Failing Financial Institutions

Does anyone else feel like we should be worried? Just a little? Maybe?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/15/banks. ... index.html



http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2008/09 ... l-mondays/

It's a nightmare everywhere at the moment. How can the economy go from being so strong to collapsing like this?

Businesses all over the place are going bust every day with one being the third largest holiday orginisation in the UK. Airlines too are going bust, and i see that one of the main banks in the US is now bankrupt.

I don't have much optimism for anything right now.

Today was the largest one day drop in the DOW since September 11, 2001 when the terrorist attacks took place on US soil. My portfolio dropped 11% today.



http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080915/wall_street.html

I work with this lady who is all into the conspiracy theories and stuff, and she thinks that the airlines that are going bust and raising prices and stuff is to limit the amount people travel down to driving distance. And then the high gas prices limit how much we drive, effectively detaining us against our will without us actually knowing about it. It's a good theory, but it isn't completely water tight.

i'M Stocking up on Ammo........ just in case! lol

NOW, is the time to start borrowing money.

Which bank was it that went bankrupt?

Lehman Brothers Investment Bank went bankrupt and Merrill Lynch was on the verge but got bought up by Bank o' America . This is on the heels of the government taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which was on the heels of the government bailing out Bear Stearns.

From what I understand AIG is next.

Last I read on the situation the US started out with 5 major banks at the beginnig of 2008, and there will be only 2 at the end of the year.

It's strange seeing this, a lot of the names going under are ones I'd come to know as "Bigger than Government" in a sense while growing up.

I'm banking with Commerce Bank... I don't think they are going bankrupt are they? I've grown to trust them

My bank is called Tier One, I think they are a pretty small regional bank. I'm not sure if banking with a small bank is better or worse than banking with a big bank. Big banks have more to loose and make a bigger crater when they blow up, but small banks don't have as good of Plan B's and Plan C's and Plan D's that the big banks have.

I don't think you all need to worry. These were big players in the mortgage business. They failed because of poor regulatory policy from the Feds and too much zeal (a.k.a. greed) in sub-prime lending. Most banks, the ones we do our 'banking' at, are fine and still insured by the Feds.

This is a major reshuffling of the big players in finance, though, and that's why it's unnerving. You can see the effect it had on the market yesterday.

Hopefully, the remaining players will all settle down and get back to where they need to be. While Bank of America looks like it's going to come out on top of all this, at the same time they'll be acquiring a lot of bad paper, too.

For years, certain political elements have been carrying the banner of "deregulation" and "no regulation". These events are a damn good arguments against that.

It's nice to see the top executives of these banks are being denied their multi-million dollar severance packages by the Government.

Some interesting news from this side of the pond is two of the biggest banks in the UK are in talks of a merger. I can't help but think that if the talks fail then one of them is going to go bust. I am lead to think this because that's exactly what was happening with the Lehman Brothers bank.

The UK banks in merger talks are the HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) and Lloyds TSB. Both of these banks merged with other banks in the past when Halifax bought over the Bank of Scotland and Lloyds bought over the TSB bank (Trustee Savings Bank). So, this gives you an idea on how big a deal this is going to be if it goes ahead. I really hope it does as i don't think anyone wants to hear of any more banks going bust.

I'm with the Royal Bank of Scotland which i was lead to believe as being one of the biggest and strongest banks in the world, so i'm pretty confident things are going to be okay with them although at the beginning of this "Credit Crunch" there was a little bit of fear.

Looks like AIG will be sticking around.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... QAz6YiyRAI