Wall Street Meltdown

Big impact on the us's economic climate.

ORIGINAL COMMENT: This is the most significant event of the year, bar none. The party is over. This is a disaster similar to 1929's cultural and political earthquake. Besides electing Barack Obama, this series of events signals the end of the Gordon Gecko "Greed is Good" capitalism era. The "Masters of the Universe" will wind up as insurance salesmen or used car hustlers. Coupled with the nascent defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq, this is the end of the American empire. No more will we be able to ram "democracy" down the throats of peoples who don't want it or don't need it. Our scope will be much smaller.UPDATED FEBRURARY 4, 2009. I found this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip from almost twenty years ago that tells it all.By genghisthehun

Whoa! Chill out global warming and terrorism, we've got a even hotter potato to handle! The financial world is collapsing on our heads...Oupsi...Thanks to all hedge funds investors and to those who made their constructive work possible...We couldn't have done it without you!

Of course this brought Obama and the Democrats in power-I just hope they don't screw things up as bad as the GOP did.

This wasn't a melt down; it was market check...In hind sight though, if you wanted to see a real melt down, you should have been with me in my broker's office when I saw where the actual check was going.

37 Democrats and 33 Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee.  34 Democrats and 28 Republicans receive Campaign Donations from Fannie and Freddie.  Puts the Market into a Cedar Point roller coaster ride.  Update The only guy getting the axe for the Socialist Bailout is Fulmer from Tennessee.  I'm not even sure he had anything to do with the bailout.

If you are ignorant and like it that way....do NOT check out the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (Jimmy Carter) or the overturning of Glass-Stegall in 1999 (Bill Clinton). Do NOT look into the threats of lawsuits from the Clinton justice dept directed at lending institutions. Do NOT look into Obama's associations with Fannie and Freddie. Do NOT consider the irrefutable fact that this happened after the Dems took control of Congress. Nope....blame Bush. Hell, while your at it....blame Reagan too. Anyone for blaming Teddy Roosevelt & Eisenhower too?UPDATE: I am sick and tired of the outright lie....this mantra....that "deregulation" had anything to do with any of this. Any of you ever been a borker or loan officer? Owned your own business recently? Government regulations are overboard, and were from 2005 to 2007 when I was in that business. Go read all of the TIL laws and see how long it takes you to go blind.

The house of cards built after deregulation has collapsed, but not before ripping off millions of working people for the benefit of sleazy corporate creeps.Deregulation allowed (not forced) greedy lenders to make loans to people knowing full well they were going to have to foreclose and put these people out in the street (after milking them for every cent possible).BTW, socialism for the rich is nothing new in the USA.UPDATE (courtesy of Congressman Dennis Kucinich):WRITE YOUR SENATORS AND CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES AND DEMAND:1. Reinstatement of the provisions of Glass-Steagall, which forbade speculation (artificially raise s the price of oil and gas in addition to supply and demand)2. Re-regulation of the finance, insurance, and real estate industries.3. Accountability on the part of those who took the companies down:a) resignations of managementb) givebacks of executive compensation packagesc) limitations on executive compensationd) admission by CEO's of what went wrong and how, ... Read more

At least it wasn't the State Puff Marshmallow Man.

I must say that I fear for my country. Accorn may have been involved in the precipitation of the most serious economic crisis in decades, at short time before an election, with a frightening military deployment in the homeland, a complicit silence and apathy from the Bush administration, a deep polarization of the electorate... will there be elections? Will we get to experience the unimaginable: Martial Law and indefinite suspension of elections? Complicity of the world economies? One world currency? Cashless globalization? Redistribution of wealth? Suspension of Constitutional guarantees?... should I keep on? Update: today, Friday October 24, futures trading suspended.   My advise: go out and get as much supplies as you can get. Better safe than sorry.

I would venture to guess that (coinciding with the recent financial fiasco) we have all heard the word trillion(s) over the last few weeks more than we have all of our lives. Why is that and what does it have to do with anything else? Lots.With all of the attention on Fanny Mae and her brother, the fall of the Big Houses and the $800 billion dollar loan to Wall Street, something astronomically larger that the Enron scandal has been going on. It has been unregulated and closed to the general public, or anyone who can't cough up millions of dollars to buy-in. Its called "Credit Default Swaps" and has been protected by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000,a rider to spending bill H.R. 4577, which was signed into law by President Clinton, making it illegal to regulate these transactions. Rupert Murdoch has called them "Financial Weapon of Mass Destruction". This is where "the trillions" come to play and why this financial domino chain reaction has occurred.  Its scope is stagger... Read more

A "4" for right now, but a "5" for what I am afraid it will soon become.  It's not just the US; global markets are faltering along with ours, and feeble attempts to prop up what is left standing isn't doing much good as of yet.   If I might use a crude simile, it's kind of like how Wile E. Coyote can walk off a cliff a few feet without falling:  We've been pretty screwed for a while now, it's just taken us a while to look down and realize it.

wow what a possible solution today. the market is really finding ways to stay alive. the idea of temporarily halting FASB157 or mark to market ruling may help these banks temporarily.  these accounting rules are important but a temporary halting of the practice would enable banks to shore up thier balance sheets, "write up" the MBS inthier portfolio and enable for them to lend again. this coupled with the "invest in america plan" should provide plenty of firepower for us to weather thru this credit crisis. for some reason im starting to feel a little optomistic. i hope im not wrong.

