User Comments

1. 

   10/03/08

   Anok

   Wells Fargo is taking over Wachovia:
   
   www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/business/04bank.html
   
   Just FYI.
   
   To answer your question, nope, then again I'm a domestic engineer, and the Mr works in a rather rough industry. I doubt they will be visiting any time soon

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2. 

   10/03/08

   News2News

   please note the words above which state "was supposed to be" fyi they were supposed to buy it first. thanks
   
   money.cnn.com/2008/09/29/news/companies/wachovia_citigroup/index.htm?postve...
   
   news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081003/ap_on_bi_ge/wells_fargo_wachovia;_ylt=AkkXHpFl...

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   1. 

      10/05/08

      News2News

      news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081005/ap_on_bi_ge/wells_fargo_wachovia
3. 

   10/04/08

   napalmtongue

   I don't have a handy list of banks that are/were in the most trouble here, but I was under the impression it was the majority. If the government just bought all the bad debt loans, why are they trying to unload the houses anyway?
   
   Someone set me straight on the details.

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4. 

   10/05/08

   News2News

   Details...
   
   I don't know why 'cause monday has not come yet. But my guess is that they have a lot of property that is sitting around dormant risking vandalism; because they made a lot of bad loans, and the houses got foreclosed. Now that the government is going to bail some institutions out of their bad worthless stock, which were like investments sold based on morgtages held which are now worthless (because they were sold to people who really couldn't afford them.) So they (some banks) will get excused for all the bad accounts (because the feds are going to buy the lame accounts- using tax payer money) and they figure they can get some new "good" loans if they try to sell the dormant homes the people defaulted on, and enhance their image to stock holders by selling them to truely "qualified" buyers. Then if they have new better loans they can then convince investors that they have new shares based upon "good" new mortgages which were not subprime. So then they can get new investments money based on new mortgages and can build back up to strength that way. This will show them as more credible to investors and the public and the government, which in turn will bring down the fear factor (which will slowly return deposit moneys,) It also may save them from future prosecutions if, legal action is taken against them for giving all these crappy loans they can say "we have since taken action to correct/update our lending practices, as we were prudent not to continiue in bad practice. "The minute we recognized a discrepancy we reformulated or lending measures..." Hence we are not liable.

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5. 

   10/05/08

   wehireu

   Wall Street has already in many ways directly taken over main street by us unwittingly electing corporate representatives to public office. President Bush has an MBA from Harvard-- his main focus is helping business to the government pie. Dick Cheney brings in Halliburton for contracts in Iraq without bids. Our troops are replaced with Blackwater mercenaries that are paid three times as much.
   
   Exxon Mobile asks for drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. What we don't seem to get is that the public owns that land and has a right to ask for payment. The government is offering it to the oil companies for free.
   
   School voucher programs are an attempt to turn over a program paid for by our taxes to private corporations. In essence we would be giving government money to private institutions. Also turning over student loans to private corporations does the same thing. Elected officials backed by corporate money get into office, turn around and turn over tax-payer funded programs to corporations.
   
   The same thing is happening with social security. Everyone is supposed to have a private account. I bet that politician is talking to Vanguard about where your money is supposed to be invested. Maybe he was on the Vanguard board of directors.
   
   Think about what happened with the Medicare drug program. Essentially it is in the hands of big drug companies. Medicare was forbidden to buy generics by our elected officials, or buy drugs from Canada where it was cheaper. They must buy from large pharmaceuticals at maximum price.
   
   What is this program? It is an attempt by corporations for government to pay for their indiscretions at the price of main street. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became instruments of Goldman Sachs and Wachovia to make money for banks, not places for homeowners to get stable government loans.
   
   It goes back to the concept of predation by rich individuals. Until recently, most corporations were run by boards of directors. This changed with incredible amounts of money being paid to CEOs allowing them to become a separate class (a superclass) mobile between corporations and having enough money to move into government positions where they often voted to help the corporations they were part of. Corporations and government which had more dividing lines changed.
   
   We are feeling the brunt of large scale corporate takeover of government institutions. Corporations are for the most part run on short-term thinking aimed at immediate profit. Running government this way does not work. It leads to disaster.
   
   Now the "government" cross this out and say, Wachovia, Bank of America, Fannie Mae, etc. have become too tightly intertwined. There is not enough separation between the failing institutions and our current administration.
   
   We are in a state where capital accumulation at any cost by large corporations is justified as acting in the interest of sovereign individual and the "free market." There are other rights which are being stepped on. The rights of labor "main street" to have a piece of the pie. Sharks don't have a right to take away the American Dream.
   
   Bring back more separation between government and business. Business has its place and government has its place.

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   1. 

      10/05/08

      timethief

      Bring back more separation between government and business. Business has its place and government has its place.
      
      Well said. And the same could be said about creating a greater separation between religion and government. For example: In 2007, taxpayers provided $176 million for ineffectual abstinence-only programs, but there is no federal funding for comprehensive sex education programs.
6. 

   10/05/08

   jan4insight

   "Does Wall Street plan to attack Main Street?"
   
   Heck, they've been doing it for years. That's what all this now-discredited supply-side-trickle-down-voodoo economics has been about. It's a wonkishly constructed house of cards designed to conceal an agenda for transferring wealth from the bottom of the economy to the top. Because rich people don't have enough money.
   
   The tragedy is, it's worked - until now. Seems like at last the U.S. is waking up from the long nightmare of the GOP-led You're Own Your Own (YOYO) mantra. Too bad so many have had to suffer before the wake-up/

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