Country first

(The effect of the Paulson plan on this? Minimal to nonexistent.)

sigh.

Capitulation watch continues in vain

http://www.marketwatch.com/new.....aspx?guid={6973FB98-D9A6-4FA4-A499-B0A4D25759D0}

I’ve a link in my latest diary, Ian, about the $2 Trillion dollar loss to those having 401K’s etc.

Who are the children and who are the parents in the financial community

What I really like about all this havoc and upheaval in the financial markets is that it proves conclusively that “The Surge” is working. Well isn’t it?

we’d have been better off with the *Pat* Paulson plan.

ok, so he actually spelled it ‘Paulsen’. Still, he couldn’t have fucked it up any worse.

What about those of us who buy and hold, who don’t buy on margin, who are watching our IRA’s melt away. Would we be better off to sell out for cash and buy back in when it appears that the market is recovering? If we don’t, do we end up losing the most?

Didn’t this happen in 1929, when the public had been hoodwinked into putting money into the market?

The DOW goes down down down

I’m holding on. The only certain thing is that selling now locks in losses.

Excuse my financial ignorance, won’t they just stop the trading at some point?
Aren’t there automatic mechanisms in place to stop such things, theoretically?

As punaise said, they put the DOW in down.

From Bush’s 2001 State of the Union speech

“Some say my tax plan is too big. Others say it’s too small. I respectfully disagree. This plan is just right.”

Is there anyone besides the Decider that still believes that?

so what if the margin call went like this;

[broker]
“you have to deposit some mullah or sell some stock”

[shareholder]

nope, not gonna do it, your practices are unethical

There are limits-triggers- on how much downside can occur before trading is suspended on a daily basis but not like other countries that can just close down the whole exchange AFAIK.

My grampa had shares in Ford before the 29 crash. He held them until he retired in the mid 60s. It provided for both my grandparents and then my granma after he died. Granma lived to be 96, passing in 1996.

believe it is -1200 points

and I think ‘programmed trades’ have their own default stop (-500 ?)

I think currently the circuit breakers kick in when the DJIA loses 10% in a day. Of course, we did pretty much that amount in the last two days, but no circuit breaker because it didn’t happen all at once.

I believe the trigger for the market shutdown is a 10% drop in one trading session.

1,788 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Ian Welsh and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

Look for an attempt in the lameduck Congress after the election to lassoo the bailout and yank it outta the hands of the competing broakerage houses and back into some Congressional oversight, foreclosure protection and public equity stakes in the market…I think with a landslide and the Dow sinkin’ down ta the level of the Titanic, even the lameduck fascists will vote ta override the Chimpenfuehrer …the panic won’t happen ’til the week after the vote.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE FUCKIN AMMUNITION, OUR HISTORY IS CALLIN’ US OUT!!!

It’s too big to fail!

bom dia pups

I wonder how daily bad financial news is affecting the pysche of people. I’m here at the food bank and people are really starting to panic. Truth I understnd needs to be reported but the drum beat of gloom and doom is wearing on the people

I pulled my money in my 401k out of the stock market yesterday. Preservation of what was left was vital. It isn’t much, but it’s all I have and when it gets to 0, it’s done, so I put it CDs.

Kills me that I just wrote off $25K (that’s what the thing was at its high) but $54K (that’s what’s left) is a lot better than 0.

Satan, perhaps?

A great debate question for St. McCain would be to ask him how allowing people to invest their Social Security funds in the stock market would look for them right now.

Hey Busted,

Try This use the little magnifying glass

my answer above is total crap (yeah, I know, I’m shocked) apparently percentages play in to it, as does when in the trading day the plummeting starts

Ian Welsh, your columns are brilliant.

Thank you!

There’s a statement that needs to haunt the Rethugs until the end of time.

Speaking of Satan, someone should poll the opinions of the entire Bush family on that.

Wealth is not destroyed, merely transferred.

This market crisis is no accident.

Food for thought.

He’ll tell us the market will rebound as soon as the Gold Dust Twins win.

What kind of IRA’s you have determines the actions to take; that said; you could transfer out of stocks into a money market fund which the government has indicated it will guarantee to always be dollar guaranteed; the dollar ’should’ appreciate versus other currencies like the Euro but speak to an investment advisor.
Motley had this article back in July and you may find some info there useful:
http://www.fool.com/personal-f.....r-ira.aspx

I don’t use Motley BTW but something can be better than nothing.

Does that make you wonder Jim?

