Largest single one-day point drop on record: -777.68 points (29 September 2008)
Overall percentage: -6.98%
Largest single one-day percentage drop on record: -24.39% (12 December 1914)
Largest single one-day percentage drop in modern times: -22.61% (19 October 1987)
Source: Track the proposal to bail out the struggling U.S. financial system - CNN.com
It’s kind of a waste to even have Darth Vader on your team if he’s always in seclusion when he’s needed.
I wouldn’t say it’s liberal elitism; I’ve seen it from both sides. Everyone’s in favor of people being educated and making the effort to understand what’s going on… and if you disagree, well then, you just don’t understand! You don’t know what’s good for yourself, so we’ll handle it.
My point being that the Evil Libruls are frequently accused of being a bunch of elitist snobs who look down on “the people” for being the lessers.
-Joe
He’s not on my team, but where the hell is the real president?
He gave us a 13 minute speech on the emergency just the other night. What the hell more do you want!!!
Being president is HARD WORK. Mr. Bush is working HARD!!!
Bush is just a Cheney hand puppet. Where is the master of all evil?
Almost in defense of Shrub–yeah, can’t believe I’m saying it either–anybody else get the impression everybody in Congress runs like hell in the opposite direction when they see him coming? The handy buzz word seems to be “distancing”, Republicans are distancing themselves from him. Much more and they might just as well hang a leper’s bell from his neck and be done with it.
“I’m not dead yet!”“Well you will be in a minute.”
Oh, please. Barney Frank is one of the people responsible for getting us into the current situation … hard to see that giving him much moral high ground to say a damn thing.
w.
Propriety, even in the Pit of the Damned, demands that if you offer an opinion piece as evidence of anything, you should at least blush.
Well you have cited an op-ed columnist for a New York Times owned newspaper. I retract everything I have ever said and bow to the opinion of this complete stranger.
My goodness! Having a bad hair day, are we? No need to be gratuitously churlish, just provide your own citation showing how Barney was right on this whole mess. While we wait, here’s more, this one from from the LA Times. Another dread opinion piece, to be sure.
In our system of government, we have special organizations whose sole purpose is to keep us from getting into these kinds of messes. Among them is the US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. From their web site, under “Who We Are”:
Barney is in charge of the House Committee who is supposed to keep Fannie and Freddy healthy … clearly, he’s been doing a bang-up job of that.
In 2003, the Bush Administration (which I loath and despise) actually tried to tighten up the regs on F&F. Who opposed them? Barney Frank.
Now prior to that, of course, was the disastrous Republican disembowelling of the Depression-Era legislation separating merchant banks and investment banks, and Phil Gramm’s deregulation of swaps and derivatives that led to Enron, and McCain’s backing of the Keating Five, so there’s plenty of blame to go around. I’m not taking a party political side here.
What I am saying is that Barney was in charge of the patients, and they currently are in intensive care … so I still don’t see that he has any high moral ground here.
I also don’t see any reason for your attempt to ridicule me. If you feel my citation is inadequate, just ask for another.
And to return to the OP, Congress has been throwing us under the bus for a while now. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are awash in lobbyist money, Phil Gramm is McCain’s main man (yeah, right, he resigned or something … riiiight), Clinton’s push for greater house ownership succumbed to the law of unintended consequences, life goes on …
Bottom line? Barney Frank was in charge of making sure this didn’t happen to Fannie and Freddie, and he failed miserably. He claimed they were solvent, and he opposed regulations to improve their fiscal position. Bad politician, no cookies.
w.
PS - I make a point to read commentators on both sides of the aisle. One of the reasons I enjoy reading Jacoby is that his articles are so well cited. I went back and looked. The piece I referred to contains 11 different citations, which on my planet makes it a bit more than an “op-ed piece”. Yes, they are generally citations to conservative publications … but then liberal commentators tend to link to liberal publications, so we’re not surprised.
People concerned with their own agenda don’t do reach-arounds.
Two realy good alternatives here. One, post the opinion piece, identify it as such, and say something like “Here’s this guys opinion, which is very much like my own, but he says it purty.” That’s cool.
