Wall St. Goliath Teeters Amid Fear of Wider Crisis

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/business/14spiral.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

Wall St. Goliath Teeters Amid Fear of Wider Crisis

By VIKAS BAJAJ
Published: September 13, 2008

Fearing that Lehman Brothers is only days away from collapse, government officials and senior Wall Street executives met on Saturday to try to arrest a downward spiral that might imperil other financial institutions.

For a second day, the group convened at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Lower Manhattan, but the situation remained fluid, and the talks were set to resume on Sunday morning .

Adding urgency to the meeting were growing concerns that other big financial institutions like the insurance giant American International Group and the nation’s largest brokerage firm, Merrill Lynch, might face a similar crisis and also need billions of dollars in capital to strengthen their businesses. The group discussed the financial condition of other firms beyond Lehman and the overall state of the markets.

The spreading troubles were the latest sign that even the government’s extraordinary interventions into private enterprise during the last year have not been enough to halt the unraveling of storied companies that were widely viewed as unassailable until recently.

[Trajan]

1. Hey .. I have a GREAT idea ! ....

Lets take money from the poor, and help buttress the investments of the rich ....

You KNOW they would do it for us if the tables were turned ..... right ?

:sarcasm:

You know ? ..... I see no way out of this now .... They might as well let the big boys fall .. and let the 'Invisible Hand' sort it out ...

There will be a market fall .... and there will be failure and rampant unemployment, and a 30's style retrenchment ..... I dont see any way of getting around it .... the intervention isnt working ...

And to think: If the American people had been getting decent wage increases these last 3 decades, perhaps they could rescue the big boys AND pay their mortgage AND buy some cars and washing machines ..... but we 'poor folk' cant help ya now .....

We cant afford to bail you out now ....

[girl gone mad]

2. "teeters"?

Word on the street is they're kaput.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. paper says more discussion Sunday (shrug)

[zeemike]

4. The solution is simple

Print more money and bail them out with it.
It has the same effect as taxing the poor...especialy those on fixed incomes.
It won;t hurt the rich though, because they will become billionaires instead of millionaires.