[Starvid]

They can let the company go bust. This will not, contrary to the F&F situation, destabilise the financial system.

There are too many investment banks anyway.

[cube]

I think, taxpayers will pay. What else they can do? We shall see on Monday.

You might want to take that back.
The current news reports seems to suggest otherwise.
It's quite popular to go on a rantfest these days about big business getting a tax payer bailout however that's not always true.

The government does not bailout everybody.
There were many companies that fell into the "too big to fail" category that went belly up.
remember "Pan Am" back in the days?

[Heineken]

Yeah, that says it all, Ludi.

The bigwigs running these bankrupt companies even get to keep their bloated compensation packages.

Socialism for the rich. That's what we have.

And the poor average dummies out there with the flag stickers on their cars play right along.

Another +1

The greatest propaganda coup ever accomplished is by the American establishment in convincing America's working class to support corporate welfare without question while simultaneously despising social welfare. Edward L. Bernays would be proud. (And Goebbels would be jealous.)

Say WHA?

I dont know ANY "We thepeople" who are happy with these bailouts and handouts!

Then why do "we the people" keep voting into office the bailer-outers and hand-outers?

Glory be, we're about to do it again!

[EnergyUnlimited]

I think, taxpayers will pay. What else they can do? We shall see on Monday.

You might want to take that back.
The current news reports seems to suggest otherwise.
It's quite popular to go on a rantfest these days about big business getting a tax payer bailout however that's not always true.

The government does not bailout everybody.
There were many companies that fell into the "too big to fail" category that went belly up.
remember "Pan Am" back in the days?

I would love to find out that Lehman goes bust and taxpayer (hard working off the mill american donkey) don't pay for that.
I am a wholehearted liquidator.

However I think, that it will not be the case.
One way or another of the mill american donkey will pay that bill.

Socialism for the rich until atomic war came...

Again, I would love to find out you to be correct. Time will show....

[cube]

...
Again, I would love to find out you to be correct. Time will show....

I have to warn you I'm only right 50% of the time.

[dorlomin]

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is against any use of government money to bail out Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., a person familiar with his thinking said Friday.

Hmmm this is just as likely to be a negotiating tactic as the bankers will be turning up to the negotiations with eyes glittering at the thought of more goodies from the public purse.

Many people are saying that Lehman is a much better buy than Bear was. We shall see what the weekend brings.

[ReverseEngineer]

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is against any use of government money to bail out Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., a person familiar with his thinking said Friday.

Hmmm this is just as likely to be a negotiating tactic as the bankers will be turning up to the negotiations with eyes glittering at the thought of more goodies from the public purse.

Many people are saying that Lehman is a much better buy than Bear was. We shall see what the weekend brings.

There is a logical flaw here in the "too big to fail" argument. Bear Stearns was "too big to fail", but now Henry says Lehman, which is bigger than Bear Stearns was is NOT "too big to fail"? If that is true, why did we cough up $30B in guarantees to make sure a smaller IB than Lehman would not fail?

In another thread, MrBill brought up the point that the same strategy has a law of diminishing returns which applies, and you can't keep pulling the same stunt over and over again and expect it to keep working.

If somebody doesn't pull a Rabbit out of his Hat by Monday morning, I can't see how Leman doesn't file for bankruptcy. How this affects the other banks and their balance sheets I have no clue, but one has to suspect its not good. How a bankruptcy court will unwind all the trades and all the outstanding obligations is anyone's guess also, but certainly the litigation involved could take years.

So, my best guess now is the NEW tactic is to tie this all up in the judicial system to buy some more time.

Reverse Engineer

[dohboi]

The ante is upped for moral hazard and signals to the other banks. If they bail Lehman, there will be no question that Momma Fed will always pick up at least some of your mess no matter how recklessly the rich boys play.

If we bail out all these jerks, at what point does the world give up on us as a basket case not worth investing in?

Again, here's hoping that cube is right. But even it he is here, what kind of capitalism is it exactly when you have a 50% chance of being baled out if you make a lot of really bad and sleazy business decisions and the consequences catch up with you?

[Starvid]

There is no wealth to redistribute left. Most of that what we are calling "wealth" now will fall into disrepair and ultimate ruin within several decades.
Mansions, SUVs, private jets, road network, cities, you name it...

You're completely wrong here my friend. The GDP if the US is greater than it has ever been before, and so is the GDP per capita. Actual real people produce actual real goods and services.

The problem is that the capital is controlled by a very small number of people. The richest 1/10,000 are extremely rich.

The richest 30 Americans probably have assets around $1 trillion. Think of that the next time someone complains that there is no way we can build 200 GW nuclear capacity in the US. With the expense of only 30 bullets you have assets to triple the size of the US nuclear reactor fleet.

[emeraldg40]

She believes in an idyllic Shangri-La.

I'm guessing you haven't read too many of Ludi's posts. Probably should tho, before you let everyone know what someone else believes, doncha think? Off you go then, and bring us back some of those Shangri-La quotes.

I disagree with Ludi about gardening.
However I think she's one of the most respectable people on this board.

