Originally posted by ZeruelClick Here (news.yahoo.com)
AIG gets $85 million in bailout money. Wow.
Even bigger wow: That 85 million should actually say 85 "billion".
I'm glad you caught that. My proofreading skills have gone to crap this week. I had begged a friend to let me help her dad because I have the free time to help him do huge amounts of data entry for a side project for him and when he finally trusts me to do it, I bugger it all up. Bad proof reading week for me...sigh.
On a related note, what happens to WaMu now? I really don't care as I had the misfortune to have a mortgage with them and I paid it off early to be rid of them. Payments would go missing and be found months later. I'd get double billed frequently. I just hated being on hold for 3 hours every month for them to get my account straight. Worst six months ever.
Aaand over here, Lloyds TSB took over HBOS (news.bbc.co.uk) for £12.2bn (approx $20billion) after HBOS's shares went to shit.
The merged behemoth now owns about 96.2% of Britain and has first dibs on any children born here for the next five years.
Or, more accurately, they've got pretty much a third of the UK's current account market all to themselves but we shouldn't worry because "financial stability" must take priority over fears about lack of competition.
Because size assures stability you see. And to be fair there are absolutely no instances of major financial institutions going bust in recorded history. Seriously. Not one. Nope. Never.
Selling short and selling aren't the same thing Selling short involves borrowing stock from someone else, selling it, and then promising to deliver it later. You do that when you are betting on the stock going down.
I actually own my shares, and I could sell them right now if I wanted to. But! I am a sucker, and I'm long on both of these stocks with the ridiculous price I got them at :)
Originally posted by WhitebaconI've got a question. My truck is financed through Wachovia and I have a credit card through WaMu. What happens to me if these companies go under?
someone will probably purchase those assets to help settle the company's debts. The truck loan is an asset to the bank that would be transferred to whoever bought it or to the chap 11 dissolution organization to resolve. The credit card itself might cancel, but any balance would go the same route.
We'll be back right after order has been restored here in the Omni Center.
“That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy” - Swift
CATFISHGURU: I'm a bottom feeder. I'm in AIG at around 2.50 and Wamu at 3.
Yeah. and thanks to the government, you'll still be there this time next year!
Trillion Dollar bailout. When I was a kid, the next number after "trillion" was "kazillion". Someone needs to patent the namings rights, because we'll be at that number in 10 years
"Flea: the actual number is quadrillion"
No shit. but that name is for the squares. We need a cool pop reference culture term. Kind of like "rightsizing". That's the term for "layoffs". Which is the printable term for shit-canned.
Someone will come up with it. Hope it's not anyone I know. Or Seinfeld
FLEA
Demonstrations are a drag. Besides, we're much too high
You would think there would be a way to wipe the slate cleaning ie an executive order or a bill passed by Congress to just wipe it like Chapter 7 or 11, before it got changed. I would also hope that if the government does bail these people out there will be consequences for the CEOs and Board of Directors. I would hate to see these guys get to keep their expensive homes and toys while everyone else suffers.
I also don't see any real help for the people already trapped in those loans. You have to equity or a few grand to re-finance and at this point great credit. Of course, if you had great credit, you probably would have been able to get a locked rate instead of those crazy adjustable rates. Good thing, I got my house for 100% financing and a locked rate of 6.01%. I would never gamble with those rates.
Originally posted by RYDER FAKINCATFISHGURU: I'm a bottom feeder. I'm in AIG at around 2.50 and Wamu at 3.
Yeah. and thanks to the government, you'll still be there this time next year!
Naah -- for better or worse, thanks to the government, next year they'll be back at ... say 10. Year after that 14. Got time? Wait just a couple more, & they're back up in the low end of where that stuff should be trading. (Lower 20's-30's.) Even if you didn't buy more in the trough, it's all good. Catfish stay fat on their dinners!!!
Yup, the system's overly-fiddled. Annnnnd... how do you best leverage that?
(I've had some stuff... went from nice mothers-n-orphans to nearly flat-line plummeted. Wait for it. Don't move! Got bought. Got acquired. Got takeover'd. Right now, back to trading at about the same price (per share) that it started. Oh, did I mention the n-way splits every time it got re-acquired? Offhand, I think I own at least 5x as many shares as I started with.)
As long as you're playing with your "can afford to lose" money, it's all good. But, 'cha don't gamble what you can't afford to lose! (I believe I co'opted that from Dr. Phil, from a completely different context.)
Well, my short term worry is that this is the last of the shorts and options positions closing out what they aren't legally allowed to do now. I'm not sure if it is necessarily a bump due to the myserious bailout (I see no real terms) or if it is just due to people having to buy to cover since their positions no longer exist.
Originally posted by lotjxYou would think there would be a way to wipe the slate cleaning ie an executive order or a bill passed by Congress to just wipe it like Chapter 7 or 11, before it got changed. I would also hope that if the government does bail these people out there will be consequences for the CEOs and Board of Directors. I would hate to see these guys get to keep their expensive homes and toys while everyone else suffers.
How would wiping the slate clean really help at all? That would just screw over another set of people.
And lets be honest, everyone, not just CEOs or BDs have a hand in this. That includes those who took out loans, etc. and if they were at all honest, knew they shouldn't get credit.
But it's done know and we have to bail out the big boys for the sake of the entire economy.
After all the fun people had after the Patriot Act was rushed through Congress 7 years ago, is it a really good LONG TERM (I know that goes against most things that occur on the market and in Washington lately) thinking to have a lame duck President completely shift the course of the American economy so a lame duck Treasury Secretary can bail out his old buddies on Wall Street? Considering how well the government does with money, they'll be chasing this trillion with another trillion etc. just like a gambler who thinks he's only a 5 team parley away from breaking even.
Originally posted by redsoxnationAfter all the fun people had after the Patriot Act was rushed through Congress 7 years ago, is it a really good LONG TERM (I know that goes against most things that occur on the market and in Washington lately) thinking to have a lame duck President completely shift the course of the American economy so a lame duck Treasury Secretary can bail out his old buddies on Wall Street? Considering how well the government does with money, they'll be chasing this trillion with another trillion etc. just like a gambler who thinks he's only a 5 team parley away from breaking even.
Here's my problem with that. I am not as zealous as some folks. I am willing to consider that there may be temporary things that occur I am not happy with.