For a few days there, I bet so many people were starting to get nervous about retirement funds but now it's all good again ... whew!

Crazy financial week ...

My heart goes out to all the employees of Lehman, got to work and found out in about 10 min, job gone, retiremenet gone.... that is so sad.

Any horror stories you want to share? Even of people you don't know... ie stock market losses.

What do you think about the 'bailouts'? A necessary move? Or .....?????

Are you talking about the government bailing out several major companies?

I think it is a bad idea. It is not the government's responsiblity or fault of these companies not knowing how to do business correctly. All it does is force the taxpayers to foot the bill.

AIG is said to be the largest insurance company, but it doesn't seem so to me, since I never heard of them till a few months ago. The way I look at it, if they are the largest, then they for sure have thousands of customers paying monthly or yearly, so where is the money going? I don't buy that crap.

I saw on the somewhere, some guy saying about every Americans know the value of the dollar had decreased. Well, that is a proven lie. Not every Americans know that. Plus, if the value of a dollar bill had decreased, then explain why it is still of same value of one dollar? I buy something and my dollar bills for sure count a full dollar each paper bill.

Stock market is crazy. Who knows, Target could complain that they need to be bailed out and probably will request Bush to authorize Target to claim ownership of every money in 401k accounts of every current employees.

Oh, what AIG had done to get free money and what Bush had done... They had just set the example for companies, such as Target, to do the same, then along come more companies wanting free money.

It isn't "free money". If this is like the other bailouts in the past, AIG will have to pay the loan back with interest.

Well, it is at-the-moment free money to save themselves. Who to know if they could or can not repay it all back, given their history of not doing business correctly? If AIG can not repay it all back, then the government is going to be in a total mess. No one can stop man-made or natural disasters and AIG will be forced to pay out claims.

All of this does not look good. FEMA and Red Cross claims to not have enough funds, but the government chooses to excessively help AIG over the two nonprofit organizations.

Definitely a painful but necessary move...Hopefully the financial industry has learned it's lesson and there won't be another mortgage fiasco for a long time to come

Leaving those financial giants out to dry w/o any bail out would have crippled our entire financial system

It isn't "free money". If this is like the other bailouts in the past, AIG will have to pay the loan back with interest.


Yeah, I think I read somewhere that it is like 70% interest......

LIBOR plus 8.5. Which is fun, because they get to have the same fluctuations as do us poor slobs with credit cards.

(Right now, it's a shade over 11.)

Should I be worried that our life insurance policies are through AIG?

I wouldn't say this crisis is over yet Karried. It may have just begun.

Are you talking about the government bailing out several major companies?

I think it is a bad idea. It is not the government's responsiblity or fault of these companies not knowing how to do business correctly. All it does is force the taxpayers to foot the bill.

AIG is said to be the largest insurance company, but it doesn't seem so to me, since I never heard of them till a few months ago. The way I look at it, if they are the largest, then they for sure have thousands of customers paying monthly or yearly, so where is the money going? I don't buy that crap.

I saw on the somewhere, some guy saying about every Americans know the value of the dollar had decreased. Well, that is a proven lie. Not every Americans know that. Plus, if the value of a dollar bill had decreased, then explain why it is still of same value of one dollar? I buy something and my dollar bills for sure count a full dollar each paper bill.

Stock market is crazy. Who knows, Target could complain that they need to be bailed out and probably will request Bush to authorize Target to claim ownership of every money in 401k accounts of every current employees.

Oh, what AIG had done to get free money and what Bush had done... They had just set the example for companies, such as Target, to do the same, then along come more companies wanting free money.

Wow, I don't even know where to begin to respond to this statement. Have you even read much about the current financial crisis situation? It's not a BUSH thing it's liberal financial institutions that caused this mess. We have a FREE MARKET here in the U.S and the Western World and it is primarily controlled by investors, not Bush. Many people even diliberately took out loans larger than they knew they could actually afford, just because they could get approved for it. Guess what happens when the economy turns sour, loose their job, have another kid, or they can't pay for their McMansions in Phoenix? Foreclosure city. Snowball that by a few million and large financial institutions get in trouble, investors loose confidence and pull their money out of the market, throw in global threats of war and terrorism, a booming economy in China and India and you have yourself lack of confidence in the financial markets.

You nailed it!!

Wow, I don't even know where to begin to respond to this statement. Have you even read much about the current financial crisis situation? It's not a BUSH thing it's liberal financial institutions that caused this mess. We have a FREE MARKET here in the U.S and the Western World and it is primarily controlled by investors, not Bush. Many people even deliberately took out loans larger than they knew they could actually afford, just because they could get approved for it. Guess what happens when the economy turns sour, lose their job, have another kid, or they can't pay for their McMansions in Phoenix? Foreclosure city. Snowball that by a few million and large financial institutions get in trouble, investors lose confidence and pull their money out of the market, throw in global threats of war and terrorism, a booming economy in China and India and you have yourself lack of confidence in the financial markets.Here is a good PowerPoint explanation of how we got into the current financial situation (In addition to what was correctly posted above...) : http://members.cox.net/sdciupak/HousingSimplified.pps

**Warning! Some written expletive language used.

Four decades ago, a Chicago economist named Eugene Fama proclaimed that financial markets are efficient. The march of this thesis from the fringe to the mainstream is one of reason's sweetest triumphs. Despite periodic bouts of wantonly irrational investor behavior, most people now accept that financial markets -- indeed, all markets in which people trade views about the future -- are the least bad way of processing information. Today, markets are used to predict everything from influenza outbreaks to the sales of a new Harry Potter book.
--------------------------------
Gwenstefni

We are about to have another awful week.

Jim Cramer got on the Today Show and told everyone to sell their stocks today.

He said this because the foreign markets are now starting to meltdown. As I write this, the market doesn't open for a couple of minutes, but this is going to get ugly.

I have never seen a financial person come onto a TV show and basically scream "Sell!", and he was serious. I'll be watching World News at 5:30pm to see the extent of the carnage.

omg .. this is getting crazy.

Down 517 as of 9:45am - 10/06/08

So much for the bailout stemming the tide of the economic downturn.

The greed and "Culture of Debt" lifestyle has now basically destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of people, people that "did everything right." Not only did all the idiots that bought huge houses they couldn't afford lose them, but all the people that saved and invested "properly" have been creamed.

This will ruin many lives. It will starve some people to death, others will be working at Pizza Hut when they're 70 years old, just trying to put food on the table. No one in the news, to my knowledge, has discussed what these horribly low interest rates in the past few years have done to people that rely on CD's for interest income. They've watched their checks drop in half.

I've followed the market for 25 years, and I feel like all the savings and effort I put into it has now been destroyed by a bunch of morons.

The "little old grandmothers of the world" were right, just put your money in CDs and don't risk it in the market. This may well create a generation of people that don't invest in the market at all.

It's too bad that the people that caused this, and ONLY the people that caused this, aren't suffering the full consequences of their greed and stupidity.

With apologies to Karen Carpenter, Rainy days and Mondays, and market crashes always get me down.

I'm actually not affected much by this...Definitely a good time to be broke :tiphat:

Actually somewhat good news for us in our 20's and 30's whose only investments are in 401k's...Buying shares on the cheap right now

This is good news for those interested in buying stocks. BUY BUY BUY

Stocks are low, BUY BUY BUY, and watch the stock values increase in the future, then SELL SELL SELL.

It is bad for those already having stocks and the values of them dropped, but good for those that is just jumping into buying.