This is going to be the focus tomorrow…buckle your seat belts! Trying to get it right in my head over the weekend wasn’t easy, until Sunday night came and there was no announcement to be made out of the Treasury Dept…here’s my take:
I picked up a couple of different scenarios that sounded possible, but the theme throughout seemed to be that the banking community had to come together and each eat a piece of Lehman’s worst ABS…apparently an altruistic streak runs through all great bankers…wow…What I’m worrying about is that the market has been trading w/ the impression that the treasury will consume the bad deals and coordinate like they did with Bear Sterns. Moral hazard is front and center, since Merrill bit the bullet and sold it’s distressed holdings for 30 cents on the dollar, there hasn’t been another one of these cleansings that has made news since then. The fact that Merrill could find buyers for what it had to get off of its books, means that Lehman can find a market once they decide to stop playing games…all I read is that ABS (CMO, CMBS, CDO, etc) are too complex to compare the holdings of one firm to another…this is a bad argument to use against the government or short sellers who are demanding that the firm mark those assets to market. Once Merrill was able to move its distressed debt to others in the market, the music stopped…no more ragtime
Merrill sold itself to Bank of America…better safe than sorry I suppose
I wonder if the DOW goes under 11,000 today?
I sure wish that Bush/McCain had privavtized social Security.(assume a very sarcastic tone on that one)
Shit…that’s the final frontier. Too much money and not enough worthy investments is what created the need for such creativity. Clinton and a GOP congress got rid of the barrier keeping investment banking and retail banking separate…the rest is history.
What I find to be the most ridiculous part of all this, is that Goldman, Merrill and a couple of others had analysts arguing up until the weekend in favor of their buy ratings on Lehman’s stock…on Saturday I checked in and Goldman had a word from their analyst saying that Lehman was being removed from their “super-duper-can’t-miss” buy list…can’t remember the actual name for it, but the announcement was there, and I couldn’t even laugh about it.
Lots of good people are out of work because of this. Avoiding the right-wing sites is essential now, because after buzzing past a few a couple of weeks ago, I honestly thought that the human race was doomed. Something this simple can’t be beyond the grasp of millions, can it?
No regulation…bankers being bankers…that’s the whole thing in two simple phrases.
A while back I read confssioins of a wall street analyst. The guy who wrote the book didn’t seem to understand that his ratings mattered to investors. He seemed very proud that he gave sell recomendation before the stock completely tanked. But usually only a few days before it tanked after everyone else knew the stock was worthless. The industry seems designed to fleece everyone.
Our entire Economy is at risk & Let me say this America This is all Bush Fulat & he doesn’t know what he doing & He is dumb as doorbell & really mess this America & what the F$#k we in war for Stop the dam war & lets fix the Economy fix more schools Help the middle & Low class cause we are strggle & some people work 2 or 3 jobs Its a dam shame that we Middle & Low Class are going though something with people losing jobs homes Gas prices are going sky high & with everything else going up & well living in a fix income & Dam it Eight years is a enough & We need a change or america will be in danger with more ECONOMY Crist
Our entire Economy is at risk & Let me say this America This is all Bush Fulat & he doesn’t know what he doing & He is dumb as doorbell & really mess this America & what the F$#k we in war for Stop the dam war & lets fix the Economy fix more schools Help the middle & Low class cause we are strggle & some people work 2 or 3 jobs Its a dam shame that we Middle & Low Class are going though something with people losing jobs homes Gas prices are going sky high & with everything else going up & well living in a fix income & Dam it Eight years is a enough & We need a change or america will be in danger with more ECONOMY Crist.