Mon
Sep 15 2008
07:50 am
Lehman bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch sold, AIG restructuring
By: bizgrrl

As I mentioned in a previous post, Lehman's stock was up to $67 within the past year and was down to $6.36 last week. Merrill Lynch stock closed Friday at $17.05, down from a high of $98 last year. AIG's stock closed at $12 Friday after reporting a high of $70 within the last year.

The stunning weekend developments took place as voters, who rank the economy as their top concern, prepare to elect a new president in seven weeks. It likely will spur a much greater focus by presidential candidates — Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama — and members of Congress on the need for stricter financial regulation.

I would have thought all of the previous mortgage, financial, economic problems would have "spurred a much greater focus by presidential candidates". What are they talking about? I can't hear anything over all of the childish name calling and negative campaigning. Is there someone out there that can lend an air of calm over the situation? Obama's probably saying something important but I can't hear him over the Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin media rhetoric.

Topics:
bizgrrl's picture

In case you missed it amid

Submitted by bizgrrl on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 7:59am.

In case you missed it amid the reporting on negative ads by the campaigns, Obama's brief statement after the Lehman, Merrill Lynch, AIG announcement:

...the upheaval on Wall Street was "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression"
...
"The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store," Obama said in a statement. "Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression."

gonzone's picture

Looks like

Submitted by gonzone on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 9:32am.

Looks like the only solution to our financial industry problems is MORE deregulation! (yeah, right!)
And of course great big helpings of corporate socialism.

Just a reminder, Phil Gramm, banking industry deregulation whore extraordinaire, and Donald "DOW 36,000" Luskin are McPain's advisers. What better help could one ask for?

This is no longer an issue of dodgy home loans going bad. Remember that popular phrase "subprime mortagages"? Don't hear that any more, do we?
This is the other shoe dropping, and it's a great big one.

The rules have changed. The dependability of our financial institutions went away with Gramm's deregulation. There's no bottom left and no rules to prevent rampant greed. But, it's all good, the CEOs are still raking in the millions, and that's all that really counts. Beans and rice are too good for the rest of us.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

MDB's picture

Looks like the only solution

Submitted by MDB on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 10:10am.

Looks like the only solution to our financial industry problems is MORE deregulation! (yeah, right!)
And of course great big helpings of corporate socialism.

I was thinking of an analogy this morning -- consider two sets of parents. We'll pick the (ahem) purely arbitrary names of Barack and Michelle for set one, and John and Cindy for set two.

B&M regularly keep an eye on their kids. Yeah, the kids screw up occasionally, but B&M help them out when necessary, punish them as needed, and raise good kids that turn into responsible adults.

J&C, though, let their kids run wild. "Kids will be kids", they say, "but they'll turn out all right in the end." One of their kids ends up with a drug problem, and another ends up with an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy. And J&C, being good, responsible parents, bankrupt themselves paying for all the associated expenses.

Now, I submit, which is the better set of parents?

RayCapps's picture

Ya know...

Submitted by RayCapps on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 10:31am.

The challenge facing everyone who favors any degree of government oversight of any aspect of private life (from morality to economics) is to provide a sufficient degree of regulation to protect the public interest without overreaching and unnecessarily or unfairly restricting personal freedom. The overreaching is generally known in political circles as "paternalism." And you go and use parenting as your metaphor? Ouch.

RayCapps's picture

As a contrarian stock buyer...

Submitted by RayCapps on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 9:39am.

I've been stuffing aside money for 18 months waiting for the Black Monday... maybe by about 2:00pm, it'll be time for me invest.

reform4's picture

Yeah, but where' the bottom?

Submitted by reform4 on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 11:39am.

I've thought dozens of times about pulling it all out and putting in the mattress, given President McChimpenfuhrer's record. But I keep saying, "nah, can't pull out at the bottom- I mean, how much lower can it go?"

And I keep getting surprised every month. Remember that the Dow was at this point in January, 2000, 7.5 years ago. The market has grown ZERO percent under this clown, while the market more than tripled (almost quadrupled) under Clinton/Gore.

Gas is $5.00. Food is becoming unaffordable for many. Healthcare inflation is unabated. Any money we make in this country, half is going to China, the other half to the Middle East.

How anyone can vote for 8 to 16 more years of this is inconceivable.

MDB's picture

How anyone can vote for 8 to

Submitted by MDB on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 12:20pm.

How anyone can vote for 8 to 16 more years of this is inconceivable.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

(Sorry, couldn't resist....)

gonzone's picture

Ha!

Submitted by gonzone on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 1:18pm.

Thanks for the laugh.

And to give a serious answer to the question, it's obviously very easy to get mind numbingly stupid people to vote against their best interests. Like getting them to vote for who they would most want to have a beer with, or telling 'scary" bedtime stories about the opponent, or simply identifying which people have what blindingly stupid bias and exploiting it.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

R. Neal's picture

You know, I vaguely recall

Submitted by R. Neal on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 1:23pm.

You know, I vaguely recall seeing that movie, and I've heard this joke a thousand times, but I don't get it. Can someone explain it for me, the humor impaired?

