Today was one of Wall Steets biggest days ever.....A Sunday 09-14-08

[netcsk]

And here it goes...
I'm down 20% so far for the day.
Yay for getting my ass kicked over the last week.

[kronus]

wow, DOW down more than 100 points in 4 minutes.

Good luck, guys.

[netcsk]

hah. down 300 in 10 minutes.
This blows.

[kronus]

oh god it went down 300

[SpecM]

I have stock in Exxon-Mobil (bad time to admit that I know).
Yummy, only dropped 2 points in that time.

Still, this blows a big one for everyone.

[netcsk]

I bought into a few banks a few weeks ago. So fuel isn't necessarily the worst you could do.
Its making me sick. Up...Down...Down...Up...Barf

[Jon325i]

Link to Yahoo's business/finance page - includes live NYSE streaming ticker.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=%5EDJI

At close to the end of the first hour of trading its down 2.63% (or down 300+ points).

[Vedubin01]

Is it possible instead of them being blamed for poor mortgage loan choices, it simply a matter of those people who took out mortgages are affected by loss of jobs, and cost of living to the point that they simply can't make payments.........Multiplied by the thousands and thousands of people in the same boat.

Sure that has some to do with it. But having many friends in the mortgage business its really people got loans that they could not afford. How many Mortgage brokers do you know? Back in the 90's not many, but that was the job of the early 2000s. What happens was thousands upon thousands forged and faked income and W2s to get loans they could not afford, to purchase that extra house that they were going to flip. Or refinance their house with a cash out option or a line of credit in which they purchased that new Vette or BMW that they could not afford. Everyone was leasing, buying, and trying to flip houses all caught up in the housing boom of early 2000s. Now when the bill came due and their houses were not selling or moving for what they had into it, they got caught.

People to blame for this? Unethical Brokers, Appraisers, Bankers and the people getting the loans. In Miami fraud is most rapid. The FBI has a mortgage fraud department that cover multiple states of the country, South FL has their own office because of this.

The morals of America have regressed to a point, everyone was out for themselves and did not care if they were doing anything illegal as long as they got what they wanted. "Everyone else is doing it" Well they never expected the outcome to be what it is today!

Thats the biggest problem in this mortgage issue. Ethics of the loans produced, from the person getting the loan all the way up to the president of the banks that issued the loans.

[Hallen]

Yeah, bad loans were part of the picture. Unethical and downright illegal practices were also a part of it.

But here is where it gets sticky. We all benefited from this stuff to a degree. Loans increase the money supply due to the fractional banking stuff I talked about earlier. More money flow means more business which means more money for everybody. That is why it is tough to reign some of this stuff in. The government doesn't want to be too aggressive in its policing because it could dampen the economy. The government also benefits from the additional taxes that get produced from all of this stuff not the least of which is the increased property taxes at the state level because of the rapidly escalating housing prices. It turns into a conflict of interest because government does not want to slow stuff down when it should be looking out for the long term interests of the country.

Much of this is the Fed's fault. They started the boom and they caused the crash. That is what happens when you try to "control" the economy.

I am somewhat optimistic about the results of this. If the government can find a way to pass laws that make certain things illegal without implementing more regulatory type procedures, then maybe we will be better off in the long term. The practice of selling mortgage loans in packages multiple times are not in the best interests of the consumer and probably should be curtailed. It turned into a commodities market in a way and that should not be happening, in my opinion. If I take out a mortgage with a bank, I expect to be working with that bank for the duration. But we all know that within a year of your loan initiation, you usually get a notice that your mortgage has been sold to somebody else. That is not what I signed up for.

[Farbin Kaiber]

It's always tough when our social inspired bubbles pop. Brings back thoughts of S&L, .com, etc. We have survived them, but they do hurt, that is until the next bubble starts to get soapy and blow up, then everyone can jump back on.

[Money$hit]

I say let em all fuckin fail. What a pile of shit, wheres Greenspan?


I called Lehman months ago, too bad I never acted on it. I was gonna shortsell at $23/share.

[george graves]

down 500. Ouch.