It's Starting - Bear Stearns drops 50% on Bail-out By JP Morgan/Fed Bank of NY

[Paulie]

http://www.123jump.com/market-update/Bear-Stearns-Plunges-49/26903/

The Bear Stearns Companies Inc. announced today it reached an agreement with JPMorgan Chase & Co to provide a secured loan facility for an initial period of up to 28 days allowing the investment bank to access liquidity as needed. Bear Stearns also announced that it is talking with JPMorgan Chase & Co., regarding permanent financing or other alternatives.

The New York Fed will loan the funding to JP Morgan which will then lend this money to Bear Stearns to meet its capital requirements. The fact that Bear could not wait till the next Fed auction on March 27th, unnerved the market.

Bear Stearns only on March 10th denied rumors that it lacked access to liquidity and its executive chairman Ace Greenberg said on CNBC television network that the company has access to enough capital and speculations are unfounded.

The company stated in a press release, that, “(there) is absolutely no truth to the rumors of liquidity problems that circulated today in the market”. Alan Schwartz said, “Bear Stearns’ balance sheet, liquidity and capital remain strong.”

Bear Stearns (BSC: chart) stock plunged 49% or $27.63 to $29.28 and traded as low as $26.85.

Today in a press release Alan Schwartz, president and chief executive officer of Bear Stearns, said, ""Bear Stearns has been the subject of a multitude of market rumors regarding our liquidity. We have tried to confront and dispel these rumors and parse fact from fiction. Nevertheless, amidst this market chatter, our liquidity position in the last 24 hours had significantly deteriorated. We took this important step to restore confidence in us in the marketplace, strengthen our liquidity and allow us to continue normal operations.""

Bear Stearns will announce its first quarter 2008 financial results on Thursday, March 20, 2008,

At the end of November according to a filing with the SEC, Bear Stearns had short term unsecured debt of $11.6 billion and secured debt of $12.4 billion. The brokerage firm also had $68.53 billion in long term debt.

Lehman Brothers (LEH: chart) fell 10% or $4.60 to $41.35 after trading as low as $39.25.

Gold also hit $1,009 today.

Citibank, Countrywide, Bear Stearns, who's next? The dominoes are falling.

I seriously hope you people are preparing for what's coming and not sticking your heads in the sand pretending things will work out.

Banks are bankrupt, and so is the country. Stock up on commodities, because prices are about to SOAR.

No one wants to listen to Ron Paul, even though he's been right on everything he's said economically. While you write him off in the name of your little pet political positions, he's the only one telling us how to stop this near economic catastrophy, and fix it.

But noooooo. You'd rather continue blowing people up, and giving people money we don't even have. The one's who feel that way, I HOPE you lose your ass financially. It's about the only way you'll finally wake the fuck up.

Don't come crying to me, looking for help. The writing has been on the wall. You were warned.

 

[jillian]

Or maybe your boy was just too unappealing a candidate for a million other reasons.

By the by, even if he got the nomination. He wouldn't be president yet.

What the article describes would be happening anyway.

 

[Paulie]

Or maybe your boy was just too unappealing a candidate for a million other reasons.

By the by, even if he got the nomination. He wouldn't be president yet.

.

Well, those "million other reasons" aren't going to save this country from it's economic demise. That's why I mentioned the pet political positions that have been keeping people from supporting him. That, or the MSM's daily policy of programming the masses to accept what they refer to as his "long shot candidacy". Talk about banging your head against a wall. 50% of my people I've campaigned to that weren't voting for him, weren't because of that ONE REASON..."unelectability". Otherwise, those people actually AGREED with him, and supported his ideas. That's incredible. How much less critical thinking can go into selecting a candidate than that?

Just like how people hold their noses and vote EVERY SINGLE election cycle for the sake of one or two pet positions, they ought to do that once again for the sake of this country's economy and overall FUTURE.

McCain, Hillary, and Obama have no idea how to fix things economically in this country. They all have the same advisors who FOR YEARS have been "advising" us INTO the mess we are currently in economically.

What the article describes would be happening anyway.