Or if you have the original, with all those tasty citations, bring that. We can take it.
We like that, we’re a bunch of cite-seers.
But posting an opinion piece as though it were evidence by itself, well, not the done thing, don’t you know?
One figure I heard tossed about tonight was that the stock market lost 1.5 trillion yesterday when it fell 777 points. That’s half again as much as the bail-out investment would have cost.
The House apparently won’t be back in session until Thursday because of religious holidays. The fiddler is on the roof while Rome burns. (No disrespect intended. I just think they ought to close Wall Street for the holidays.)
I read tonight that I am greedy because I have money in the stock market. So you guys are going to chip in to pay the $3,000 a month it will cost me for a room in assisted care? I should live another 30 years. My mother’s still going at 95 – the greedy thing.
I’m taking names and I’ll remember who the sleeze balls are when the revolution comes.
Anybody want to buy some apples?
That article is BS beyond belief. This crap has already been discussed on the SDMB. It wasn’t the “urban poor” that were flipping condo’s in California, Las Vegas and Florida. It wasn’t the disenfranchised that were taking out second and third mortgages to pay their credit card bills to buy a new Escalade. It was the “poor” that were getting sold the idea that they could own their own home with no money down, low monthly payments and an ARM that would make their dream unaffordable as soon as the mortgage rates moved up 1/2 point.
The lowlifes that continually blame the poor for the fouling of their own nest are the ones that should be in prison and shot.
I’ll be the dissenting voice and say that I’m glad that the bailout proposal was rejected by the House. I think that it gave too much power to the Treasury secretary. I think that a decision this momentous needs more debate than the few days that Congress has taken before voting on it.
For one thing, I remember when Congress gave carte blanche to the current administration for the situation in Iraq. Well, it turns out that they either lied or acted on erroneous information in invading that country. This current administration has also shown that they are willing to act with the maximum amount of leeway that any law can give them. So I think that the powers given to the executive branch should be limited as much as possible, because I am confident that in any case they will do their best to interpret the law in such a way as to exceed its intent. In short, give them an inch if you want them to use a mile. Give them a mile…
Things I don’t like about the bill the way it was yesterday:
Didn’t include any changes in bankruptcy laws as they applied to mortgages, to allow judges to adjust mortgage loans on a principal residence (L.A. times story here No bankruptcy aid for homeowners )
The first $250 billion is immediately available, and simply requires the President to ask for more to get the next $150 billion; the final $350 billion comes automatically unless Congress votes against it. I think that the next sums should also be subject to Congressional approval.
(see some other concerns in this LA Times article http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fi-assess29-2008sep29,0,2859697,full.story )
Those are just two examples. In general, I think the law is being rushed through too quickly. I read a quote from Paulson saying that the administration has been working on this plan for a month. If this is true, then the past month was when it needed to be reviewed by Congress, not at the last minute screaming “sign this now! or else we’re all DOOOMED!”
That worked after 9/11, I hope it won’t happen again. Fool me once…
I used to dislike American politicians.
Now I fucking hate them.
Democrat assholes: “ooh, we shouldn’t give money to rich people”.
Republican assholes: “ooh, it’s Socialism”.
Look you fucking penises, it goes against all my principles too, but the fucking world is about to be fucking fucked!
Fuck your principles, people, and who gives a shit whose fault it is. This is a global fucking crisis!
It’s going to take the West down, not just your domestic constituents.
Seen what’s happening in European and Asian markets today?
Just wait until Wall Street opens.
Jesus fuck.
Thanks, you bunch of cunts.
You’re also destroying your own economic hegemony.
I’m signing up for Mandarin classes, stat.
Let me add my voice to this chorus.
Yeah, it sucks. Everyone should have taken a bite out of it but “The Party of Responsibility” is the biggest lie the Republicans spin.
The Democrats have the votes. Draft a new bill with protections for taxpayers, no golden parachutes and tons and tons of oversight. Plus a tight-fisted review of who gets what money. Then ram that fucker through.
It’s not gonna happen, though. Loading up my Joad-mobile and stuffing my mattress as we speak.