Prediction-- Black Friday!


A day to 'dread' on Wall Street
Collapse of auto bailout bill in Senate expected to lead to big selloff at Friday's open. Retail data expected. CNN MONEY


Any predictions on how it will go today?


World markets plunge...

My opinion bailout or no bailout,It's a no win situation..I think you said that the best move would be is for them to go bankrupt and start over.. I agree. I think that the "runaway freight train" is about to crash.

source
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5331997.ece


From Times Online
December 12, 2008

Wall Street legend Bernard Madoff arrested over '$50 billion Ponzi scheme

Tim Reid, Washington

Some of America's wealthiest socialites were facing ruin tonight after the arrest of a Wall Street legend accused of the largest investor swindle ever blamed on a single individual.

Shock and panic spread through the country clubs of Palm Beach and Long Island after Bernard L Madoff, a trading powerbroker for over four decades, allegedly confessed to a massive fraud that will cost his wealthy investors at least $50 billion, perhaps the largest swindle in Wall Street history.

Mr Madoff, 70, a former Nasdaq stock chairman, was apparently turned in by his two sons and arrested on Thursday morning at his Manhattan apartment by the FBI.

Andrew Calamari, a senior enforcement official at New York's Securities and Exchange Commission, described the scheme as "a stunning fraud that appears to be of epic proportions".

The FBI's criminal complaint states that when two federal agents arrived at Mr Madoff's apartment, he told them: "There is no innocent explanation". The agents say that he told them "he paid investors with money that wasn't there," that he was "broke" and that he expected to go to jail.

The FBI claims that three senior employees of Mr Madoff's investment firm - once a towering presence on Wall Street - turned up at his apartment on Wednesday to ask questions about the company's solvency. Two of them are believed to be his sons, Andrew and Mark, who have worked for their father for two decades.

Mr Madoff told them that he was "finished", that he had "absolutely nothing", and that "it's all just one big lie". He said the investment arm of his firm was "basically a giant Ponzi scheme," and that it had been insolvent for years.

A Ponzi scheme, named after the swindler Charles Ponzi, is a fraudulent investment operation that pays abnormally high returns to investors paid from money put into the scheme by subsequent investors, rather from real profits generated by share trading.

The FBI complaint states that Mr Madoff told his sons he believed the losses from his scheme could exceed $50 billion. If that is the case, his fraud would be far greater than past Ponzi schemes and easily the greatest swindle perpetrated by one man.

There has been scepticism for years on Wall Street over how Mr Madoff managed to pay such consistently high returns, in good investor years and bad.

The FBI alleges that he "paid certain investors purported returns on investment with the principal received from other, different investors, which resulted in losses of billions of dollars."

Such schemes inevitably collapse, and Mr Madoff found himself to be no exception. Because of the stricken economy, and growing suspicions about his business, the FBI says that earlier this month Mr Madoff told one of his sons that clients had requested $7 billion in investments to be returned - and that he was struggling to pay them.

Mr Madoff ran the wealthy investment arm of his business, Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities, secretly and separately from the main trading and market-making floor of his offices, with records kept "under lock and key".

His sons had no involvement in it but told federal agents their father had been under "great stress". Mr Madoff founded his firm in 1960 with $5,000 he had made being a lifeguard on Long Island.

Mr Madoff has been charged with a single count of securities fraud. He declined to enter a plea in Manhattan's US District Court and was released on $10 million bail. He faces up to 20 years in jail and a $5 million fine if convicted. His lawyer, Dan Horwitz, said his client was "a person of integrity. He intends to fight to get through this unfortunate event."

Many of his investors came from the enormously wealthy enclaves of Florida's Palm Beach and New York's Long Island, where people had invested billions of dollars in Mr Madoff's firm for decades.

He was a fixture on the Palm Beach social scene, and was a member of some of its most exclusive clubs, including the Palm Beach Country Club and Boca Rio Golf Club, where he drummed up much of his business.

One investor told The Wall Street Journal: "This is going to kill so many people. It's absolutely awful."

Ira Roth, from New Jersey, said his family - including his 86-year-old mother-in-law - had $1 million invested, and that he was "in a state of panic".

Susan Leavitt, from Florida's Tampa Bay, said she had millions invested, and paid in another $500,000 earlier this year. "That was my nest egg for my children, and my future," she said.

this is an interesting read on the auto bail out...

hi LaRo ..Panera could use some... I'm tired of broccoli cheese soup.  Have they no imagination for Winter soups or new hot drinks?

Congress wants no one to fail.. gotta love their generous nature... they are in a faint over who not to miff off lest they anger any particular Corporate Benefactor.

GMC can't fail, they are tied to other big Corps..  (think steel, etc.)  or think metallurgical Coal which Citigroup just bougt. :)
..........

Citigroup Global Markets also said if the global financial crisis continued to curtail steel demand, annual contract price negotiations would be delayed and there could be more lasting shutdowns at steel plants.

