Markets tumble after Bear Stearns rescue fails to reassure »
Posted By JamesMarcus 1 year, 7 months ago in NewsShare prices around the world fell sharply today as shock waves from the collapse of US investment bank Bear Stearns swept through financial markets.
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JamesMarcus
James Marcus is a writer, translator, critic, and editor. He is the author of Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot-Com Juggernaut and ...
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nikkibabe1 year, 7 months ago
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Another 4 years of Bush with a McCain face mask will speed up the entry of USA to the third world.
India & China will benefit most while UAE(Dubai) will become the financial capital of the world. South Korea, China & Dubai will end up buying major US icons like Citicorp, Merril Lynch, JP Morgan and airlines like AA, United, Delta.
McCain will keep telling the "SURGE" is a success.
Neo conservatives then can put their tongue out in astonishment.
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ETproductions1 year, 7 months ago
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You are so right. Bush is on track to win the worst president in US history award. Previous contenders included:
James Buchanan - Perhaps the most experienced in government of any president ever elected, he did nothing as the union crumbled around him and the country erupted into civil war.
Herbert Hoover - Under his watch, and the other Republicans who preceded him, wealth continued to flow to the top 1% till they owned half of all the wealth of the nation. That triggered the Great Depression.
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tanglang1 year, 7 months ago
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Actually Nikki, what caused this whole mess is people who have no idea about what to do with their money getting in over their heads. Purchasing homes that are out of their price range and getting sucked into ARMs only finding out what ARM means after their being foreclosed on.
You can try to blame this on the President and the evil "neocon" conspiracy all you want but all you'll be doing is making a fool of yourself.
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mark-stevens1 year, 7 months ago
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NEARLY THREE YEARS AGO... Greenspan stood in front of Congress and told them "if the housing boom isn't reigned in, it could bankrupt the country" what came of that warning??
About the worse president, besides the depression, Hoover openly supported the KKK. Ask anyone with that knowledge who was the worse I believe Bush will alway come up short.
Bush still gas a few months to surpass Hoover!!
was the worse
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quackpot1 year, 7 months ago
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J.P. Morgan pikes up Bear Sterns for a song ($2/share) AND the Fed provides 30 billion in funding?
So, the average Joe tax-payer ponies up about $400/family of four so that the big boys at J.P. Morgan can make a killing off of this disaster?
Over the next year-and-a-half, J.P. Morgan expects to make a billion in after tax dollars off of this deal.
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Teech1 year, 7 months ago
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...."So, the average Joe tax-payer ponies up about $400/family of four so that the big boys at J.P. Morgan can make a killing off of this disaster?..."
Ah, yes, how sweet it is to be a fat cat Republican! The plan is working beautifully! When 99% of ALL wealth is in the hands of the ultra 1% it will be sweeter indeed! Hey, the $400 per family contribution is NOTHING compared to the $3,400 per PERSON, man, woman and child, contribution for Bushie's war!
But the ultimate is the $34,000, that's 34 grand, PER PERSON share for Bushie's 10 trillion national debt!
Vote for McCain and a straight Republican ticket to make those tax cuts permanent, keep the war going for 10, 20 more years, and COMPLETE THE PLAN!
Don't forget the $300 Bushie borrowed, from the deficit of course, to give you come April or May. Whooooeeeee! Go wild with it! And the 45 million dollars to send you the letter reminding you of how wonderful he is!
It's beautiful, baby...beautiful!
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nostalgia1 year, 7 months ago
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As senator from New York, Clinton has received the most money from employees of large Wall Street firms. Bear Stearns employees contributed the most to Clinton with total donations of $152,000. Likely Republican nominee John McCain received $47,000 from Bear Stearns employees and Obama got $36,000.
Obama is the biggest recipient of donations from JPMorgan employees â;; Obama received $270,000, Clinton's contributions were nearly $200,000 and McCain's were more than $60,000. According to McCain's latest personal financial disclosure report, his wife and dependent children had between $3 million and $7 million invested in JPMorgan financial instruments.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ityr953buDYK...
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mackiemesserComment removed: Retracted by user3 Replies
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cleare1 year, 7 months ago
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a sad statement on the fragility of the global economy which is based on perceived value, rather than on anything tangible.
i am often amazed and disgusted at the extremely poor level of competence in global corporate leadership. then those same failed leaders land safely thanks to platinum parachutes.
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simonsez1 year, 7 months ago
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Presidents get too much credit ... good and bad. Not Bushes fault.
What is hard to understand is why financial professionals were so willing to bet the farm to try to get double digit returns.
These are 50-60 year old professionals with 30 years experience in banking and investments choosing to make the kind of mistakes they made to achieve better numbers and a larger bonus. It borders on criminal in my mind.
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blowback1 year, 7 months ago
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Market forces.
It defied reason and better understanding
but it was the market trend and they all
followed it.
Such is the nature of capitalism.
It is not the application of intelligence.
It is the spasm of impulse and the desire
to not be left behind.
These were 50-60 year old guys who just
wanted to keep their jobs.
