Hello Bing, very good article. But the rich always get their way. Collectively, they are treated like a spoiled five year old children while the folks at Golf Links (my “main street”)are left with a two thousand dollar debt to them, being treated instead as a fairy god mother. We’re a bunch of fairie god mothers who grant wishes to spoiled five year old children. Someone should make a mother goose rhyme about this meltdown.

While the Street may hate uncertainty, it seems that much of it is caused by the last round of jettisoned pundits, senior managers, et al who eagerly give/gave expert opinions to whoever will air or print it.

These opinions have an affect on the market causing much of the angst. As long as we are chasing the rabbit on a daily basis it will continue to be this cycle of highs and lows.

As always, I enjoy reading your column and agree with most of what you say. Just wish there was an easy fix for this, but…

Like Pete said, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Agreed, all those media types saying that changing the status of Goldman and Morgan Stanley has “ended an era on Wall Street” don’t get it: they will be run, top to bottom, back office to front, by the same people. Call them commercial banks if you want; they are still I-Banks and will behave as such, just with more depositor money.

Warren Buffet just bought a 5 billion dollar chunk of Goldman Sachs, does this mean we have seen the bottom of this market?

I’m starting to think again about this government bailout of Wall Street. If you can’t find someone to buy some equity or lend you some money without government involvement, and you are going broke without it, then you should go broke.

No matter who you are.

Privatized profits and losses.

Banks, insurance companies, private equity, and sovereign wealth funds are lining up to buy the pieces left over from anyone who can’t make it.

Let them go under.

It’s the American way, and in this case it would even be the right way.
http://tradingcrude.blogspot.com/

I went to a seminar recently about “becoming rich” via real estate (daddy’s idea not mine). Anyhow, they kept saying that rich people “own nothing,and control everything” and that’s how you are “suppose to think” if you want to become rich. I don’t think that real estate is everything and not suggesting it is the magic answer (certainly not the point). Of course that saying was proclaimed by a hard core Republican who also said that we were “not rich” due to our own choices and not because of what family we were born in. Somewhat true, if you really think about it but still quite insulting. Boy, did those words sting.

“All the excesses and depredations foisted upon our poor economy will be back very soon, because it’s simply too boring to do business or make obscene amounts of money by playing things straight;”

Exactly!

Honesty rarely leads to prosperity. Even if honesty does lead to prosperity, it will not sustain prosperity.

Most of the people earning large sums of money are dirty. The only way to stay rich and get richer is to play dirty also.

When one man falls to the bottom, he leaves a space to be fought over. Fighting a good clean fight will only lead one to be a doormat or stepping stool for the ones who are willing to use all forms of treachery to succeed.

Remember this: “Integrity is the cornerstone of poverty.”

This financial meltdown couldn’t come more “enviromentally correct” for Wall Street: It’s time to “recycle” the game.

If the rich get poorer and the poor get richer, that wouldn’t be socialistic. Wall street maintains the status quo, yet again.

The only thing that will “restore confidence and solidity to the marketplace” is to bring back trust to the marketplace. Right now, you would have to be a fool to trust anyone on Wall Street that you don’t personally know (this lets me get around calling Warren Buffett a fool, because he knows and personally trusts the folks he’ll be dealing with at Goldman).

Bing, your scenario comes true only if Congress goes along with the obscene bailout. I’m hoping that it doesn’t. Failure of every big Wall Street bank would not be the catastrophe that Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke think. Well-managed companies with something positive to offer the marketplace will still be able to find financing — small companies can get it locally, from banks that never bought into the whole subprime mess (and those small banks will grow to take the place of the failed megabanks), and large companies can get it from large foreign banks and private equity. Individuals can get it from some of the same sources they have always used — friends and family who know them and believe in them.

Stock market-based capitalism is broken. The only thing that can resurrect it is faith in small-scale, grassroots capitalism. We don’t have to go the way of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European orbiters. We don’t have to keep the same morons in charge, and the only thing keeping us from kicking out the losers is this poorly-thought-out bailout plan.

That other stuff you might be referring to only floats on a bouyant sea of sewage; but real cream really can rise to the top.

New rule: People cannot buy homes they cannot afford, and Wall Street cannot have compensation it has not earned.

http://www.sawyerspeaks.wordpress.com

I would like to know why neither Pres. Candidate offered a “US Citizen Bail-out” plan rather than the “Financial Institution Bail-out”. Why couldn’t every legal US citizen over age of 18 be given a non-taxed “loan” of the $750 bil. divided equally ($477,000.00 each, right??)with the mandate that ALL their debts be paid 1st, a % be invested in the NYSE 2nd, and any remaining funds (if any) be utilized at the individuals’ discretion? This should supply ample funds to the financial institutions to cover their foreign liabilities and most of the other credit they’ve overextended upon. The astute banking organizations should flourish, and some of the weaker might go under. So what. I realize that we would suffer the effects of hyper-inflation since the Gov’t. won’t recoup their losses like they will when the Banks turn profits again (but, the hyper inflation should virtually eliminate the influx of immigration). Couldn’t the Gov’t. issue a financial projection of the inflation, so that the citizens could budget accordingly? I just think the Government doesn’t have the courage to relinquish control of such a staggering amount of money. But think of the economic activity and creation of jobs that would be churned if they would. Also, this would be a more equitable way to restore our economy, so that the fiscally responsible citizens aren’t paying for the mistakes of the irresponsible. We are supposed to DRIVE our economy, the Gov’t. is just supposed to GUIDE the economy. It’s the other way around now, and that’s why we’ve run aground.