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The View From the Floor

    • Imperial Japan and the two pieholes in Europe laughed on December 7th and lived to rue the day amidst the rubble of their former empires. Enjoy the moment. Iraq will thrive, we'll correct our financial system, and you can keep the pinup poster of Mr. Obama. Better yet, we'll give him a one way ticket to your country where he can inspire the populace with dreams of hope clinging to the tattered socialism that makes you so wretchedly envious. Glad you're there.

    • Total Cost: 3,000 american lives.

      Nothing else matters.

    • I am with Rhombus001. Most of the world has received a free ride from the USA since WW II. Now you'll have to spend some of your treasury and blood.

    • George,
      While I share you view that the US economy is not only taking water in serious manner, but that she is headed for the rocks should McCain take the White House, I do not share your schadenfreude.

      Thanks to the wonders of globalisation our economic wellbeing is tethered to theirs, and if they are determined to mire themselves on a shoal, it is only a matter of time before we join them.

    • How smart is it for the future of this country for the federal government to spend more and more money year after year that it does not have? America's financial corporate giants have been reckless and irresponsible and we get the "credit crunch". However, we will get runaway inflation and a depression with continued reckless and irresponsible deficit spending from Washington D.C. that will dwarf the credit crunch fiasco.

    • I'm afraid the only thing the govt can do is make it worse or not. Neither Obama or McCain can correct what is occurring- a massive debt bubble that has popped. It would help if someday Americans realize this- we shouldn't elect men to run the economy- it's been tried before to ill effect.

    • Treasury Secretary Paulson presides over the destruction of Bear Stearns and now Lehman Brothers, and not a word from anyone about the potential conflict of interest by Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs. The NYSE knows the score, which is why they had Goldman Sachs process Lehman Bros. trades. Of the five major Wall Street investments houses, only JPMorganChase and Goldman Sachs remain independent. All under Paulson's watch. Coincidentally, JPMorganChase and Goldman Sachs are partners in ICE, the London based commodity firm that has done so much to drive up the price of oil futures in the past year. So Paulson has cleared the Wall Street playing field of competition just before he leaves office.

      Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers, never understood until it was too late that Paulson intended to wipe out Fuld's firm, that the targeted short selling that drove Lehman Brothers shares down was only the first step in a plan to drive Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy. If any foreign firm indicated it was going to buy Lehman Brothers, Paulson would have his cut-outs pressure the potential buyer into canceling the deal.

      Corruption in high places indeed.

    • Hmmm... $30bil in form of super-senior loan to LEH to save firm, keep 25k jobs, and stabilize the market. Or... let them hang and watch $3 trillion in capital (including taxpayer's pensions and 401k's) evaporate in the ensuing carnage. Moral hazard? Maybe. But what about just good, plain, old-fashioned business sense? This and the destructiom of the preferred share classes at FRE and FNM will go down as watershed moments in the history of the demise of all independent Wall St. broker dealers - including GS and MS, who are next. Aftr that, its on to the FDIC.

    • Some of these comments are sick. Do we cheer the misfortunes of the rest of the world? Nah, we're there with the cash and the food and the support and the troops...
      I have a suggestion: rather than worry about the financial markets in the US, we could just end ALL of our foreign aid and support to the rest of the world. That would clear our books in a few years.
      After the global also-rans muck it up to the point of their own demise (which we can all watch live on the BBC), they'll be begging to sell us the things they've accused us of taking all these years. We'll keep our food and cash and , they can eat their oil and TV's....Watch the lights go out when Atlas shrugs......... BTW, if ANYONE out there votes for ANY (R or D) Rep or Sen that took money from the Fannie or Freddie lobbyists, well, you need to send me a check for my share of the bailout. Enjoy the show...

    • It was nice to read an account of today's activity on the floor.

      Too bad all the other commenters bicker about macro-child play.

    • People stop worrying. The Clueless Evangelista will soon be your president and when she replaces the constitution with her bible, that will fix everything. Incompetent government got you down? Palin, her family, and close friends will be appointed to run the government and they will do to the United States what he did to Waysilly.

    • Buried in the detritus of today's news on AIG is the fact that NY State's Governor Paterson (not the State Superintendent of Insurance) announced that NY is willing to permit AIG parent to swap certain underwater long term assets (of uncertain value) with marketable bonds (of easily determinable value) that are held by some of the AIG insurance companies controlled by the parent.

