Posted on 09/17/2008 9:36:27 PM PDT by Rutles4Ever
Even Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the two last titans left standing on Wall Street, are no longer immune.
To the surprise of executives within those firms, and their rivals, the stocks of these powerful companies were drawn into the crisis of investor confidence on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley, whose stock fell almost 25 percent, was considering a merger with Wachovia or another bank to help shore up its finances. Goldman Sachs’s stock fell almost 14 percent, and it had to rebuff rumors that it was seeking a capital infusion.
Seeking to avoid the kind fate that led Lehman and Bear Stearns to collapse, John J. Mack, Morgan Stanley’s chief executive, made an unsuccessful effort on Tuesday evening to persuade Citigroup’s chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, to enter into a combination, according to people briefed on the talks.
“We need a merger partner or we’re not going to make it,” Mr. Mack told Mr. Pandit, according to two people briefed on the talks. Mr. Pandit, a former senior investment banker at Morgan Stanley, said Citigroup was not interested. It is thinking of deals it can strike with consumer banks, like buying the struggling Washington Mutual out of bankruptcy if its reported efforts to auction itself should fail, that would provide it with cheaper deposit funding. A Citigroup spokeswoman declined to comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Has anyone set up a "burn rate" site for newspapers yet?
They are failing at the rate of one every other day with no end in sight. This is just scary!
Dang . . . I want to buy an investment firm at bargain basement prices! Please mommy please!! LOL. Blue light special. Too bad the government had to step in like the USSR and take over.
You know Bill Gates could just about OWN Wall (Mart) Street if he swooped in and picked up a bunch of these places dirt cheap.
Would it be funny if the Apple and Microsoft money went on to own Wall Street of course as rivals. IBM is still shaking their heads from the 70's.
Would=Wouldn’t
JP Morgan died ten years ago and Chase scooped them up. Chase is a retail bank. JP Morgan Chase was one of the first post Glass Steigel retail/investment banks along with Citigroup/Salomon/Smith Barney.
That’s how they’ll all look in a month. Morgan Stanley will get taken out and Goldman will have no choice but to do the same thing. That’s exactly what happened when the whole street went business casual too.
Lack of creativity. Like Bobby Kennedy liked to say, “May you live in interesting times.”
Not scary, LONG PAST DUE.
Yes, it will be ugly, but we have to let these and the dominoes after them fall so we can get it out of the way and get back on sound footing. Government bailouts are going to do nothing but prolong and make the mess even bigger.
What really needs done is the entire federal reserve system needs trashed, and returned to FEDERAL CURRENCY backed by gold, and not federal reserve notes backed by debt. End of the day its very existence is why we are in the mess we are in as far as I’m concerned. THese snakes got a century to screw over the production and hard work of the American people, enough is enough.
“Lack of creativity.”
I’m sorta thinking it was TOO MUCH much creativity that got us into this mess.
Yes, it will be ugly, but we have to let these and the dominoes after them fall so we can get it out of the way and get back on sound footing. Government bailouts are going to do nothing but prolong and make the mess even bigger.
What really needs done is the entire federal reserve system needs trashed, and returned to FEDERAL CURRENCY backed by gold, and not federal reserve notes backed by debt. End of the day its very existence is why we are in the mess we are in as far as I’m concerned. THese snakes got a century to screw over the production and hard work of the American people, enough is enough.
Yes, but the cure may be worse than the disease. If a total collapse comes, I fear we won't be able to recover.
The workforce will keep everything intact, money isn’t stopping from there.
Do you know how much many mortgage debts were sold overseas and who bought them?
OH we’ll be able to recover, the snakes that have skimmed their percentages off the top for a century though, mostly won’t. This is the greatest nation in the world, and we will recover.
Yea, WS goes down, so does Europe and so does Asia... and you know what? So what!
Provided the politicians don’t screw the pooch, we’ll clean up the mess and get going again.. Sadly the gut reaction from the government is to keep bailing out, which just prolongs and enlarges the pain.
Hit the reboot and lets get back to fundamentals. We can keep trying to save this sinking ship, and drag the pain, agony, suffering out even longer and make an even larger oil slick when its all said and done, or stop the insanity and return to reality.
Trillions of dollars worth, much of the CDOs were sold to Koreans and others who were completely sold on the idea that the US mortgage market could never collapse.
Of the investment banks, Bear Stearns, Lehman and Merrill Lynch have already fallen or been bought. Only Morgan Stanley and Goldman remain. Neither is likely to last as an independent.
I take it you noticed Russia halted trading and is screwed..
I’m an Omaha guy myself. :^)
Yep, losing 20% of your markets value in a day will tend to get the KGB left overs running things over theres attention.
As the oil speculative bubble pops as well, Putin is going to be hard pressed to be able to back up his anti western resergence. Without OIL at high prices, his nation is back to being a 3rd world nation with nuclear capabitilies. He’s run off nearly all foreign capital, and his actions lately have only served to scare more of it away, only thing they had left was oil... it collapses and Russia is royally hosed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.