I don’t write about economic issues for a simple reason. I can’t offer unique insights or useful correctives to the economic media, and I don’t want to offer people financial advise when I am not qualified to do so. It’s not indifference that leads me to avoid commenting on economic trends, but humility. Like John McCain, my understanding of complex financial markets and instruments is limited. Since I became a full-time political blogger, my knowledge of economic trends has atrophied dramatically, as I no longer have time to peruse business and investment literature.
But, today I have to make an exception. Today is no ordinary day. The Stock Market is tumbling with news that Lehman Brothers has gone into liquidation and Merrill Lynch has been bought up by Bank of America. America is sneezing and the world is catching the flu, as international markets match our slide. Industrial output in August was the lowest since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in September 2005. Corn and soybean crops are suffering from sustained drought, and that will create inflationary pressure on commodities. Nearly a third of the nation’s top executives are looking to cut jobs in the coming months.
Unless you subscribe to the view that all news is excellent news for John McCain, this is not good news for John McCain. And the Obama campaign is on the offensive this morning. They have reminded the press about a speech Obama gave back in March, where he warned of these types of economic woes if we did not get our house in order. They sent Joe Biden out with a blistering populist critique of McCain as being “firmly in the corner of the wealthy and well-connected,” and as a man “so firmly in [Oil Company CEO’s] corner he’d hand the Exxon-Mobils of the world another $4 billion dollars a year.”
George W. Bush’s ruinous policies have now trickled all the way up to highest echelons of Wall Street and they are about to turn around and come racing back down to wash away what’s left of the middle class. Them’s the facts. The era of no-regulation ‘you’re on your own economics’ is coming to an end. And John McCain is down in Jacksonville, saying, ““We will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government. This is a failure.” No. John McCain is a failure. The Republican Party is a failure. The only reforming McCain would do is to try to stave off the populist backlash against the greedheads and warmongers that have bought our country so low.
Seeing how John McCain voted 90% of the time with W, he is partially responsible for endorsing the failed policy’s of the past. McCain is so out-of-touch with the working men of this country, that his main issue is “lipstick on a pig” comments, while people of this country are suffering.
link
The bit on pain trickling up was a perfect line. Needs to be in an ad, ASAP.
This is really bad. A friend of mine in London was talking to me about the debt Lehman owed to Citi. Long story short, Citi could fail.
Wachovia could go, too.
And then we’re in for a world of trouble.
Citi, Wachovia, AIG, the whole nine is coming down.
AIG may not survive the day. It is already off 65%, down from $12 to around $4 a share.
WaMu could be next. The more dominoes fall, the less chance the remaining dominoes have to survive.
No one is safe says Roubini just now on Bloomberg.
Add Goldman and Morgan Stanley — won’t exist in present form. Others are betting WaMu won’t last to the weekend.
Wilbur Ross sees 1,000 banks failing.
They all drank at the punch bowl of OTC derivatives.
X commodities, OTC derivatives stand at a whopping $455 trillion.
the first wave of the financial tsunami.
Well, I’m glad he’s jumping on this, but maybe it’s past time to get over the fear of being the angry black man. Why the need to not “fault” McCain? He’s been in the thick of the supply-side insanity for decades. It’s not a philosophy that’s responsible, it’s a corrupt Republican Party peddling counterfeit nostrums for the purpose of enriching its own clients and destroying everybody else.
So, it’s a step forward. The message is as strong as we’re going to see withing the two-party system, but the language needs work. We know from his speeches that Obama can do it. Apparently he needs to hire writers as good as himself.
Thankfully, McCain has a different response.
Watch McCain via TPM:
All is well,
….. It’s All good
He still has his wife’s 8 houses, private jet, and his ferra shoes.
from ceebs at ET”
har!
/satire
your disclaimer aside, you got the header dead on “Economic Calmity”
“Once in a Century Event,” says Alan Greenspan co-architect of the event.
There’s a deep nugget buried in the news overnight.
While the Federal Reserve and Treasury said NO to Lehman’s toxic debt of $600 billion, they have extended the Begging Bowl: The Feds will now take equities as collateral for loans
WOW! in a falling market, the worse yet to come as market entrails shout.
Here’s the thing, my niece has a lemonade stand, wonder if she’ll be eligible?
Next shoe to drop; reported on Bloomberg – AIG, WaMu and 1,000 banks. FDIC will need a bailout too.
By Golly, I think we oughta entrust our Social Security fund and our pensions to them nice fellers on Wall St., ’cause they know exactly what there doin’…
A Category 5 financial hurricane is about to hit the US. Heckuva job, Georgie.
Our whole financial system is a house of cards and when it all finally comes tumbling down even the Humpty Dumpty Fed wont be able to put it back again. There have been people warning this would happen for months like Mike Whitney whose articles you can read over at ICH but they are largely ignored. So hold onto your hats folks if you think the crash of 29 was bad then as they say you aint seen nothing yet.
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Link: Mike Whitney articles @ICH
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Put in tech speak: this is a feature of conservative governance, not a bug. They knew it would come to this; they just didn’t care.
Let’s face it. The Republicans will AGAIN get away with blaming the dismal economic picture on the fact that we have overtaxed the wealthy so that investment has been diminished.
The people believe it: has a poor man ever offered you a job. That trite line is still being recylced and many are accepting it as truth. Dead Reaganomics is still with us, and in the next administration, the rich will do even better.
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We need to recognize it’s already there, otherwise we won’t solve the problem. There is no major infusion of capital into the system. Too late in addressing the poor economy. Main street is not independent from Wall street, the problems will be felt in job losses and lack of credit.
We need a second stimulis package for the economy, infrastructure investment are an absolute mecessity and we need to create jobs.
Morning Brief: Wall Street’s black Sunday
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I don’t have anything to add here, just an observation.
I was watching the Today Show this morning. Of course I don’t watch to be informed; I watch to see what they will cover. Anyway, one of the first features was of course, the demise of Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch. The segment featured Meredith Viera, Jim Cramer and Maria Bartiromo. Though they were trying their best version of Don’t Panic! you could see in their clothing–dark, somber clothes for all three of them. They all looked like they were about to attend a funeral.
Make that what you will.
Mike Whitney’s latest article
Capital Punishment: Lehman on its way to the Gallows?
here…..http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20765.htm