Oh! W.

Updated on 09/26/2008:
Apparently, President Bush's bailout did go through a lot of bottleneck on the floor of the Congress on Thursday. And now, Washington is working over the weekend to come to a consensus by Monday. Read the New York Times story here.
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Did anyone watch W. address the nation last night? First things first, with this being dubbed as the "greatest depression", W. could not have kicked things off on a more positive binge.

Didn't anyone else get it? The red tie.



Face it America, he will again get what he wants. Even though if it takes a bipartisan frenzy, no John McCain on the campaign trail and Senator Christopher Dodd looking as someone more important in Washington than he really is. And apart from a certain executive pay clause and the temporary ban on short selling, it will be all on his terms.

"Once this crisis is resolved, there will be time to update our financial regulatory structures. Our 21st-century global economy remains regulated largely by outdated 20th-century laws."

Wow. Anyone who can read between the lines, there would not be anything drastic with regulation after all. So W. calls the democrats for a trillion bucks, gives a certain few like Sen. Christopher Dodd and Sen. Harry Reid a few soundbite on TV, but in real terms, ignores their cherished call for a more stringent regulatory framework.

Though this bailout business did put us through a lot of stress. Specially with an angry Sen. Dodd on TV. Let us give it to him. It is his 15 seconds of fame.

And we thought we would not see him much after the most inconsequntial presidential campaign. Ah! well, these are uncertain times.

"Many borrowers took out loans larger than they could afford, assuming that they could sell or refinance their homes at a higher price later on."

Even if it was a couple of lines camouflaged somewhere in W.'s speech, I cannot help applaud a President, who in a world of John McCain and Barack Obama, can literally tell the Americans that like Wall Street, they fucked up.

Or Wall Street fucked up because the American people fucked up. First.

And this Presidential Election; call it a clusterfuck, or a cute Daniel Radcliffe turning into a naked Daniel Radcliffe. There is only as much as we can take. Asked about whether he would go to Washington, Sen. Obama said:

“If we get consensus and everybody is popping Champagne in Wahington, then I’ll probably go back to campaign with folks who are having a tough time in Ohio and Michigan.”

Spare a minute for folks in Michigan and Ohio. Gail Collins writes of them in the New York Times:

"Since the people of Ohio and Michigan have been visited by a presidential candidate virtually every hour for the last six months, it would seem that they could get by on their own for a day or two."

If the last two weeks on Wall Street should teach you something, just remember that the President matters. Even if just for the next four months. Well, add more than a bit of Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke.

After which with the debt ceiling of the United States at $ 11. 3 trillion, I don't think either President Obama or President Palin in Washington would be wielding much stick.

But with them in Washington, for folks in Michigan and Ohio "change" shall prevail.

Transcript- President Bush's speech on the economy on 09.25.2008 [NY Times]
Bring on the Rubber Chickens- Gail Collins [NYTimes]

After $700 Billion, dandy times in Wall Street

I might have to take my words back. With rumours of a Fed bailout, the stock markets had their biggest rally in years the last two days of the week. Merril Lynch shot up 33.73%, or +7.44 points on Friday itself.

It looks like Bank of America and Kenneth D. Lewis were not that dumb after all. But would Merril Lynch, now with better valuations and the bailout which Fed estimates to be at $700 billion, now want to sell itself? At Antifits, we always have our noses out for more drama. What a wonderful world it would be if John Thain addressed the press somthing like this:

"I don't know where Kenneth, or the punters get their ideas from. If we mislead someone into wrong ideas, we apologize. But Merril needs nobody."

But the crisis now is almost over after warranting the greatest intervention of the government in years. $700 Billion is a lot of money, and more so, if it ends up doing what it intends to do. Peter S. Goodman in the New York Times explains:

"If the plan works, it will attack the central cause of American economic distress — the continued plunge in housing prices. If banks resumed lending more liberally, mortgages would become more readily available. That would give more people the wherewithal to buy homes, lifting housing prices or at least preventing them from falling further. This would prevent more mortgage-linked investments from going bad, further easing the strain on banks. As a result, the current downward spiral would end and start heading up."



You better brush up on the past week though. Because in 25 years, if somebody asks you what Lehman was, you better say something, give names and quote numbers. It makes you sound intelligent.

And it has also costed you $2000. I will let that sink in.

Diamond and Kashyap explain it all [Freakonomics]
What happened in Lehman in 30 sconds, or less [Chris DesBarres- NYMag]
AIG in 30, more like 45, seconds [Chris DesBarres- NYMag]
The story of the men in the middle of it all [NYTimes]
And the men who seem to be sorting it out [NYTimes]
Hard Truths about the Bailout [NYTimes- Editorial]
But will it work? [NYTimes]