The great fiscal stimulus package … of 1929

http://www.marketwatch.com/new.....B838AE9%7D

Thanks, I am popping in and out.
Gotta fix the trucks ya know.

I realize that. The question is do I take my $25,000 loss and have something left to buy in with or take a $75,000 loss and have no cash to buy lower priced stock with? If I ride it all the way down, I have the same share, but they’re worth less money. Which is going to hold its value, stocks or cash?

You’re right about the dynamics of margin calls.

Breaks don’t typically take prices to their bottom all at once. usually there are bear market rallies. In addition earnings have some likelihood of growing before we hit a bottom in P/E ratio - that means prices wouldn’t need to drop quite so far to reach the P/E of 6 you suggest.

Currency risk is something I keep coming back to - earnings are going to grow do to dollar devaulation. Which means even if the bottom is at say 7500 instead of 6000, the dollars you would invest at the bottom won’t have the same purchasing power. Priced in constant dollars the Dow is down a lot more than 5000 points over the year, over the course of the Bush administration we’re down a lot of purchasing power.

Ouch, will read.

Yesterday while preparing our beans for dinner, I actually wondered what I could do to use up the half an onion and clove of garlic the recipe says to discard. That’s what it’s coming to.

Yeah, that’s one reason I keep mentioning “nominal”. Although I think the dollar run up has some room to go. The problem is that nowhere else looks safe right now either.

Ironically, I think Japan, of the major nations, might look near to best.

Question: St. McCain, Americans’ retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months — about 20 percent of their value — Congress’ top budget analyst estimated Tuesday. What would you, as President, to about this?

St. McCain: I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions.

Who, me? Would I think they would game the system?

What during the past eight years would make you think that?

Molly Ivins 9 Years Ago

Yes, but the locks on big down days don’t last, and they don’t prevent a slow grind down. And as wmd notes, there will be upside days. No bear market goes down without good days, no bull goes up without bad days.

They sell your stock, close your account and if they don’t have enough in the account to make up their losses, they take you to court. Bear in mind, you borrowed money from them. It’s a legal contract.

Did they tape the debate earlier today so they could fool everybody and you got hold of a transcript? *g*

if their practices were unethical they hold some liability me thinks

one of the ladies that works here at the food bank suggested to he following:

you can always mash them together and add them to mashed potatoes or to a soup.

Times are going to get rougher. We’re now giving advice to how our clients can stretched their food out longer. I worry for them

yep, same here, making the most of every crumb. Have some stale shredded wheat, can’t afford to throw it away now, will use it on top next time I make mac & cheese.

I know William Ayers’ brother. does that make me some kind of terrorist by association (2nd degree)?

Shredded Wheat Cookies

A social worker I once worked with said I “had a depression era mentality” because of my frugality. I never thought I would have to put that mentality to use during a systemic breakdown.

Use it up
Wear it out
Make it do
Or do without

That’s actually a good idea. Mash them together, add s&p and spread on crostini.

sounds yummy

that is the way we all should live. Instead we all we do is consume and waste.

I’m with you. Have some of my retirement in yen, got in at 115 Y = 1 $, currently about 102 Y = 1$.

Also playing with calls on an ETF with exposure to japanese stocks.

Makes me think of my Grandparents who survived the depression. They reused every last piece of aluminum foil. Greeting cards were never signed, but reused. Nothing, nothing ever wasted.

ooo thanks wobbs, eXcellent excuse for cookies :)

We’ve been lucky with the garden (it went crazy with zuchs, arugula -elitist food, and some other squashes) been able to donate some to the food bank and the other stuff will be stewed and stored for later use

your welcome. cookies make everyone happy 9even if they have shredded wheat in them *g*)

That’s better than what I was called: cheap.

crockpots are a great way to cut expenses -

you can buy cheaper cuts of meat and with a little chicken bouillion - it’s fork tender when you get home - I’ve made both meatloaf and cakes in mine

you can find one at your local thrift store ($5 tops)

and there are a bazillion recipes on line

my cousin had an au pair from East Germany one year, she was so uncomfortable with all the waste, just throwing away Christmas wrappings made her cringe. And we are headed there ourselves.

My parents were married in August 1932. All their adult lives they pinched pennies. One way was to write every purchase in a secretary’s dictation book. They died in the early 90s, but I still have those expense books in my attic.

