “Funds” as well as the little folks. They make the stock rise or fall and skim with profit taking every trading day. If the purchaser does not sell in the cycle they take the loss. The CDO’s backed by upside down mortgages are traded like a game of “Hot Potato”. Then the big boys line up at the fed onernight windpw for the corporate dole until the day they are insolvent or can’t make their reserve or margin call. So recieverdhip is one option. Bail out is another or put ouy stock issues to raise capital. That is drying up very fast.

By: ThingsComeUndone

ThingsComeUndone — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:37:44 +0000

True Ponzi scheme but Bush is backing their moron plays with our tax dollars. Me I want National Healthcare F the banks.

By: prostratedragon

prostratedragon — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:25:45 +0000

OK, was having so much fun looking at the county distribution of WaMu’s offices (they tend to be in the metro area counties of the largest cities in the country except in CA where, surprise!, they’re everydamnwhere.) that only just now did I see that FDIC totalled for me: 2,180 offices in 15 states as of July 2007.

So if WaMu has reduced their number of offices by half uniformly across the country, which I think unlikely, there still are over 1000 of them to be managed in an orderly transfer of control to FDIC. By contrast, IndyMac had 31 offices, all in the Los Angeles CMSA.

By: bigbrother

bigbrother — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:17:27 +0000

Bankrupt the private sector, the public sector at federal, state and local level. Punlic services shrink, buinesses close and we have to rebuild with a stable model?