Meltdown

[BachQ]

WSJ: Wall Street is dead. Whether it was murder or suicide is beside the point: Wall Street as it has operated for the past 75 years has been obliterated in a matter of weeks. And witnessing this violent death in broad daylight has traumatized investors everywhere.

[ezodisy]

"The obsession with remedies marks the end of a civilisation." - Emil Cioran

[Florestan]

WSJ: Wall Street is dead. Whether it was murder or suicide is beside the point: Wall Street as it has operated for the past 75 years has been obliterated in a matter of weeks. And witnessing this violent death in broad daylight has traumatized investors everywhere.

Whoever busy himself with actually reading the whole article will learn that it is rather optimistic. 

[BachQ]

According to a Gallup poll, just 27% of Americans approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president, the lowest rating of his presidency....The all-time low rating for any president is 22%, for Harry Truman in February 1952. Bush now joins Truman and Richard Nixon as the only presidents who have had approval ratings of 27% or lower in Gallup Polls.

[BachQ]

Ireland will now guarantee all (100%) deposits in Irish banks.  This guarantees that if any Irish bank fails or encounters serious liquidity issues, the Irish Government will step in.

[BachQ]

Over the past decade, privately traded derivatives contracts known as Credit Default Swaps have ballooned from nothing into a $54.6 trillion market, representing the fastest-growing major type of financial derivatives.  Credit Default Swaps and related derivatives are a root cause of the global credit crisis, and they have the potential of bringing down the whole house of cards. LINKY LINK

[Lethevich]

According to a Gallup poll, just 27% of Americans approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president, the lowest rating of his presidency.

What is wrong with the 27% who still approve?

[adamdavid80]

What is wrong with the 27% who still approve?

4 out of 5 dentists who chew gum recommend sugarless gum to their patients.

That means 20% of dentists surveyed beleive thier patients should chew gum that will rot their teeth (and will do so dramatically - all that continuous chomping and chewing, etc).

So there's your answer: there's always going to be some people out there who have very...curious...points of view.

That being said, I really don;t have any idea who's left.  I was thinking people who approve of low taxes, but Bush's support of "the bail-out" plan would negate their approvals.  Maybe it's always shifting...the people who once were wholly against the Iraq war maybe are pleased wwith the results of the surge, and think Bush stepped in just in the nick of time to save the financial markets? 

There are things that I have admired about Bush in this current term, unfortunately both of them are where whe went up against his party/base.  One is his attempt at immigration reform, and actualy he did seem truly principled in this latest crisis, meaning, if he's backing and approving something as "socialist" as this, maybe it truly is a desperate situation.

And there will always be those who approve of the President simply bc he's the President, whoever the President is.

[Lilas Pastia]

Over the past decade, privately traded derivatives contracts known as Credit Default Swaps have ballooned from nothing into a $54.6 trillion market, representing the fastest-growing major type of financial derivatives.  Credit Default Swaps and related derivatives are a root cause of the global credit crisis, and they have the potential of bringing down the whole house of cards. LINKY LINK

This is the first post of yours that has more than a single line of comment - other than offering yet another internet link you haven't entirely read. You don't use quote marks, but I can't believe for a second this comment above is your own thought. I don't even think you understand what you're posting about.

[BachQ]

On Tuesday, the 23d of September, 2008, Portugal deployed the world's first commercial "Wave Energy Farm" (with mixed results).  Initially, the device is intended to generate 2.25 MW of electricity (enough to power 1,500 homes), and ultimately it is intended to produce up to 21 MW of power.  LINK

[Lethevich]

To Germany: thanks, very helpful 0:)

[BachQ]

... Iceland economy is faltering (bankruptcy?) ... LINK

... While trading in Iceland financial firms has been suspended ... LINK

[BachQ]

Sixty-Minutes special on Credit Default Swaps

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/05/60minutes/main4502454.shtml

[BachQ]

From the Sixty Minutes special:

It started out 16 months ago as a mortgage crisis, and then slowly evolved into a credit crisis. Now it's something entirely different and much more serious.

What kind of crisis it is today?