This is true, and not even something I was trying to allude otherwise to. However, if people had listened to him for the past 20 years, instead of call him a kook, only to find out in the end as the shit starts hitting the fan that he was right, things would be different now.

 

[jillian]

Well, those "million other reasons" aren't going to save this country from it's economic demise. That's why I mentioned the pet political positions that have been keeping people from supporting him. That, or the MSM's daily policy of programming the masses to accept what they refer to as his "long shot candidacy". Talk about banging your head against a wall. 50% of my people I've campaigned to that weren't voting for him, weren't because of that ONE REASON..."unelectability". Otherwise, those people actually AGREED with him, and supported his ideas. That's incredible. How much less critical thinking can go into selecting a candidate than that?

Just like how people hold their noses and vote EVERY SINGLE election cycle for the sake of one or two pet positions, they ought to do that once again for the sake of this country's economy and overall FUTURE.

McCain, Hillary, and Obama have no idea how to fix things economically in this country. They all have the same advisors who FOR YEARS have been "advising" us INTO the mess we are currently in economically.



This is true, and not even something I was trying to allude otherwise to. However, if people had listened to him for the past 20 years, instead of call him a kook, only to find out in the end as the shit starts hitting the fan that he was right, things would be different now.

This is the last time I'm going to indulge you on this subject because I'm really unwilling to spend the next eight months responding to whiny posts complaining that the guy no one wanted in the first place didn't win the nomination and we're doomed because of it.

First, you presume I think he had any of the right ideas. I don't.

I think he's an extremist who wanted to break apart the government we know
in favor of something non-existent which no one had any clue would work or not. That ISN'T conservative... that IS radical. Most of us don't want or need radical change because most of us do ok under the current system and merely have policy disagreements about the direction we're supposed to go in.

That's first off...Second, it's about not wanting him to destroy my son't public education; third, not destroying my social security; fourth, not destroying our relationships with our allies by running some xenophobic, isolationist foreign policy... so you can say all you want that it's a few pet issues. But it's not. It was pretty much every issue.... And I dont' think I ever called him a kook. But I always told you he was a footnote. Get used to it and stop whining and telling everyone how you know you'd have been right.... at least til he runs his third-party campaign and finishes mccain off.

 

[Delbert]

First off, we need radical change. The next couple of years will prove it.

Secondly, If you think SS will exist in its current form 10 years from now,
your just being silly. We can not pay for it.

Destroy your sons public education?

Isolationist, Ron Paul is not. Apparently you dont really know what
Ron paul stands for.

I voted for Ron paul in the primary. He was ignored by the media.
The media wants the status quo because the Republicans are
no longer conservative.

Republicans=Democrats

PS: I also voted for Perot back then, because he knew of our
looming fiscal problems. remember all those charts?

 

[jillian]

No we don't. We need control and not people who act indiscriminately and thoughtlessly.

We can pay for social security now that the repubs will finally have their fat little paws off of it.

And re my son's school... that's awfully rude. He gets a great public school education. Are you a seer? Do you know me? Have you seen his school? No question we have to deal with tests/auditions and the like for him to get the best out of the public school system, but it isn't that difficult to find good schools if you're active, concerned and participate in your child's education.

I know exactly what Ron Paul stands for. Once again, you seem awfully full of yourself for someone who's gone for the crackpots twice.

Me? I don't waste my vote.

 

[Zoomie1980]

http://www.123jump.com/market-update/Bear-Stearns-Plunges-49/26903/



Gold also hit $1,009 today.

Citibank, Countrywide, Bear Stearns, who's next? The dominoes are falling.

I seriously hope you people are preparing for what's coming and not sticking your heads in the sand pretending things will work out.

Banks are bankrupt, and so is the country. Stock up on commodities, because prices are about to SOAR.

No one wants to listen to Ron Paul, even though he's been right on everything he's said economically. While you write him off in the name of your little pet political positions, he's the only one telling us how to stop this near economic catastrophy, and fix it.

But noooooo. You'd rather continue blowing people up, and giving people money we don't even have. The one's who feel that way, I HOPE you lose your ass financially. It's about the only way you'll finally wake the fuck up.