They knew it would wreak havoc in the
long term, but to say you were right even
when it cost you your job is cold comfort.
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nostalgia1 year, 7 months ago
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This has been coming and will likely hit others as well
Bear Stearns Faces Collapse of
$6 Billion Sub-Prime Unit
June 14, 2007 (EIRNS)â;;Bear Stearns put up $4 billion in Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) for sale in a desperate effort to shore up its losses in the sub-prime blow-out. Two of its hedge funds are in trouble, and if both are liquidated, as many on Wall Street expect, then a subsidiary of Bear Stearns, Everquest Financial, could go out of business as well, just as it was about to conduct an IPO.
http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/2007/070614bear_s...
"Plans announced Thursday by Rep Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, that would provide billions of dollars to states to buy homes in foreclosure and prod lenders into writing down the value of some mortgages"
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/editorials/ci_858...
Does that mean the US taxpayers will hold the mortgages on all of these homes?
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quackpot1 year, 7 months ago
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Forget about the little guy. The Paulson Plan is to save the Big Banks. Paulson's idea is to give the Big Bankers $200 billion of tax payer money in exchange for the worthless paper that they created. Who knows a few pennies might trickle down to those whose homes are in forelosure.
$200 billion is about $2500/family of four - only about twice as large as the celebrated stimulus package for the every day Joe.
More of Bush's welfare for the ultra-rich program.
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joeblowe1 year, 7 months ago
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Odd odor here - I heard somewhere that B/S was around $30 on the open market. But they sold out for $2.00? If true, something ain't right there. Again, if true, I'd expect to hear about a LOT of lawsuits. ... HaHaHa - I just googled for a price history chart, and there is ALREADY a web site set up to sue for lost value: www.bearstearnsinvestors.com
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walden31 year, 7 months ago
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This really angers me. These scumbags run their business into the ground, take their million $ bonuses, sell lousy products to those too lazy to do their own research and then leave the taxpayers holding the bag.
Why no outcry about this socialist/communist behavior of the government propping up big business, big money banks?
No government bailout. Let the chips fall where they may. Allow economic Darwinism to rule.
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tanglang1 year, 7 months ago
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The free market will always correct itself and prevail so long as we allow it to. The government should put more money in OUR hands and letting us handle this instead of using to bail out companies that probably deserve to go under.
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buckheadd1 year, 7 months ago
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The Bank of England moved to stabilise the markets this morning, offering £5bn of three-day funds in a move designed to bring overnight interest rates down. Banks scrambled for the cash, asking for nearly five times more than was on offer.
US president George Bush attempted to reassure the markets this afternoon, saying that the Fed had taken "strong and decisive" action.
"In the long run our economy's going to be fine. Right now we're dealing with a difficult situation."
BUCKHEADD FOR PRESIDENT! 2008! VOTE FOR ME AND YOU WILL EMBARK UPON AN UNFEIGNED JOURNEY HELPING PEOPLE HERE IN THE USA AND PEOPLE ALL AROUND THE WORLD!
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Gransater1 year, 7 months ago
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It would appear that when you replace rules, oversight and responsability with a free for all mentality with the aim of creating rapid fire commissions, this is what you end up with.
I find it difficult to classify whats going on as investments. Its more like a lottery of chance, where if you win you get to keep the spoils, and if you fail, your favorite uncle will come to the rescue. End result is that the little guy ends up paying for this mess twice. Once in lost principal and secondly when his taxes end up bailing out the big guy.
Of course, listening to some people, you are told that the economy is going ganbusters, and this is only a small bleep.
Isn't it time to bring back responsability to our economic system? It seems that it was working quite well, even when the rate of return on investment was 6%/year or less. The cost of living was stable, and most people who wanted work had employment.
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nostalgia1 year, 7 months ago
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Government has been pressuring banks for years to make more home loans available
Remeber all the complaints about "redlining" - it goes back to the late 1980's
Congress fixed 'redlining.' Result: Today's foreclosures
Redlining was the supposed practice of banks refusing to extend loans based on skin color and, in effect, drawing red lines on maps around minority neighborhoods. Though this particular series did go on to win a Pulitzer that year, some contended the idea was bunkum - that what banks were really doing was refusing to offer loans to bad risks, some of whom happened to be minorities.
Regulators and other federal officials joined with community groups to persuade banks to ease up on their standards. Congress itself weighed in with legislation pressuring lenders to provide home mortgages with far less hesitation than good business sense dictated.
An unintended consequence was today's ballooning number of foreclosures.
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nostalgia1 year, 7 months ago
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Other reasons help account for the mortgage crisis, of course, such as some borrowers acting irresponsibly or even fraudulently and some banks thinking that a little deception here and there would not come back to haunt them. But the rush to extend mortgages to people who could not afford them and who sometimes had a history of not paying their bills was also instigated in no small measure by the redlining hyperbole.
Testimony about all of this comes from a tellingly detailed New York Post piece by Stan Liebowitz, an economist at the University of Texas at Dallas, and at the conclusion of an article by Alan Reynolds, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/145/story/10...
Anyone think congress will admit they are part of the problem??
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