"This is a full-blown financial storm and one that comes around perhaps once every 50 or 100 years. This is the real thing," says Jim Grant, the editor of "Grant's Interest Rate Observer."

***

"The instruments themselves are at the heart of this mess," Grant says. "They are complex, in effect, mortgage science projects devised by these Nobel-tracked physicists who came to work on Wall Street for the very purpose of creating complex instruments with all manner of detailed protocols, and who gets paid when and how much. And the complexity of the structures is at the very center of the crisis of credit today."

***

Bear Stearns was the first to go under, selling itself to J.P. Morgan for pennies on the dollar. Then, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. And when AIG, the nation's largest insurer, couldn't cover its bad debts, the government stepped in with an $85 billion rescue.

Asked what role the credit default swaps play in this financial disaster, Frank Partnoy tells Kroft, "They were the centerpiece, really. That's why the banks lost all the money. They lost all the money based on those side bets, based on the mortgages."

How big is the market for credit default swaps?

Says Partnoy, "Well, we really don't know. There's this voluntary survey that claims that the market is in the range of 50 to 60 or so trillion dollars. It's sort of alarming that, in a market that big, we don't even know how big it is to within, say, $10 trillion."

[BachQ]

The prolific writer/journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard paints a rather gloomy picture of the global financial markets here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/3141428/Germany-takes-hot-seat-as-Europe-falls-into-the-abyss.html

[BachQ]

http://www.pressrepublican.com/0100_news/local_story_277050111.html

NY families, state services feel Wall Street woes

By MICHAEL GORMLEY
Associated Press Writer


ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Wall Street's meltdown is starting to be felt in household budgets, as consumers shudder and state services are scaled back even before legislative leaders and the governor meet Friday to plan more spending cuts.

A Siena College poll found the national economic crisis — led by Wall Street's woes — has already hit what economists call the real economy. The statewide poll of registered voters found 85 percent of New Yorkers felt the financial situation poses a serious threat to their household.

"They are feeling it when they have to fill up the gas tank, when they are going to the grocery store, and when they are trying to get a loan," said Steven Greenberg of the Siena Research Institute. "The average New Yorker is being forced to make tough fiscal choices in their own household budgets and I think they are looking to the governor and the Legislature to do the same thing for the state budget."

That's the plan for a Friday meeting of state leaders in Manhattan. Gov. David Paterson and leaders of the Senate and Assembly are meeting on how to confront a growing deficit driven by the projected loss of billions of dollars in tax revenue.

(continued)

[ezodisy]

"Britain's leading share index [FTSE 100] recorded its biggest ever one-day points fall on Monday with banking and commodity stocks taking a battering as the fallout from financial crisis once again overwhelmed global markets."

DAX in Germany got pummelled today and the CAC in Paris didn't do much better. Russia again closed down and so did Brazil for a while. More misery to come, especially for "Joe six-pack" (whoever t.f. that is).

[BachQ]

Russia again closed down and so did Brazil for a while.

Moscow is in a bloodbath: "The mood [in Moscow] is kind of disbelief. You'd think we would have gotten used to it by now," said Ron Smith, strategist at Moscow-based Alfa Bank. "[Moscow] Traders are just sitting there staring at the screens and going, 'Wow.' ... In this environment, nobody wants to step up to the table and buy a stock."

[ezodisy]

Moscow is in a bloodbath: "The mood [in Moscow] is kind of disbelief. You'd think we would have gotten used to it by now," said Ron Smith, strategist at Moscow-based Alfa Bank. "[Moscow] Traders are just sitting there staring at the screens and going, 'Wow.' ... In this environment, nobody wants to step up to the table and buy a stock."

Thanks for that. At a party last night I was talking to a Polish friend about this and he relished taking the piss out of the Russians for not quite grasping the concept of a free market and so on. The silly buggers seem to think it can only go up. Bless 'em  But for the past month or more I've seen news stories about international/US firms pulling out of the Russian market. It's not very surprising, even if seeing it on the day stuns for a while.

[BachQ]

The silly buggers seem to think it can only go up. Bless 'em 

LOL!    It seriously looks that way!   

Utterly dysfunctional.