AMERICA-The Right Way!(September 29- October 3,2008)Remember the WTC,Pentagon and Flight93!

Various News Sources & Free Republic Members | Sept. 28, 2008 | All of Us

[Molly Pitcher]

Good Morning.

It appears a bi-partisan agreement to stabilize and rescue the financial markets has been reached, at least at the time of this posting: late Sunday night.

It remains to be seen whether the agreement will hold,what it'll cost the U.S. taxpayer, and how effective the measure will be...i.e. will it live up to the claims of its sponsors?

The President addresses the nation Monday, at 7:30 a.m. ET, before the markets open the new week.

[Molly Pitcher]

Welcome to the new thread...just a little early but maybe appropriate given the news situation.

[Molly Pitcher]

Hey there! I’ll provide some news links in the a.m.

[org.whodat]

It appears a bi-partisan agreement to stabilize and rescue the financial markets has been reached, at least at the time of this posting: late Sunday night.

The republicans have assured themselves of forty years of the other party again.

[Jemian]

That is sooooooo discouraging.

[Bitwhacker]

Here is the easiest-to-understand explanation of why the bailout is needed, and in NewsWeak of all places:

The Monster That Ate Wall Street

Money quote from the article:

“What the bankers hit on was a sort of insurance policy: a third party would assume the risk of the debt going sour, and in exchange would receive regular payments from the bank, similar to insurance premiums. JPMorgan would then get to remove the risk from its books and free up the reserves. The scheme was called a ‘credit default swap’,...”

AIG had over $400 billion in these CDSs and miscaclulated on what the losses would be. And since AIG is a Dow component, it's failure was taking the stock market down and causing a run on banks and money markets...that's why they couldn't let AIG fail...;-))

[Jemian]

Thanks for the starts. Prairie, I'm glad you're home. Take a deep breath before reading that bill. We're so screwed. Bit, just a side note: hubby and I have emergency evacuation travel insurance with AIG. I am watching the future of that company. Not because I have any stock in it, but because we have purchased the product.

[Molly Pitcher]

That was nice of you to post it here, too.

Good night all.

[Jemian]

Busy is good. I get worried when I don’t here from people every so often.

Thanks for checking in.

[SnarlinCubBear]

Of the 2 banks our company uses, one worked through this mortgage mess a few months ago. We were on pins and needles for awhile, and unable to access funds.

The 2nd bank, announced to us that they took no part in the sub-prime mess.

Fairly fortunate, I’d say.

[Bitwhacker]

I think the whole Wall Street thing looks like one of those computer simulations where you see colonies of bacteria, watching different areas getting larger or smaller, until it stabilizes. All of the CDSs went back and forth between firms until they ended up at AIG. And AIG, being an insurer, just held on to them, even though they didn't realize that they didn't have the slightest clue as to how to evaluate how risky they were.

I still say: These brainiacs created a new insurance product, and yet they didn't have to get it approved by state insurance regulators?

They say CDSs aren't open to regulation because they are private contracts. I can't believe that. You or I would go to jail for insurance fraud if we went around selling 'risk mitigation' insurance...

The other thing that I think stinks about this is that the whole thing was created to 'free up' all those reserve funds that were on the books to cover the risk. And all of those newly freed reserves went out in bonuses and dividends.

Almost as disgusting as when, during the 80's and 90's, corporate America discovered that suddenly pension funds were 'overfunded'.

AIG at least understands how to work emergency evacuation insurance, and you can be sure that they had to get it approved by every state insurance regulator to sell it...;-))

[JRandomFreeper]

Busy is an understatement.... Physics, systems engineering and chemistry. Lectures from dark until I crash and burn (6 hours a night), coursework before the sun comes up, review handouts and class problems.

And during lunch break, I catch up on the algebra and trig and calculus that I have forgotten.

And then there's life to deal with, and vendors, and customers. ;)

/johnny

[Miss Marple]

I understand stocks, bonds, CD’s, and money markets.

When you get to things like certificates based on betting on the risk of the failure of industries, I am lost.

All of these weird investments were done by people too clever by half, and seem to me to be nothing more than betting on shell games.

[JRandomFreeper]

Honesty seems to be inversely proportional to the number of windows in the office. I would trust the janitor in the basement with my lunch bag before I would trust a CFO that has a corner office on the top floor.

/johnny

[Bitwhacker]

I think you are right.

And I am no fan of regulation, but is it too over the top to say that banks that only pay a few measley percent on savings and checking because they are 'safe' accounts (FDIC insured!) have no business making bets with our money? We used to have a law on the books that prevented them from doing that very thing.

But at the bottom of it all, we still have Dodd and Frank and UOx42 pushing the 'fair housing' CRA stuff, so I guess you can't blame a lending company for responding to government threats of fines for not making incredibly stupid loans. I used to think elections didn't matter all that much, but there you have proof...;-))

[Bitwhacker]

I was just thinking the other day, what if Enron had held on until this year? Would they have been bailed out with the rest of the bunch?

And it would have been a tough call, too, because a lot of Enron employees lost life savings and pensions...;-))

[JRandomFreeper]

I'm starting to see Enron as a test case for the crooks to see what was going to slide with the Fed.

I do feel badly for the folks that made the poor decision to invest 100% of their 401K in their employer's stock. I've been down that road twice. I'm more diversified now.

/johnny

[Bitwhacker]

Enron was also the poster child for auditing and accounting reform. I mean, creating 100 fictitious companies and counting losses as 'assets' (by 'selling' the loss to the fake companies) is about as bad as fraud gets. How an auditing firm could see that in progress and go along with it is stunning (and they are no longer with us because of it).

The thing I can't get over is how a CEO can go to one company, cook the books, take down millions, and then be able to get another CEO job at another company, even after news gets out about how dastardly he was (Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson come to mind)...;-))

[JRandomFreeper]

Large "performance" bonuses to HR and the board provide incentive to hire top folks that play close to (or over) edge.

/johnny

[Two Thirds Vote Aye]

Good morning, All.

Jem, thanks for the YouTube links back on the weekend thread. They are very good.

[Miss Marple]

As you know, over the years we have had ups and downs economically. Right now Mr. Marple is working in Denver because of the burst housing bubble. The civil engineering firm that he worked for had all of their business with developers and builders doing the surveying and site engineering for the new subdivisions.

Well over a year ago Mr. Marple noted the downturn in new building and thought he would eventually have to find new work. He was right...we just didn’t expect to be laid off with NO severance.

Fortunately, Mr. Marple was originally a mining engineer and found work in the mining industry. My son was hired about a month and a half ago for a landscaping firm to start a commercial operation for a company that wanted to expand. They have scrapped their plans for this because they couldn’t get the financing they needed and let my son go, so he is now looking for work.

And the doctor my sister works for was going to buy an expensive piece of equipment, but have put it on hold because the most favorable interest rate they could get was 27%!!

This is just the effect felt her in my family. If you multiply this all over the country it seems obvious to me that some sort of solution would have to be found.

I grew up listening to stories about the Depression. My dad never got over it...he always stockpiled food and would always have a large amount of cash in the house. The mother of a friend of mine spent her childhood living in a CHICKEN HOUSE. My dad took LARD SANDWICHES to school

These people who want to let the chips fall where they may are not realizing what it would be like. I don’t care for my grandkids to have to go through that.