It's tough not to feel at least a little alarmed at the near panic that is shaking even the most venerable Wall Street firms.
The news yesterday that Lehman Brothers is filing for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch, the city's pension fund advisor, is selling itself to Bank of America to avoid more turmoil can't help shaking confidence in an already iffy economy.
But is this merely the correction for a misguided bet on bad mortgages by some dumb financial pros or is it something deeper and more worrisome?
I sure don't know the answer.
As a reporter working for a newspaper company whose stock is bouncing around at a penny or two a share, I do know that I feel slightly better now that I can say my company is more solid than Lehman Brothers.
Still, there is an uneasy feeling that the ground we all stand on is nowhere near as firm as we'd like anymore.
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
11 comments:
Steve, you bring up such an important point when you say "there is an uneasy feeling that the ground we all stand on is nowhere near as firm as we'd like anymore." We ARE vulnerable and we cannot count on Wall Street to insure our financial security, neither can we count on our own innovation to control the weather. We can lead our own lives with integrity, compassion and lawfulness, but we cannot count on everyone else to do the same. So where does that leave us? The worldwide problem we are dealing with is greed, and we are in a crucial time where we as individuals need to examine our own lives and realize that concentrating only on our own agenda will eventually bring about the demise of all of us. As a Christian believer, I want to remind myself and others that because of the troubles in this world, we need to put our trust in the only "rock" and that is our only basis for a firm foundation.
"...and Merrill Lynch, the city's pension fund advisor, is selling itself to Bank of America to avoid more turmoil can't help shaking confidence in an already iffy economy."
All the more reason why raiding City pension funds for GASB 45 is such a bad idea. The pension fund values fluctuate with The Street.
3 words - New World Order. Call me crazy If it was bad mortgages don't you think it would be a lot easier to just let people write-off their bad part of their mortgages then redo their mortgages for what their house is actually? Bank would still be in the hole but not by the billions they are in now....This is a lot deeper then people really know
Wait until the Credit Card companies begin to go belly up as people begin to default on their credit card accounts. Grab the handle bars this is far from over.
How will it affect Bristol?
If all those investment companies collapse, and the mutual fund companies and banks get wacked, whose left to buy and market those state and municipal bonds that we wish to issue in order support those school construction projects and other construction projects?
If someone does buy those bonds, given bad economic conditions, won't we have to pay the investors higher premiums?
Therefore, in the long run, we'll have to tax the citizens more in order to run our other affairs.
Is that what this Wall Street debacle means?
I guess you, Collins, are again showing your leftist, anti-capitalism, anti-business Democrat side again.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were quasi-government companies created by your hero, Bill Clinton so that all the lower-middle class people could attain a house (evidently ones that many could not afford).
Time to stop basing your opinion on the Op-Ed section of the Times, the Courant, the monthly flier from the AFL-CIO and do some real research Mr. partisan Democrat.
Some of you could see partisan politics in a cup of water.
The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, by the way, was signed into law by Nixon.
Steve,
I'm a Republican from way back and I want you to know that whatever your politics may be, I appreciate how even-handed you are on this blog and in your stories. You are more than fair to my party, especially given how dismal it is in Bristol.
I am a little mad that somebody could attack you for this piece you wrote. It is not biased at all. Honestly, I have no idea where some of these people who comment on the blog come from. They are just mean and stupid.
Yes, big time.
The credit market will tighten, especially for commercial.
Certainly that will affect Mall Site development, among other things.
William T. Stortz
"Fannie Mae was founded as a government agency in 1938 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal to provide liquidity to the mortgage market"
-From Wikipedia
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