Don't come crying to me, looking for help. The writing has been on the wall. You were warned.

CountryWide and Citi? LOL!!! Nothing more is happening to those fools than they deserve. They dolled out billions to people who had no business getting money for home they couldn't afford. And did these fools actually think these high risk clients would actually pay their bills when their teaser rates were done? The slumlord lenders are getting nothing less than what they had coming.

Commodity "investing" is for fools. Buying gold will ALWAYS be akin to the idiots who stuff cash in their mattresses. Yea, an ounce of gold buys about the same amount of bread today it did 5000 years ago....SO WHAT! I want by investments to actually GROW....over the LONG TERM. not stagnate for 5000 years!!!! And yes. Gold may be 1000 today but it wont be near that two years from now or five years from now.

And Bear Stearns??? Couldn't happen to a nicer pack of louts. One of the most hidebound old guard firms on Wall St. 28 day bail out so they die in 28 days instead of today....good riddance.

 

[Zoomie1980]

Well, those "million other reasons" aren't going to save this country from it's economic demise. That's why I mentioned the pet political positions that have been keeping people from supporting him. That, or the MSM's daily policy of programming the masses to accept what they refer to as his "long shot candidacy". Talk about banging your head against a wall. 50% of my people I've campaigned to that weren't voting for him, weren't because of that ONE REASON..."unelectability". Otherwise, those people actually AGREED with him, and supported his ideas. That's incredible. How much less critical thinking can go into selecting a candidate than that?

Just like how people hold their noses and vote EVERY SINGLE election cycle for the sake of one or two pet positions, they ought to do that once again for the sake of this country's economy and overall FUTURE.

McCain, Hillary, and Obama have no idea how to fix things economically in this country. They all have the same advisors who FOR YEARS have been "advising" us INTO the mess we are currently in economically.



This is true, and not even something I was trying to allude otherwise to. However, if people had listened to him for the past 20 years, instead of call him a kook, only to find out in the end as the shit starts hitting the fan that he was right, things would be different now.

What demise? You never been through a real recession? I've endured the "misery index" years of the late 70's. My first mortage was 14.5% and I thought that was GOOD DEAL!!!! The bitter recession of 82-83? That was a tough one as we came out of the dark ages of the 70's and began the cleansing process of Reaganomics that saw a 20 year boom in equities. The recessions of 92 and 2001-2002 were non-events.

My parents lived through the 1930's. That was a real recession. this is just a jerk back to equilibrium much like the .com bust of eight years ago was.

Plus we have a GLOBAL consumer economy now. When America stops consuming India and China pick up the slack and we all get back happily on track

 

[eots]

gold being 1ooo a ounce is nothing to do with city wide... it is due to the devaluing American dollar

 

[Zoomie1980]

gold being 1ooo a ounce is nothing to do with city wide... it is due to the devaluing American dollar

Gold will tank later this year and next year. It needs to get to $2500 to equal the inflation adjusted peak it reached in 1978. But it won't get anywhere near that level. Dollar is about bottomed out. If you own Euros you'd best be gradually selling them off over the course of this year and buying....dollars.

This is also the best time in the past 8 years to be BUYING stocks, in general.

And we will not see a better time to buy a house in the next 10 years than RIGHT NOW.

 

[Paulie]

Gold will tank later this year and next year. It needs to get to $2500 to equal the inflation adjusted peak it reached in 1978. But it won't get anywhere near that level. Dollar is about bottomed out. If you own Euros you'd best be gradually selling them off over the course of this year and buying....dollars.

This is also the best time in the past 8 years to be BUYING stocks, in general.

And we will not see a better time to buy a house in the next 10 years than RIGHT NOW.

You're out of your mind. Either that, or you just have no real economic knowledge.

New money is being created right now at extreme levels, and it isn't showing any signs of slowing down any time soon. The more the money supply is inflated, the less the dollar is worth, and the higher the price of gold goes.

We're damn near hyper-inflation already, but it's almost impossible for the average joe to even know, because the Fed stopped publishing M3 data in 2006.