OT: BREAKING NEWS: A new poll just released by KPIX, San Francisco’s CBS television affiliate, reveals a shocking shift in support for Proposition 8. According to the poll, likely California voters now favor passage of Prop 8 by a five-point margin, 47 percent to 42 percent, following a recent blitz of advertising by supporters of the initiative. Meanwhile, an internal poll just released by the “No on 8″ campaign confirms the KPIX poll numbers, showing Prop 8 winning 47%-43%.

Thanks Ian, “We’re all investors now”!

same here - which is why we now have 12 slivers of soap in a bowl in the bathroom X~o

Paula Deen had a great recipe that she and her friends used to make when they were really broke…I think she called it Saturday night onions.

You take a big onion, peel it, and you make a small hole in the top and then you cut it into 8 wedges but not all the way through…sort of like making a flower.

Put a boullion cube in the hole.

Put pats of butter between all of the wedges and one in the hole.

Wrap it up in foil with the foil ends facing up (because it makes a lot of juice so you want the juice to stay in the bottom of the “wrap”…kind of like a pouch.

Bake at 350 for 45 mins to an hour.

When you unwrap it dump it all in a bowl.

OMG…it is incredible.

Dunk with bread.

It’s pretty obvious that capitalism is collapsing and they can do nothing to save it.

It was predicted to be a bubble that would burst and it is. You can’t bail out this system because it is fundamentally corrupt in that it created “financial instruments” which it valued… but in fact were worth not the paper they were written on. Too many people bought into this myth of wealth creation… played along, got with the program, made investments in phony stocks, and now have nothing or very shortly will have nothing. The dollar is not worth the paper it is written on either.

Bush only hastened the end of the charade. Kabuki over.

then we have work to do to move those numbers back. They called my house today right before I left to come work at the food bank. i told the lady she was keeping me from really doing God’s work, namely, feeding the hungry and doing for those less fortunate.

Californians don’t want to be standing in soup lines next to married gays.

I call myself “tight fisted”. It’s much more descriptive.

that was a response to jacqrat @ 65

Thanks to Bushonomics we might end up with some people doing what the Haitians do

http://news.nationalgeographic.....eatin.html

And these complete idiot critters on the hill keep throwing money at the useless DOD / MIC and wars.

What a bunch of losers… and that includes Obi who wants to “build up” the military.

My husband and I were also shocked that our young priest was telling us how to vote on this issue. It’s one thing to talk about an issue and hint on how the church feels about it, it’s altogether another issue for him to tell us specifically how to vote.

In addition, there were ######## so called prolifers outside to give us bumper stickers. right after mass when I’m trying to remember tolerance and love. yep.

I’m signing the whole family up to hunt elk (no moose here). Tasty and abundant…not hard to find either.

We bought 8 chickens, now up to our ears in chicks, soon to be enchiladas, soup, etc.

Two steers we bought ate this year’s garden, but I get revenge this winter. Can’t recommend that approach tho, damned expensive to feed ‘em. they now weigh 670 each and have some to go.

3 teen kids to feed…..2 acres.

I think I am less so because my old man was not only a depression kid, the 4 years on that “bucket of bolts” tin-can in the Pacific made him pretty fanatically frugal.

Ian…don’t those that stay in actually hold the stock that revalues when (IF) the markets ever do rebound? Those that cash out would certainly get what the going value is…but I would think that those who can (if they still have enough other means to survive…or cut costs elsewhere) might eventually benefit if the markets recover to sane levels.

I’m worried about savings accounts…can they touch those…ever? Wouldn’t the biggest factor there be inflationary losses?

Wow, some young gal lying on behalf of McCain saying Obama was phoning it in (did you get that everyone, phoning it in?) and standing on the sidelines during the economic crisis, when actually it was McCain who sat mute in the WH meeting. Gad.

Nicolle Wallace lying about bill ayers again. Oh, wait he was acquitted. good lord.

w00T!

Live within you means. Spend all you earn, not more not less. What you save will only turn to nothing.

Demand that your government honor the Soc Sec pledge

Demand that housing be reasonable and affordable

Demand that health care is provided

Demand that your tax dollars are spent on the people’s needs

Demand that we disengage and close 720 military bases and decommission the navy and airforce fleets

Shrink the military down to a coast guard

Destroy all nukes

When my parents went through WWII in Norway, the items that were most coveted and traded were sugar, coffee, tea, cigarettes, booze. Women also used coffee to dye their hair.

Bernanke hinting at an interest rate cut, that might get the market to bump up a little.

The stock market is not going to rebound. It is a big fraud of phony “psychological” value.

If you want to save, but gov bonds.