RayCapps's picture

It comes from A Princess Bride...

Submitted by RayCapps on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 1:57pm.

The Sicilian who kidnaps Princess Buttercup keeps saying "inconceivable" right before something he says cannot happen, happens. Finally, the Spaniard retorts with the line quoted above. Wonderful movie.

R. Neal's picture

Yes, knew the movie. Didn't

Submitted by R. Neal on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 2:00pm.

Yes, knew the movie. Didn't get the joke. Now I see. It's in the repetition. Makes more sense.

MDB's picture

One of the most quotable movies

Submitted by MDB on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 2:12pm.

Yes, it is from The Princess Bride, one of the most quotable movies ever.

A friend who saw Mandy Patinkin (who plays the aforementioned Spaniard, Inigo Montoya) perform a live concert.

He said something like this, "okay, every time I perform, I get asked to do this. Half of you are going to say it along with me, the other half will have no idea what we're talking about. So.... Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

There's even a t-shirt.

So many great lines...

Miracle Max: "Have fun storming the castle!"
Mrs. Miracle Max: "Think they'll make it?"
Miracle Max: "It'd take a miracle."

Buttercup: "But what of the third terror of the Fire Swamp? The R.O.U.S.'s""
Westley: "Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist."
(at which point a man-sized rat jumps him.)

The Grandfather: "In my day, television was called books."

And one of the best "stand up and cheer for the good guy" sequences ever in a movie:

Inigo Montoya: [steps back and gestures dramatically] Offer me everything I ask for!
Count Rugen: Anything you want!
[Rugen takes another lunge at Inigo. Inigo parries and stabs Rugen through the stomach.]
Inigo Montoya: I want my father back, you son of a bitch. [thrusts his sword into Rugen, then pulls it back out, leaving him to die.]

Its got fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, "impressive clergymen", miracles! What more do you need in a movie?

(Yes, I simply adore The Princess Bride. Can you tell? Heck, its one of a tiny handful of movies that makes me cry.)

talidapali's picture

The Movie is great...

Submitted by talidapali on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 2:40pm.

But try the book...it has a lot more story to it that they just couldn't fit into the movie. The book is wonderful! That said...The Princess Bride movie is one of the very few movies that I keep repurchasing in every new format that comes out...from VHS to DVD to Blueray...just cause I like to watch it over and over.

_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali

MDB's picture

I have read the book, and

Submitted by MDB on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 2:48pm.

I have read the book, and its one of the rare cases where the book and the movie are both great.

It helps that the novelist and the screenwriter were the same person (the great William Goldman.)

And yes, I keep getting the movie in multiple formats... 3 DVD's so far... and there's a Blu-Ray? Dagnabbit, discontinued by the manufacturer.

RayCapps's picture

Definitely quotable...

Submitted by RayCapps on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 2:50pm.

Some of my favorites:

"I do not envy you the headach you'll have when you awaken. But until then, sleep well and dream of large women." Said by Wesley (Dread Pirate Roberts) to the Andre the Giant character.

"You've been mostly dead all day." Said by Inigo Montoya to Wesley when he asked why he couldn't move.

"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you." Inigo Montoya

"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to die." Wesley (Dread Pirate Roberts).

And course, the most repeated line in the movie...

"As you wish."

reform4's picture

Yeah, I was kind of fishing for that one...

Submitted by reform4 on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 10:18pm.

.. I knew someone would pull that out.

"If only we had a holocaust cloak!"

"You mean like this one?"

(annoyed) "You didn't list that as one of our assets."

Andy Axel's picture

"Truly, you have a dizzying

Submitted by Andy Axel on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 10:31pm.

"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."

"WAIT 'TIL I GET GOING!"

____________________________

the distance between black & white is much further than i would like until now i never noticed that fascism has many disguises -d. boon, 1981

MDB's picture

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha

Submitted by MDB on Tue, 2008/09/16 - 7:00am.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" #plop#

MDB's picture

.. I knew someone would

Submitted by MDB on Tue, 2008/09/16 - 7:06am.

.. I knew someone would pull that out.

My ability to respond to references to The Princess Bride and The Simpsons borders on the disturbing. (I've been trading interesting words with a co-worker. I used "cromulent" on her yesterday.)

If I ever marry, I want the minister to give the "mawwiage... that bwethed inthtithun... that dweem within a dweem" speech for the rehearsal. (The ceremony I want serious, of course, but might as well have some fun at the rehearsal.)

gonzone's picture

And Now

Submitted by gonzone on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 11:41am.

And now McPain gives a speech in Florida this AM and says the "economic fundamentals are strong."
Will some brave reporter PLEASE ask that fool what he means and which fundamentals he's talking about?
Was it just a talking point Mr. 36,000 Glassman gave him? Is it his usual repeating of whatever Dubya says? Geez, some clues here people!!

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

Brian A.'s picture

I do not think that "the

Submitted by Brian A. on Mon, 2008/09/15 - 4:29pm.

I do not think that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" means what McCain thinks it means.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

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