Comments on: Financial Crisis on Wall Street

By: links for “crisis on wall street” | semantic horizons

links for “crisis on wall street” | semantic horizons — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:40:40 +0000

[...] Financial Crisis on Wall Street [...]

By: mikkel

mikkel — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:44:09 +0000

Things are not looking good for AIG. From what I've read they can't let AIG fail or it'll lead to one of the greatest collapses in history. I'd guess that the government will give an unsecured line to AIG at least temporarily but who knows -- Wamu is toast, as they are going to have to spend tons of money on everything else.

If Wamu goes down they are going to completely wipe out the FDIC, but I wouldn't worry as no one expects the government to let any FDIC accounts go down. That's just another $100-$200 billion that needs to be committed.

By: StockBoySF

StockBoySF — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:43:36 +0000

I thought the fed. gov. convened the largest Wall St. banks a couple days ago and told them to figure out the Lehman mess…. I was happy to hear the gov. tell the financial institutions to step up to the plate.

By: Rudi

Rudi — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:11:40 +0000

Don't forget that WaMu is also in big trouble. Wamu is bigger, assets and debts, it's failure is more significant than the Lehman collapse.
http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/...

Among financials, shares of Washington Mutual, the biggest U.S. savings and loan, also reversed sharply, ending up 22 percent at $2.83. Earlier, the stock fell below $2 a share on fears that the bank would not be able to raise enough

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:00:41 +0000

Hi Elrod,
I completely agree with you regarding the incredible importance of this issue. Sadly I do think this is perhaps an area where Obama could have done better. While McCain is clueless here, Obama doesn't have clean hands, as his association with Freddy Mac's Jim Johnson would indicate.
I have been following this issue quite closely on the “Housing Panic” blog which does a pretty good job at covering the mortgage collapse and putting it in understandable terms.
My preference would be a starkly termed deal, either you get our help and completely open your books and stay out of the way of regulation or you are on your own. I think the biggest problem is that Democrats have been passing the regulations, Republicans refuse to enforce them. Honest people look at the incredible maze and decide to do something else with their lives while those who have connections but no talent jump in. How else can you explain Yum, et. al?

By: mikkel

mikkel — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:05:06 +0000

Elrod, I'd go as far in saying that it's not "THE most important" but that there is a very real risk that it's the ONLY thing that's important at least domestically speaking. It doesn't matter much arguing about whether the projected $4 trillion debt increase under McCain's tax breaks are better than Obama's projected $2.5 trillion debt increase under his increased domestic programs when it's highly unlikely that we'll be unable to get people to buy much more debt. (The question of how much they buy is also related to the "solution" that is implemented).

Like Michael Silverstein noted in a post a week ago, the primary driver of the next Presidency will be the credit markets.

My two cents is that it's a fool's errand to try to stop things from collapsing and the real question is who is better able to provide a direction for the country as it deals with the doldrums and grasps for a new direction and reemergence.