My ancestors were from Stevanger

we will never be as bad off as the haitians. ALL of their food is imported. We at least have food sources inside the U.S.

That’s so kewl!!

sweet jesus! 3 teens ooh boy. we once had 4 in the house but are down to 1 - used to feel like I lived a Costco

but you’ve done it right with the elk and the steers

Elk Recipes

Yea, they’re saying it’s because of the Gavin Newsom ad

Wobbly, one of the reasons that I find talk about a revolution in this country so ridiculous is that most of the people who talk about it have no idea of how most of the people in the world live.

My aunt and uncle visited and all the family records were in the church in great order. They went to Camilla, Ga to the courthouse try the same with my aunt’s family and it was in total chaos.

My grandma used chamomile tea (good for blonde hair) I remember we also used virgin coconut oil for both cooking and as a moisturizer ( I still do that *g*)

yeah, two are girls: smart, drop-dead lovely….cause for worry.

Oh yeah, my biol. son is in college this year…that is expensive as the steers!

I have always said that the Paulson-Bernanke strategy is to kick the can down the road to the next Administration. When cowardly Democrats signed on to the Paulson bailout, it became pretty clear that they were also buying into this idea. The problem is that events are outstripping the stopgaps, even $700 billion ones.

I was thinking that the government would have to nationalize banks maybe early in an Obama Administration. It is hard to see it happening under Bush or Paulson-Bernanke but, as I said, events may not wait on them.

True. man is that true. that is freaking deep raven.

Ian, well done as usual. Perhaps you have posted about the obscene bonuses and other compensation packages. These amount to tens of billions these robber barons give each other. These are a significant fraction of these bankrupt companies losses. Fuld, $300-$500 million, Paulson a billion dollars tax free, and so on. Then they want taxpayer money to live like kings. This is one big fraud, and many smaller ones. Bush said that “it’s going to take a while” to steal as much money as they want to steal.

The executives spent nearly $500,000 on manicures, facials, pedicures, and massages, among other things. During a hearing today, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) asked, “Have you heard of anything more outrageous?”:

CUMMINGS: Let me describe for some of you the charges that the shareholders, taxpayers, had to pay. AIG spent $200,000 dollars for hotel rooms. Almost $150,000 for catered banquets. AIG spent $23,000 at the hotel spa and another $1,400 at the salon. They were getting manicures, facials, pedicures and massages while American people were footing the bill. And they spent another $10,000 dollars for I don’t know what this is, leisure dining. Bars?

Watching a CNN in the gym with captions, a report about factcheck.org and the “pants on fire report,” the usual “both sides do it” assertion.

With the sound off it was quite interesting. Referring, apparently, to an Obama claim about McCain being true, they put up a picture of McCain, with the word “TRUE” stamped next to him. Now, maybe if I were listening to the words I would have gotten another impression, but the visual impression was clear: McCain=TRUE.

Wonder how that report played with my deaf mother.

Valerie Jarrett RAWKS!!! (on my tee vee)

Next year I’m sending twins to college… Oy!

this is the first year in 8 we haven’t had college expenses - we get a break until next August. we’ve been teasing him about “a nice vo-tech”

Gee, maybe my comment wasn’t so OT after all :D

Lisa across the hall at the Silo on McCain and donations

jacqrat - I has a confusion

don’t we want Prop 8 to fail ? don’t get why everyone’s cheering - have the ‘no’s’ closed a gap ???

I’ve been on a couple WWII class cans. There’s no room for extra stuff and food is not wasted. Water is always at a premium. Perhaps Americans are in store for a lesson in resource management. We sure need it.

Wow. Do you know how coffee was used to dye hair? That’s a tasty little bit of trivia!

It ain’t that deep when you’ve been other places, I know you know that well. I went on a trip to Mexico in the 70’s and a companion tried to prepare me for the poverty. I said, “can it be worse than “Korea,Vietnam, the Philippines”? It wasn’t.

What’s Prop 8 about? Don’t live in CA.

people are cheering because they don’t understand that Prop 8 DENIES gays the right to marry, by creating an amendment to our state constitution.

It’s one of the prop you Want to LOSE (if you are me, anyway)

:(

Via Krugman, the UK is effectively nationalizing the big banks, injecting 35-50 billion pounds in exchange for preferred shares (instead of pieces of the British Shitpile).

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c.....s-the-way/

oh, great shopping tip.

If you live in an area with a latin or asian markets for cheap spices, rice and beans– you also can pick up fish and meat at usually cheaper prices (and it’s fresher than a grocery store due to high turnover)