This crisis is so nutty that even money market funds almost went into the crapper a couple of weeks ago. Those are essentially zero-risk sweep funds, not very different than what you have in your savings account, where you trade a lack of FDIC protection for maybe a percentage point of additional yield. Frightening. The government seems utterly unable to control the bleeding; unlike previous crises, the easy solution of cutting interest rates can't be done, because they can't decline any further. After Indymac, even the FDIC is apparently running out of cash. The market today apparently lost $1.1 trillion, more than the price of the so-called bailout. This is what happens when your executive has lost any sort of authority to deal with crises--whatever Bush touches seems destined to be rejected. Not to mention that the way that the government has arbitrarily rescued some banks and let others die hardly restores confidence to the system. This ranks among the biggest news stories of this ... Read more

Democrats Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis:

The fall of the Roman Empire? How can we learn from our mistakes if we live them forward? I wish we had more say. The government seems to be making some mighty important decisions about our lives without asking us to allow it to do so. I believe they still work for us, yes?

It's starting to get scary. And like it or not, it's going to affect every one of us in one way or another. The heat is on!

This worries me. I am not exactly an economics expert, but every day we hear stories of huge, impossibly rich companies going down the pan, kingpins falling from power and constant doom and gloom in the stock market. As this is perhaps only three years before I become financially independent, the fact that England is so dependent on a fast-slipping America concerns me, as our economy is likely to feel the same effects as theirs. If employment levels continue to plummet, how is this generation (whom we are frequently told is yobbish and incompetent) going to cope in a country devoid of inspiration, self-sufficiency and where the cost of living is knocking on Monaco's door?

Very important event. In fact, it might even be epochal in nature. The age of American hegemony in the world of finance seems to be coming to a close. Many Americans are asking themselves the same question: how did the economy get into such a bad spot? For years, many thought that the economy was booming, productivity and job growth was on the rise, and other indicators were generally pointing up. Yet in just a few short years, we are finding ourselves in the midst of one of the worst downturns since the Great Depression. Eschew is absolutely correct here. Government intervention in the markets got us into this mess and now they are proposing more intervention to get us out it through massive bailouts of firms with huge portfolios of non-performing assets. Government sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to gain a monopoly position in the mortgage backed securities markets (where this crisis originally began) because the government, by statute and reg... Read more

Time for some solid financial advice from numbah: canned food and shotguns. Think about it...

It's a huge story.  It's a huge event.  Where do we stop?  We've (conservatives) often complained that GWB is no conservative.  I think the cat's out of the bag.  I acknowledge that it's not hard to do the right thing when the right thing happens to be the only option left.  But, where were the truthtellers?  Where was the watchdog press?  What happened to the safeguards, in place to prevent a disaster like this?  All the brake lines were cut.So, given our dire and precarious situation, let me be the slightest bit political.  What has our government ever taken control of that it flourished?  Where it provided the oversight to be successful? Amtrak?  FEMA?  The Post Office?  FNMA?  Don't we all wish now for the puny little federal deficit from a week ago?Anyone who blames this catastrophe on deregulation doesn't really understand what happened here.  Our government meddled in the market.  We (our government) made banks lend to substandard customers.  Millions of them.  They borrowed mor... Read more

Thanks to idiots putting their trust in warmongering bluebloods and fat cats twice...twice!, this is a reality and not something that looks like a bad early Springsteen song title.

The "Wall Street Meltdown" is a sign of the United States falling back to the pack in the new global economy. Most Americans will still have things a whole lot better than others around the world, but the era of American economic superiority appears to be coming to a close. Unfortunately those most responsible for this problem will not feel the harsh reality of a stumbling economy. Their loss will be in percentage points of profit increases, while most of those struggling from pay check to pay check will face further quality of life challenges. As of now the Bush administration does not support restrictions on compensation for executives who might receive government bailouts. Seems like the good ol' boy network is alive and well. It seems to be a shame those responsible for these companies will be taken care of, while the American taxpayer foots the bill for irresponsible business. If we are truly a capitalist country, then we would let those companies who have dug themselves in a whol... Read more

Immensely important story, not just for 2008 but probably for years, even decades to come. The warning signs have been there for years, predicted by analysts and economists of both conservative and liberal ideology, but the greed heads weren't about to listen and investors loved the ride. The long term effects will be felt worldwide, both by investors and everyone else, and the economic structure of American capitalism appears about to undergo a paradigm shift. Middle to long term, look to see for the greater emergence of economic power in other wealthy nations, with America no longer at the top of the pyramid. That has been slowly happening anyway, but this event will goose the process dramatically. As to its short term effect on the U.S. presidential election, I would expect it to benefit Obama slightly more, provided he spins it right, which so far he isn't doing. McCain's record on the economy is poor, and his sudden interest in "regulation" of Wall Street rings pretty ... Read more

Huge story even if you're not an investor. . .money is ultimately based on trust- and when it's gone (or there is no real money or trust) the fit hits the shan (as they say in the office)   It is way too complicated to explain it here- but clearly some philosophical and economical paradigms should be discussed or altered because the wild ride has clearly come to some form of an end.  And there is pleny to blame to spread around. . .

How are we rating this? To me my one star rating means I am terrified with what is going on. It is bad for everyone.

A huge, huge story.  I watched a clip of Alan Greenspan the other day saying that he has never seen anything like this in his lifetime.  This is chilling A) because Greenspan is usually very measured when he speaks and not prone to hysteria; and B) He's like 130 years old.