Fasten your Seatbelts! Cat 5 Hurricane Bush-McCain headed towards Wall Street

[FrenchieCat]

Source: Bloomberg.com

U.S. stock-index futures tumbled on concern a potential Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. bankruptcy will add to banks' $514 billion of subprime-related losses.

Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury officials met in an emergency session as Barclays PLC abandoned talks to acquire Lehman, the fourth-largest U.S. securities firm until last week. Bank of America Corp. also ended takeover discussions, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in December retreated 38.90, or 3.1 percent, to 1,219.60 at 6:07 p.m. in New York. The benchmark index for U.S. equities declined 15 percent this year, led by a 28 percent plunge in financial companies.

``The collapse of this deal casts a dark cloud over Wall Street,'' said Frederic Dickson, who helps oversee $25 billion as chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon. ``It also sends a message that the government is getting out of the bailout business and makes financial institutions like AIG and WaMu look even more vulnerable.''
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aj2YoIEqVGOE&refer=home

[FrenchieCat]

1. Yes.....we will need hip high wading boots for this shit!

Source: BBC NEWS

Preparations are being made in case the US investment bank Lehman Brothers has to file for bankruptcy protection.

The firm was pushed to the brink on Sunday after UK bank Barclays pulled out of talks to buy most of Lehman.

If no new financing is found before Wall Street opens on Monday, Lehman will have to seek so-called Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

In the UK, accountancy firm PWC has been lined up to run the British operations of Lehman.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7615712.stm

[still_one]

2. and who was the president the last eight years again? /nt

[BeyondGeography]

3. The financial terrorists are going to give us an October surprise

The worst stock market decline since 9/11. Maybe that will resonate with the Murkans.

[FrenchieCat]

5. Maybe that is what it will take.......

The great economic equalizer to come and kick everyone in their ass.

[Imagevision]

4. We won't be seeing Bush or Cheney till January 20th...

[FrenchieCat]

6. They'll be in an undisclosed location

while McCain talks in vague slogans, confusing generalization and in deceitful circles. :crazy:

[RagAss]

11. ....while pissing in his Depends.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

7. Does McCain know what the problem is?

he'll say 'what crisis?'

[FrenchieCat]

9. He's divorced from the problems of middle class Americans,

can't remember how many houses he owns, offers up and extremist Fundamentalist as his running mate in order to win American Idol, and is totally out of touch....him and his $520.00 shoes.

But you know...he was a POW.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. we have to hammering away at him. I have NO sympathy for him.

[BlueIdaho]

8. Ownership...

George Bush called it the ownership society - Barack said the republicans must own their failures and I say amen!

Remind everyone you meet this economic disaster is brought to you but George Bush, John McCain and the congressional republicans. Then ask them if they want four more years of the last eight years. Make them own their disaster.

[abumbyanyothername]

10. As a bacterium who has been working in the bowels of finance

for the last 25 years . . .

I would advise you to get your money out of banks, and if you are a real doom and gloomer, out of paper/electronic credits also (i.e., into gold).

The whole US economy is shot and until the complete collapse happens, the bad news will just keep slamming in.

We are going to have to re-tool our economy along the following lines:

1) Home grown energy -- whether solar, wind, geothermal or biomass. Drilling doesn't help because off-shore sources like the brutal and corrupt Saudi regime can always undercut us.

2) Locally grown, unprocessed foods. Take middle America out of the "unicrop" mode and turn these farms back into operations that, first, grow to feed themselves, then, share the bounty and excess with city dwellers. While we are at it, push the population back out of the cities and onto the farms. Break farms into smaller, self-sustaining units.

3) Focus on efficiency and quality of life rather than growth and absolute dominance of financial considerations over all other aspects of life.

4) Transportation, generally with more focus on mass or communal transportation and less on individual transportation units and communication. GM, Ford and Chrysler are all bankrupt.

5) Health, and I mean all aspects of creating and maintaining health, rather than just medicine. This will mean the end of the drug culture that is designed to hold back the effects of our utter rotten diets.

In some ways it might be better if the pugs won this, because whoever wins it won't be pretty. I trust Obama to do better with this than the Lobbyist Party, but people are going to have to sacrifice and the consumerist revolution that began in the 50s has peaked and burned out in just 50 years. It is downhill (from our more recent perspectives) from here and back to the more agrarian model that preceded the post WWII era.

[GoesTo11]

13. Good thing I have a 401k and not a pension!

All the literature said "assuming a conservative 8% return, by age 65 you'll have $3 million dollars" or some nonsense like that. My new retirement plan is to keep working until I can retire.