I think the most common action people will take post PO to save money is cooking at home rather then going out to a restaurant.
The price differential between restaurant food and home cooked food is huge.
You can eat for $2.50 / meal at home with what it would cost $10 at a restaurant.
However the price difference between going to a grocery store and growing your own vegetable garden (water, fertilizer,labor) is literally zero.
This is why I never understood why so many people are pro-gardening on this board.
I'd rather get a job as a security guard working the graveyard shift patrolling copper pipes in a post PO world and then using my money to buy a sack of potatos at a grocery store then growing a garden.

The problem with agriculture is you're only one flood, drought, tornado, *insert natural disaster* away from bankruptcy.
No thanks. If I'm going to accept that type of risk, I might as well become a day-trader (easier work / better pay).

Its about quality. If you live to eat then its important to have the best and freshest. If you only eat to live then crappy, vitamin-reduced, chemically incomplete and pesticide covered veggies for you.

[TreebeardsUncle]

Theft is when a POOR BLACK BOY takes a pair of sneakers worth $75.

Progress (in the sense of creative destruction in the market, or the culling of the weaker players to strengthen the industry) is realized and executive compensation is given when a few dozen rich white guys execute a plan that leads to millions of foreclosures, the effective bankruptcies of companies, and hundreds of billions in losses.

Keep focusing on the indians, the french, the mexicans, the commies, the iraqis, the moslems, the other. The repulicans know that there are 10s of millions of pick-up-truck-driving country-music-listening gun-toting rednecks and white trash who will back them up when they appeal to their bigotry, and xenophobia. Then by keeping this constituency focused on external or internal enemies real or imagined they can keep them distracted from how they are being fleeced domestically and vocationally.
g

[ReverseEngineer]

What do you guys think of the "plan" being leaked out currently to split Lehman into two companies, one "good" company which gets all the good performing assets and the other one which gets all the "bad" mortgages and business loans? Barclay's Bank of Britain has generously stepped up to the plate to buy the Good Lehman Company, but who is going to buy the Bad Lehman Company?

According to the reports, Paulson is stonewalling the other investment banks and basically telling them they should divy up the bad assets and take them on. How stupid is that? These other banks ALREADY are loaded with bad assets, they need MORE of them? LOL.

I can imagine all these Clowns sitting around a Mahogany Table in the boardroom of the NY Federal Reserve Bank passing around this portfolio of $50B or who knows how much like it is a Hot Potato. "No you take it!" "No, YOU take it!"

Can somebody please put these guys out of their misery already? While I love a Clown Act, this is a Joke that has just gone on for too long now.

Reverse Engineer

[roccman]

The outlines of plans to determine the fate of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. emerged today even as it became increasingly clear that a clean sale of the entire firm to a big bank would be too difficult to execute.

Dead bank walking...

[roccman]

If Lehman collapses expect a run on all of the other broker dealers and the collapse of the shadow banking system

It is now clear that we are again – as we were in mid- March at the time of the Bear Stearns collapse – an epsilon away from a generalized run on most of the shadow banking system, especially the other major independent broker dealers (Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs). If Lehman does not find a buyer over the weekend and the counterparties of Lehman withdraw their credit lines on Monday (as they all will in the absence of a deal) you will have not only a collapse of Lehman but also the beginning of a run on the other independent broker dealers (Merrill Lynch first but also in sequence Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and possibly even those broker dealers that are part of a larger commercial bank, I.e. JP Morgan and Citigroup). Then this run would lead to a massive systemic meltdown of the financial system. That is the reason why the Fed has convened in emergency meetings the heads of all major Wall Street firms on Friday and again today to convince them not to pull the plug on Lehman and maintain their exposure to this distressed broker dealer.

Let me elaborate in much detail on these issues…

[DantesPeak]

Roubini is right. Now the US government will step in to bail out Lehman, WaMu, and who knows who else to prevent a systemic financial meltdown.

Otherwise, they might as well close all the financial markets right now.

[roccman]

Independent of what the government does...

The global economy is current in a tail spin (by design) and will end only when a bone crushing thud is heard and felt around the world.

At this point it is all verbose.

[seahorse2]

The sheeple got "sidetracked" by that mere Cat 2 Hurricane Ike in the Gulf, when there is a Cat 10 financial hurricane hitting NY as we speak.

[RdSnt]

It's getting very close to October.

[ReverseEngineer]

The sheeple got "sidetracked" by that mere Cat 2 Hurricane Ike in the Gulf, when there is a Cat 10 financial hurricane hitting NY as we speak.

Does this mean its OK for me to push TSHTF Button? LOL.

The Fed oviously cannot bail out ALL the banks, so they have to quit that tactic at some point. If the banks themselves cannot figure out a way to paper it over, the system is toast.

Financial Armageddon appears on the horizon. Next week shouldbe quite entertaining for Doomers.

Reverse Engineer

[beamofthewave]

So what are the implications of the collapse of Lehman? And what can I do to prepare, and does this mean I wont have to pay my mortgage anymore if the banks collapse?

Also thanks Roccman for your support last time.