"Steel production cuts will push coking coal into deep and persisting surplus," said Alan Heap and Alex Tonks, who are global commodities strategists for Citigroup. "We expect coking coal prices to fall 50 percent to $150 per tonne next year."

......................................

What a good time to buy...are they remembering the Govt. wants to repair bridges?...last I knew they used steel to do that.

wikipedia says-

Citigroup is also a heavy contributor to left of center political causes.[43]

On 24 November 2008 the U.S. government announced a massive bailout of Citigroup, designed to rescue the company from bankruptcy while giving the government a major say in its operations.

The Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC will cover 90% of the losses on its $335-billion portfolio after Citigroup absorbs the first $29 billion in losses.[44] In return the bank will give Washington $27 billion of preferred shares and warrants to acquire stock. The government will obtain wide powers over banking operations.

Pretty solid...

http://www.hsdent.com/free-downloads/

worth watching the video

The DOW is at 8200.  This could be a rough week before the inauguration.   Let's hope the bottom doesn't fall out.

MelodyatHome,many think that we are headed into possibly the greatest depression on record,other people believe that we are headed for a complete economic collapse,in the next 10 months and I do not know what that would mean. The best thing to do is to have you and your family prepared for a long period of tuff times no matter what causes it.---I am not an economic expert,I am just repeating things that I have heard,but I can tell you this,there are many very high ranking people in our government who are very scared,because I do not think that they know what is going to happen next either. ---remember that the last great depression produced people like Hitler and Stalin,so there is no telling what this one could produce.This has been coming for some time. I have told many people before the Presidential election was over,that no one would want that job if they knew what might be happening in the future,because who ever is in that position,will be blamed for what is going to happen and it is not their fault,but them and the party that they belong to will be hurt very badly for decades. This is still going to years to work itself out. ----These great depressions are usually followed by a world war,I do know enough about history to know this. So keep your suppies safe and plenty of them.Also keep enough for your family members that refuse to help themselves.Also,keep your family close,if you can.-----The economy usually follows the stock market by 6 months to 1 year. The stock market has already been in trouble for a long time and it is artifically propped up now by the government printing large amounts of money and this is bad also. So we are all in for a long and probably very bumpy and scary ride.It is going to get worse. there are already basically no jobs in the economy and many people have lost their jobs and there will be more. When all of these people run out of savings to pay their expenses and to buy food,it could get very scary. I live in a relativy remote area and we are not over populated,like the major cities. If I lived in a major city,I would be very,very scarred. Good luck to you and yours and remember to pray,because it is very possible that God may be our only hope. Johnray1

OK here is the link to the video I was talking about above about the Great Depression and how history repeasts itself...This is just 1 of 8...you can watch the rest of the videos on the same page...I think off to the right if you put your cursor over the video it will say which one it is...

Mary08,

Dow Jones      7649.54      -200.87      

I think everyone is getting a bit desperate. I pray to God we don't have a WW3...at least not anytime soon...it will happen eventually. We need to prepare our children/grandchildren for that day if not ourselves.

The answer to a depression before has always been  to go to war. This has been our solution all the way back to the Great Depression which World War 2 pulled us out of and then produced the biggest boom in the economy since the 20s. http://www.worldwar-2.net/  1939-1945 -

This may be premature, but one might think, how in the world did we go from a
Depression to having the money to participate in a World War?  War puts people to work. They labor and earn money building bombs, bullets, tanks, and whatever instruments of death and destruction,, and the sale of arms to other countries, has been the essence of our war based economy since World War I actually even before the 20s. Seriously, what happened before the Roaring Twenties (as my father who lived during them at 7-17 years old during it, called them) - World War I. (1914-1919) http://www.worldwar-1.net/

We cannot afford to police the world. We cannot afford to try and build democracies at such a huge price. There are some things which have existed for almost a thousand years, and one of them is extremist religion. In fact, that has existed, war and warriors driven by religion, counting the Egyptians and their pantheon of Gods, for 5000 years. Everyone, but the dying soldiers and those who grieve their loss, profit from a war.  Now we are poised to  go to war with Iran if they attack Israel, while courting Asia so they will not interfere because they are economically dependent, and money talks.  The Russians may interfere. And the missiles that some of us were around, up close and personal,  in the 60s are still in the silos and enough of them left to pretty much finish us off. When blowing up a few buildings threw our nation into a spin, God help us all if we are attacked on our home ground by our enemies.  It was not (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن transliteration: Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin's (while this is written in Arabic it will not display on this site correctly) goal to attack America. It was to destroy it economically.  That, as has been just stated by one of the most significant figures on security has just stated. Many of us have been posting this for years. The target of our enemy, and our greatest advantage -our economy. Without money, we are not a powerful nation, we will not be a powerful nation.

It is a sad commentary on America- but the prosperity of our country was spawned in the Revolutionary War against the Brits, and then once more fortunes were made during the Civil War.  Cries of patriotism and rights were echoed to the click of coins and sales of arms and fields filled with the dead. I sit in my office, in a building, built over the site of a Civil War battle - a serious one - and below me... there are still the restless stirs and whispers of those fallen and now long forgotten except for a single bronze plaque barely three feet long.