      In other words, the marketable assets that now back up the insurance liabilities of AIG's insurance companies to protect policyholders will be replaced by non-marketable assets that AIG itself can't sell and whose value is unclear.

      This act of "support" for AIG deserves condemnation as it would place millions of policyholders of the AIG insurance companies in peril. Any AIG director who would vote to permit such a swap is violating his or her fiduciary duties to the insurance company on whose board s/he serves.

      While those policyholders lucky enough to be covered by various State Insurance Guarantee Funds (such "funds" -- which are wholly UNfunded -- exist on both the life and property-casualty side) may be somewhat protected (assuming the guarantee fund structure work, and having been heavily involved with writing and revising many state's "guarantee laws I have my doubts they would work as expected). Those whose policies fall without the coverage scheme because of the spotty nature of the protection offered, or to the extent the size of their policy or claim exceeds the threshold for coverage will be in deep trouble.

      The AIG companies had enjoyed extra-ordinarily high ratings from what we now all realize have been rather inept credit rating agencies --Best's, S&P and Moody's. If $20 billion in good assets are "swapped" (or is it "stolen"?) at the direction of AIG parent for less than marketable assets of dubious value to prop up the parent, those insurers' ratings should disappear.

      Stay tuned.

      Barack and the DNC hired Los Angeles company called Donor Services Group/Facter Direct to raise funds for them and Donor uses the call center in Manilla, Phillipines to raise them money so the cost is less to DNC & Barack.

      It's no secret but the voters should be told that jobs are at stake and that Obama is a liar about outsourcing and Howard Dean is too!

      So much for Americans getting back to work under Obama-Biden

    • Where is my fellow traveler, the all powerful, all knowing, all seeing omnipresent, "One will fall and the others will follow soon" - the great delationary depression man about town. I hope he isn't passed out somewhere with an empty bottle of stolen Bilderberg wine muttering to himself, "The Undertaker" and I were really right!. All hail to the soothsayer of omniscience "The OZ', great job wherever you are. Help me out here buddy I'm buried in my work. The demons of the economic dark hole are being released and the illuminati reign supreme. My 4 45,500 ton big bertha German trenchers are showing heavy metal fatigue and 401 K holders are wailing in the streets. I'M overwhelmed, the gates of the netherworld are under heavy strain from all the new arrivals clawing at the design of Lucifer. It's absolute hell here and Madame Guillotine is snaping up heads like a rabid venus flytrap. I may have to go vacation in Liechtenstein or the Caymans with all the wall street criminals and government graft officials for a rest. I need you man!

    • Back in 1999, an organization called PNAC published a manifesto of war for profit and world domination. Nobody took them seriously. Then Bush surrounded himself with 16 PNAC members and they all pushed for War against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. They said what they were going to do, and they did what they said. And still, nobody paid attention. Now we have a trillion dollar war, a government filled with political ideologists, political partisanship tearing this country apart, and deregulationists ignoring the rule of law and bringing America towards financial ruin and turning the government into a giant cash cow. And still I'll bet many of you refuse to believe it.
      And now we have McCain. The man who's very surname translates into "of the house of Cain". Being supported by Armageddonites; people who think they can rush the second coming by pushing for armageedon. People like Jerry Fallwell and John Hagee want to use the resources of the American government to bring about armageddon. And they just might be able to do it too. The RNC leadership is littered with people sympathetic to their cause.
      People, you have been warned. The armageddonites are real, their agend is real, and the threat is as real as PNACs once was. American ignored the threat of PNAC; ignore the threat of the armageddonites at your own peril.

    • What idiot - and I really mean that - would roll out a complete overhaul of the WSJ website in the middle of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression? At a time when people turn to the online journal to quickly find news updates, they are supposed to navigate a whole new website? Really?

    • q

    • All confidence has been lost in our nation's leadership and financial institutions. Go to and read the fine artcile "What your financila adviser won't tell you". Then get out of this market. Fast.

    • Shareholders have lost money, but at least they can claim the capital tax losses and move onto their next investment. It is it is the unfortunate employees who suffer the most at the end of the day. Per this review ( ) employees of the collapsed financial institutions are the hardest hit because not only do they rely on the company for their paycheck and livelihood, they also tend to be long term stock holders (via ESPP)

    • wow - where is this going? Funny running into Thain on Friday before the madness struck. Who does Thain think he is anyway?

    • To 'Every Day Investor'-Wow! What's in that Kool-Aid you're drinking?

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