This whole "economic stimulus package" is just an excuse to inflate even more. Where do you think that $150b is going to come from? We don't HAVE any money anymore! We print or borrow whatever we spend in this country now. That's the new policy, get used to it.

You seem to think the economy and the dollar are invincible, but you're gravely mistaken.

 

[Delbert]

No we don't. We need control and not people who act indiscriminately and thoughtlessly.

We can pay for social security now that the repubs will finally have their fat little paws off of it.

And re my son's school... that's awfully rude. He gets a great public school education. Are you a seer? Do you know me? Have you seen his school? No question we have to deal with tests/auditions and the like for him to get the best out of the public school system, but it isn't that difficult to find good schools if you're active, concerned and participate in your child's education.

I know exactly what Ron Paul stands for. Once again, you seem awfully full of yourself for someone who's gone for the crackpots twice.

Me? I don't waste my vote.

So explain to me what your dems are going to do to save your SS?

"but it isnt that difficult to..." so it sounds to me like your doing the right
thing in being pro active. I agree you need to be with many of the public
education institutions around.


"running some xenophobic, isolationist foreign policy" you're way off.
Ill repeat that you dont understand what Ron Paul stands for.

There is no reason for you to attack me personally, just because I
disagree with you. Uncalled for.

And by the way....yes you will be wasting your vote. absolutely.

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

Commodity "investing" is for fools. Buying gold will ALWAYS be akin to the idiots who stuff cash in their mattresses. Yea, an ounce of gold buys about the same amount of bread today it did 5000 years ago....SO WHAT! I want by investments to actually GROW....over the LONG TERM. not stagnate for 5000 years!!!! And yes. Gold may be 1000 today but it wont be near that two years from now or five years from now.

"Always" is an awful long time. I'm sure we've all heard the talk on TV and at work, from Prudential or Principal reps pushing 401k (which I'm not knocking, just for the record). "Sure, there's ups and downs, but overall if you just put your money in garden variety stocks, etc etc".

Which is very true, if you don't look at inflation. On the other hand, if you do adjust for inflation and look at a chart of the Dow, it's not as attractive. In the long run, yes, it beats putting gold coins under your mattress. Duh. But not by as much as you think.

1966-1980 was not kind to the Dow, adjusted for inflation. 14 long years, and you'd have fared better focusing on commodities. Not gold coins necessarily, but commodity producing companies--mining, uranium, that sort of thing. It goes in cycles, the commodity super-cycle or something is what I've heard it called.

 

[Paulie]

The thing is, he misunderstands the many aspects of gold ownership. In the past 10 years, there was definitely a lot of money to be MADE in gold, but over the long term, physical gold ownership has always been more of a hedge against inflation than anything else. You can spend $2,000 right now buying gold and silver, and in 20 years, you'll still be holding the same amount of purchasing power as you did when you bought it initially. Meanwhile, those $2,000 in fiat FRN's continually lost their value and purchasing power.

Zoomie has tunnel vision when looking at economics, and I suspect it's from an oversaturated amount of MSM financial information.

 

[M14 Shooter]

I seriously hope you people are preparing for what's coming and not sticking your heads in the sand pretending things will work out.

Banks are bankrupt, and so is the country. Stock up on commodities, because prices are about to SOAR.

The economy will collapse, the government will fall, the Entitled will have no handouts, and, faced with starvation, will riot. Cities will burn. People will flee.

And if they come looking for my stuff, they will be shot.

 

[Paulie]

The economy will collapse, the government will fall, the Entitled will have no handouts, and, faced with starvation, will riot. Cities will burn. People will flee.

And if they come looking for my stuff, they will be shot.

Well, stocking up on guns and ammo is certainly one of the more important things to be doing right now.

The government won't fall though. I suspect this economic situation is completely calculated and planned. The NAU won't be possible without a collapse of the economy first, and then a "solution" offered to the masses.

Sounds sick, sounds conspiratorial, but I don't care. I stick by my belief. The writing is ALL OVER the wall. There's no way the Fed could have been this clueless when they first set us up for this housing bubble, and overall credit crisis we're in. Couple this with what seems to be almost INTENTIONAL over-spending and general fiscal irresponsibility, and it sure does seem like someone's fucking with us.