I remember during Vietnam, we were all concerned about getting orders to go to Vietnam, as I did, headed to Ft. Bragg, but those were prosperous times. Gas at one time was 28 cents a gallon and later in college 40 cents for Shell premium.  Some never got over what they saw there, or did, or were forced to do.

Nothing unites a country like a war, the only problem is, no one is attacking the United States. Not in the old fashioned bomb Pearl Harbor Mode.  The problem is this is not the 40s, and we have nuclear weapons. World War III, which I have written about, can be that close if things get out of hand.

A nuclear war will ruin the planet. We cannot continue involving ourselves in region proxy wars before things go sour and we wind up launching and being nose to nose with the Russians or Chinese. Iran is going nuclear. They have enough material for a rather large bomb, and they can outsource the technology and the hardware, and have the missiles to fire it.  A nuclear Middle East will try to toast Israel. There is no doubt. After years of being bombed and watching the jets sweep over them in the sky and bomb their cities, and not only military targets, but some missing the mark- well we won't go there, as they fired upward with rifles and on the ground with grenade launchers. They had to fight Tomahawk Missiles with other tactics, hiding, dispersing, guerrilla warfare when there is no war front, but  hot zones.  It was like my Indian ancestors fighting the Winchester rifle with bows and arrows or spears. http://www.american-indian-art.com/spears.html

We have grown so sophisticated with our Stealth, as Russia has its Plasma, that to cut this short... this time a war would not do it. Bring us back from financial crisis. Like Vietnam, instead of a shot of economic adrenalin, it became an economic vampire, draining us of much needed resources and the resounding truth is - we are in the 21st century. The same rules do not apply anymore.

We are so extended, so huge, so many people, you cannot possible apply rules from the 30s to our economy, our people. We are global. We are dependent on the very enemies we prepare to fight.

Yes, today we are just above 7100 in the Dow Jones. That was the line wasn't it?

Mixing economics with Bird Flu - we cannot take the hit in our health care and sanitation because really- a depression would set the stage for a Pandemic in the U.S.  What is the greatest threat to national security? Bad choices.  Bad decisions. Inner circles making money by mixing banking with government, the U.S. essentially failing to monitor and control dangerous economic practices from powerful campaign contributing corporations who ruled our nation by proxy for eight years. Yes, with our new president it is time for a change. More of the same will not do.

This will effect our health care system, our ability to prepare, and all over the world the chances of many waves of Pandemics will increase. Imagine a 3rd world country getting poorer and rampant with disease.

Many of us have not invested in the stock market or even have sizable investments in anything, except maybe our house, if we have one.

These are the money games of the rich and powerful. I and my family or neither rich or powerful. We struggle to survive.

But our jobs, that which keeps us in a house and not homeless and refugees... that is something most of us can understand.

Albert, you have certainly been on the mark on this one. There are tough times for the Stock Market  ahead and sad and cliche though it might be - not if, but when.

How ironic we have been prepping for a Pandemic, and now some of us will be able to use that water, food, and other supplies to survive a possible Depression.

I love America, almost as much as I love God, or my family, or anything else dear to me. I want to see us do better- I want better news - and most of all I want to see us become united as we once were against the greatest enemy of all - bad decisions and actions which lessen the dignity and honor of our democracy, the constitution and the rights given to us by it,  and what could be an example, which would make other nations deeply considering joining us in becoming a democracy; not by force, but by prosperity.

Medclinician

If they gave all those trillions to us americans instead of the banks we all can pay off  our homes, bills, and start fresh...just a thought:O)

Melody

Kilt2, were u talking to me? I wasn't sure.

Kilt2 I agree....we can't count anyone...especiallly not the govt..but what they are doing is sooooo wrong...taking our money and throwing it around like they are.

We might dip under 7000 for awhile today.

waterboy wrote: My belief is......The downside is 6700 for the Dow.

I must really be out in left field, I was thinking under 5000 for the dow.  My reasoning is:  The fed has predicted the crisis will end in 09, but they have been wrong with every prediction so far.  The pres is going to cut the budget or deficit in half, fat chance.  We need to fund the banks again, probably looking at a 1.5 trillion dollar give away program to try to keep them afloat for a few more months.  We aren't anywhere near out of the woods and everything that has been tried so far doesn't work.

LaRo, I dont' think the govt really is predicting it to get better at end of 09...I think they are just "saying" this to keep people calmed down and not to get into a panic.

Experts are now predicting under 5000 for the DOW.    This is going to get real ugly.

 Watch This Video>>>

 

Cramer: Nationalization Would Crush America

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Tue 02/24/09 12:59 PM EST

 

 

VIDEO

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/video/10466857/china-watch-mail-bag-is-ceo-on-the-rise.html?cm_ven=YAHOOV&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA&s=1#14397057001

 

 

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