Banks

[Constance]

So, last week the bank that has my money, Washington Mutual, went belly-up and was bought by JP Morgan Chase. I just learned today that the bank with my student loans, Wachovia, was bought by CitiGroup.

I suddenly feel like I have financial leperosy.

[Kate]

So, last week the bank that has my money, Washington Mutual, went belly-up and was bought by JP Morgan Chase. I just learned today that the bank with my student loans, Wachovia, was bought by CitiGroup.

I suddenly feel like I have financial leperosy.

I hear ya... all my money is in Wachovia, but they didn't fail at least. But yikes, what a stressful year this has been overall...

~ Katie Marie ~

[Constance]

If I understood the articles correctly, the takeovers of WaMu and Wachovia should be completely transparent to me as I'm not a homeowner. Perhaps then, it would be different.

Now, if CitiGroup would just suddenly decide to forgive my student loans...

[tekla]

And CitiCorp was bailed out last year by the UAE.  So your student loans are not the property of the mideast oil guys.

[Constance]

Is it me, or are financial companies essentially pimps and whores?

[tekla]

Perhaps worse.  Try this guys writings on the current situation.

What we're seeing in this fiasco, among other things, is a lesson in the diminishing returns of technology. This is a train wreck of investment vehicles so complex that they could only be created with the aid of computers. The result is that hardly anyone -- perhaps even nobody in or out of Wall Street -- really understands what they represent. In fact, this alphabet soup of engineered securities -- CDOs, CDSs, MBSs, SIVs, etc -- was cooked up from a recipe of Ponzi algorithms. They were designed to be mathematically indecipherable, except by computers, in an alternative universe of model-making that bore only a superficial relation to the real world. That was their dirty secret. And the dirty secret of the Great Bail-out is that, in the real world, we will never be able to discover the actual trading value of these things at any number above zero. This is why they are called "toxic."

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

[debbie j]

Is it me, or are financial companies essentially pimps and whores?

no no Shades O'Grey the financial companies are not the pimps and whores by any means . the   pimps and whores are the check and cash

places they are the  pimps and whores places     and the financial companies are the ones that give out loans .