Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
I posted the following comment there:
On the day the electronic run on the money markets happened, September 18th, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 11,019.69. This was roughly two weeks before the huge market collapse during the first week of October 2008. As an aside, I wonder how many members of Congress got cashed out their stocks that day?
Let me remind you of what happened that week.

At the end of Sunday, September 14th, BofA agreed to take over Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers was left to fail, which they did on Monday September 15th.

The markets lost heavily on Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday September 17th the two remaining investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, lost 25% and 15% respectively. They also started losing valuable clients, who moved their brokerage accounts to the likes of JP Morgan, which had a retail side and less leverage. Shortly thereafter MS and GS announced plans to merge with retail banks. The independent investment banks were no more.

On Thursday the 18th this alleged bank run happened. What we did know happened was that Paulson hit the PanicButton™ and announced his economic stimulus. It was clearly a rush job and it made very little sense. You can read Krugman's blog entries from that day on to see how ill-conceived the plan was.

On Friday the 19th the FT led with the headline "Markets Roar in Approval" and a picture of Paulson extending his arm across the page. Quite impressive. The rally lasted until the weekend and all the gains were lost over the followig week of Congressional bickering.

I had always thought Paulson had announced his stimulus plan to save his former company, GS. Maybe he had other motivations.



Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Feb 10th, 2009 at 06:08:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Looking at the DKOS diary that would make it seem that the republicans, by attempting to make the bailout fail are trying to bring about the conditions for martial law as supposedly mentioned in the talk given by Poulson, and so subvert the election result.

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Representative Sherman later revealed that members were warned that Martial Law would result if the $700 bailout plan was not passed, and Iguadland10 posted another video ascribing that particular warning to Paulson.


Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Tue Feb 10th, 2009 at 07:36:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I'd be curious to know: With what military was the Giant Talking Penis planning to implement martial law?

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Tue Feb 10th, 2009 at 07:44:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The strikeforce of free enterprise? after all they are out of work. Or perhaps it was just a threat that Cheney would grab more power, and then who would make him give it back?

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Tue Feb 10th, 2009 at 07:53:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Once in a while, a part of my feels reassured by the fact that our citizens are better-armed than most first-world soldiers.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Tue Feb 10th, 2009 at 07:59:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series