Bye Bye Banks and Wall Street

[Gemini Cricket]

Stocks skidded Monday afternoon, with the Dow's nearly 778-point drop being the worst single-day point loss ever, after the House rejected the government's $700 billion bank bailout plan.

$ource (Bolding is mine.)
Wow. This is intense.

[Kevy Baby]

Records were made to be broken.


I wouldn't panic. This is just crap on paper and will balance itself out.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

$ource (Bolding is mine.)
Wow. This is intense.

Just for reference sake, percentage wise today's drop is not even in the top 5.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

I wouldn't panic. This is just crap on paper and will balance itself out.

B.S. The numbers may be on paper, but somewhere down the line people's lives are affected. And just because the numbers eventually come back doesn't mean people aren't left in the dust when they do. It's not about balance sheets, it's about people who are very likely to get screwed by the dumb risks that other people have taken.

I am not in support of a blank-check bailout plan that props up the people who made the mistakes (and that includes the consumers who willingly took loans they couldn't afford). But that doesn't mean I don't believe that something needs to be done, relatively quickly, to prevent their mistakes from adversely affecting those who did NOT take part in the reckless risk taking.

[innerSpaceman]

it's all self-fullfilling disaster. The only reason something now needs to be done to calm the markets is because Paulson told the world that Congress would do something this week to calm the markets. Now that they might not, the markets are in a panic they wouldn't otherwise have been.


Similarly, I can't blame anyone for balking when the Treasury and the Fed are asking for 3/4 of a trillion dollars to control, claiming they are the only guys smart enough to fix the problem they weren't smart enough to contribute mightily to in the first place.


It's all topsy-turvy, LewisCarollian illogical craziness. Burn, baby, burn.



Very callous of me, but things will play out whether we throw money at it or not ... might as well not, imo.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

I wouldn't panic. This is just crap on paper and will balance itself out.

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

B.S. The numbers may be on paper, but somewhere down the line people's lives are affected. And just because the numbers eventually come back doesn't mean people aren't left in the dust when they do. It's not about balance sheets, it's about people who are very likely to get screwed by the dumb risks that other people have taken.

I am not in support of a blank-check bailout plan that props up the people who made the mistakes (and that includes the consumers who willingly took loans they couldn't afford). But that doesn't mean I don't believe that something needs to be done, relatively quickly, to prevent their mistakes from adversely affecting those who did NOT take part in the reckless risk taking.

I took Kevy's comments to be about today's stock market dip rather than the crisis as a whole. People who own stocks don't need to panic due to today's drop, they just need to ride it out. Sure on paper some of my investments are worth about 6% less this afternoon than this morning. Meh. I'll just wait for tomorrow, or the next day, or the next month or the next year..

[3894]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

I'll just wait for tomorrow, or the next day, or the next month or the next year..

Which is fine ... if you can wait. What about the retirees and the college students and all the others who, for one reason of another, truly need the money to be there?

No guarantees in life, not for retirement or college or any of it. This is the way the Reagan era dies, not with a whimper but a bang.

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

It's all topsy-turvy, LewisCarollian illogical craziness. Burn, baby, burn.



Very callous of me, but things will play out whether we throw money at it or not ... might as well not, imo.

Noted. So any LoTers who lose their homes/jobs to this crisis can come stay at your place, right?

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by 3894

Which is fine ... if you can wait. What about the retirees and the college students and all the others who, for one reason of another, truly need the money to be there?

No guarantees in life, not for retirement or college or any of it. This is the way the Reagan era dies, not with a whimper but a bang.

Then they were idiots for having it in the stock markets. That is not a place to keep money you need anytime soon.

[3894]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

Then they were idiots for having it in the stock markets. That is not a place to keep money you need anytime soon.

For retirees, a lot of them had no choice. Their pension funds are automatically in stocks.