It’s been interesting watching the transformation of my college age son as he has watched this all unfold. He used to be a strictly “laissez faire” guy- opposed to regulation of any kind. He’s since come to the conclusion that while massive regulation is bad for markets, there are those who will manipulate a market to their own ends without regulations to keep the markets free and transparent.

It’s always nice to see your kid getting smarter. : )

Now, 1 bank put in (or will put in) $6 billion to cover Bear whose counterparty exposure is also about $1.5 Trillion! Fed is not lowering rates as aggressively as Greenspan, but effectively does the same for Liquidity by accepting MBSs as collateral for $30 billion extention to JP.

So weird, it’s almost like after LTCM there was a doomsday scenario and all they had to do was push a button if any funds or investment houses wandered into the “zone.”

I imagine crime will go up. And I could see the government becoming more authoritian (but 8 years of Bush’s “free speech zones” behind barbed wire haven’t caused too much notice yet). I can’t see the American sheeple doing a civil war.

Igor’s word is “nohope.”

Asset Hunter can be Cooter.

I can’t figure out whether to buy more canned goods or ammo today.

Just as an aside, with regard to the “Civil War” who is going to fighting whom? And what are they going to try to gain? It’s not as though wealth is as fungible as it used to be -what, a bunch of potential evictees are going to quit their jobs and kill homeowners and move into their houses? Killing your fellow man just because your lifestyle isn’t what you want it to be doesn’t mean your lifestyle is going to be better after the killing stops. And, wha, you can’t kill somebody to get a better job…unless you’re the Northern Colorado backup punter.

I used to work in collections and I once dealt with a poor woman who got stuck with a tax shelter in her divorce. She begged the judge not to give it to her, as she knew it was really a liability and not the asset her husband claimed it was. It reduced her and her son to bankruptcy.

Maybe they should distribute all of BS’s assets AND liabilities to the shareholders who won’t approve the buyout.

It’s Hillary who is already screaming this, check the reports…

But what it will take to bail out a nation? I don’t think we have begun to see the actual cost of such a move.

There is on small street in Las Vegas where homes were selling at $600-685-seven homes were sold at this level. Three remaining homes were finished last year and closed at 480, 422, and the last is listed at 399 and will probably go at 375. I am calling it a $2M+ adjustment NOW on this one small street and I don’t see any sign of a bottom.

I stopped calculating the value adjustment to the neighborhood, and other SIMILAR neighborhoods, in this relatively small city, where these $600-685 homes would have topped out at $280, if that, in 2001.

I wonder what a 50% price drop looks like in negative equity dollars for homes purchased during the hype, or refinanced during the hype, to buy luxury cars and such, that have depreciated far more rapidly than the second mortgage has decreased.