People can either ignore it and ultimately become victims of it, or they can prosper from it. It's their choice right now.

By the way, you come trying to take MY shit, I'll ALSO shoot your ass (not you personally, people in general). You've all been warned enough.

 

[Zoomie1980]

http://www.123jump.com/market-update/Bear-Stearns-Plunges-49/26903/



Gold also hit $1,009 today.

Citibank, Countrywide, Bear Stearns, who's next? The dominoes are falling.

I seriously hope you people are preparing for what's coming and not sticking your heads in the sand pretending things will work out.

Banks are bankrupt, and so is the country. Stock up on commodities, because prices are about to SOAR.

No one wants to listen to Ron Paul, even though he's been right on everything he's said economically. While you write him off in the name of your little pet political positions, he's the only one telling us how to stop this near economic catastrophy, and fix it.

But noooooo. You'd rather continue blowing people up, and giving people money we don't even have. The one's who feel that way, I HOPE you lose your ass financially. It's about the only way you'll finally wake the fuck up.

Don't come crying to me, looking for help. The writing has been on the wall. You were warned.

Stearns will be it because they were by FAR AND WIDE the most narrowly invested of all the investment banks. All the others, including Lehman have much higher liquidity.

Ron Paul is a kook, which is why he got almost NO votes in the primaries, so give it up.

I'm BUYING dollars and SELLING gold. Got that? And I was BUYING Euros and Gold four years ago when everyone else was doing the opposite. I've made, and will CONTINUE to make money and laugh watching all the lemmings run over the cliff.

 

[Zoomie1980]

"Always" is an awful long time. I'm sure we've all heard the talk on TV and at work, from Prudential or Principal reps pushing 401k (which I'm not knocking, just for the record). "Sure, there's ups and downs, but overall if you just put your money in garden variety stocks, etc etc".

Which is very true, if you don't look at inflation. On the other hand, if you do adjust for inflation and look at a chart of the Dow, it's not as attractive. In the long run, yes, it beats putting gold coins under your mattress. Duh. But not by as much as you think.

1966-1980 was not kind to the Dow, adjusted for inflation. 14 long years, and you'd have fared better focusing on commodities. Not gold coins necessarily, but commodity producing companies--mining, uranium, that sort of thing. It goes in cycles, the commodity super-cycle or something is what I've heard it called.

Nothing beats equities long term, nothing is even close. The S&P 500's average return over the past 50 years is 9.7%, nothing else is even close to that.

 

[Zoomie1980]

Well, stocking up on guns and ammo is certainly one of the more important things to be doing right now.

The government won't fall though. I suspect this economic situation is completely calculated and planned. The NAU won't be possible without a collapse of the economy first, and then a "solution" offered to the masses.

Sounds sick, sounds conspiratorial, but I don't care. I stick by my belief. The writing is ALL OVER the wall. There's no way the Fed could have been this clueless when they first set us up for this housing bubble, and overall credit crisis we're in. Couple this with what seems to be almost INTENTIONAL over-spending and general fiscal irresponsibility, and it sure does seem like someone's fucking with us.

People can either ignore it and ultimately become victims of it, or they can prosper from it. It's their choice right now.

By the way, you come trying to take MY shit, I'll ALSO shoot your ass (not you personally, people in general). You've all been warned enough.

No wonder you support an idiot like Ron Paul. You two are twins.

And there's a reason the greatest investor of the past 100 years, Warren Buffet, has never owned an ounce of gold or any other commodity for investment.....

 

[Diuretic]

Stearns will be it because they were by FAR AND WIDE the most narrowly invested of all the investment banks. All the others, including Lehman have much higher liquidity.

Ron Paul is a kook, which is why he got almost NO votes in the primaries, so give it up.

I'm BUYING dollars and SELLING gold. Got that? And I was BUYING Euros and Gold four years ago when everyone else was doing the opposite. I've made, and will CONTINUE to make money and laugh watching all the lemmings run over the cliff.

Buying Euros was smart. But leave the lemmings alone, they don't jump over cliffs, that was a setup by the ghouls at Disney.