Posted on 09/14/2008 12:51:32 PM PDT by jimbo123
Unable to find a savior, the troubled investment bank Lehman Brothers appeared headed toward liquidation on Sunday, in what would be one of the biggest failures in Wall Street history.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I bet the phones at Congress are hot with people calling in for a bailout.
Good, maybe some of those clowns will be forced to get a real job.
Shhhhh, J6P is sleeping.
For instance, let's say that they sell a subprime mortgage bundle, having certain characteristics, let's say an average interest rate of 8% and average FICO score of 590, all the mortgages being on California properties.
Whatever price they get in selling that mortgage bundle, is now the market price and all other financial institutions having a collection of mortgages that are the same, have to value their mortgages at the same price.
My worry would be that now a 1000 other banks large and small now have to mark down assets on their books, causing them to then have to raise money in order to meet their capital requirements.
Aren't they going to have to do that anyway as the housing market falls?
Good??
Probably the best, concise, explanation of a financial snowball rolling downhill I've read.
Merrill Lynch sold off $31 billion in CDO’s at 22 cents on the dollar, but financed 75% of the sale and are on the hook to the buyer if the market value drops more than 5 cents a dollar. The vultures want everything at 5 cents on the dollar so the investment banks are scrambling to keep that from happening. That’s why they don’t want Lehman’s CDO’s to go on sale at the true market price or everyone goes out of business.
Yeah, guess that is called “banking”.
Apparently every bank in the nation feels the taxpayer must pay for their mistakes - not them.
I know nothing about this - but, I am really tired of reading bail-out, bail-out, bail-out. I tend to call it “how to rob a bank in modern times”. No prison time, no payback, just claim stupidity and expect the taxpayer to pay their way out of it. But, do we ever hear of those bankers selling off their profits from their banking enterprise?
We fuss about the massive profits of the oil corporations - what about “robbing the treasury from inside the banks”?
Never fear. For the last twelve months, the SEC has been employing a little known accounting standard known as, "If I keep my eyes closed, it's not there." If the SEC actually enforced the rules, these companies would have been forcibly wiped out LONG AGO. So, unless there's a credit event that forces these securities to be sold and actually discover a market price, there won't be any markdowns on anyone's books based on the LEH liquidation. Why not? Because the SEC will simply look the other way until there's no choice remaining.
If You Dance To The Music, You’ve Got To Pay The Piper.
Yes and some clown will be alone shortly posting about how you cannot mess with a free market. Would show me that market.
Very astute observation. Yeah. You got it. We now get to peek at everyone’s soiled laundry “sans backstop” and it could get quite bloody. Not only via the “mark-to-market” road you imply, but by the implications of “no more backstop(s)”. Because the stock and bond markets have unquestionably been trading as if “n” backstops were forthcoming.
Things are getting interesting. Perhaps Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan become holders in due course of the US.
I msee you have two threads going..I was posting on the other one with the live Dow Jones newswire stories coming across the feed. Looks like a meltdown in the making, now merrill and BOA are trying to put a merger together between themselves, Lehman looks dead and the US $ is taking a hit to the chin.
I wonder if the Fed is gonna come in a save the day with more Socialism.
B of A in talks to buy Merrill according to WSJ.
Here’s the problem, if B of A gets a look at their books and says, “thanks but no thanks”, that’s going to send a signal that Merrill is headed straight down the same path as Lehman.
Tomorrow is going to be an extremely important day in our country’s financial history.
There are lots of regular folks who work for Lehman, like secretaries, etc. You’re glad they will lose their jobs?
B of A/Merrill talks are double-or-nothing. If they fail, the market will throw Merrill on the same pile as Lehman.
At least you're honest.
At the very least, upper management will be facing dozens of lawsuits. I'd say there are many unhappy people in the financial sector now regardless of how much money they have.
One would hope that any of the regular people at LEH have moved their $$$$ out LEH stock long ago. The poor people at Bear got caught flat footed, but this is not really anything fresh here.
Bank of America would be buying Merrill Lynch for their private client/wealth management division. It’s the only thing of value over there.
This also puts UBS in a tough position since they were hoping to create a bad bank for their CDO’s...
Very liberal statement?
Well, they ought to be.
Lawsuits? I will bet that once you set out to “rob the treasury”, there will be agreements indicating they are free from being sued should markets be a problem or something.
This is fishy, and I do not have to understand the entire banking institution to smell the fish. Corporations do not always get government bail out - they go under.
And, if you look at the inner workings, the bonuses paid for loans written, and other compensations, there is plenty of profit taken for doing work that will result in government bailouts.
Effective executives do not bankrupt the organization they work for.
Glad they lose their jobs? Oh, so we are supposed to ignore malfeasance at the top of institutions being bailed out by taxpayers because of worker salaries? Sorry, it does not work that way.
They were expected to be able to run the institution - just because they could not, does not mean the taxpayer has to pay salaries, bailouts, on and on. This is not a socialistic country right yet.
One can only wonder what you have done for a living to belittle others.
If that’s the case - if all they’re looking at is the profitable (what’s left) part of Merrill - then Merrill is effectively bankrupt, too. Once they give that up, the whole company is a loss.
And if B of A decides they don’t even want that, I think it’s lights-out.
Who belittled anyone, only you??
I’m not talking about the top folks. I’m just commenting that some seem so glad that Lehman will fail and all will lose their jobs. Many regular folks work where they can get a job, and now will lose those jobs. The malfeasance causing failure is hardly something to cheer about.
I did not argue that anyone should be bailed out. I merely commented that a certain poster was cheering that all involved would lose their jobs. That is hardly something to be happy or gloat about.
Thanks, great explanation!!
Understand.
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