Wall Street Stunners: Lehman Toast, Bank Of America May Save Merrill

well, in my opinion. let the com pany go bust. You cannot expect the Government to bail out all of the corporations. Does the Govt. bail out individuals? Wel what is the difference.

There is nothing wrong to be punished for wrong decisions,thats what free market is.No body cares about (hand to mouth) people who are in deep hole because they will not be able to buy houses at recent prices.This all mess was created by greed and people have to wait to buy propeties till prices go down in real sense.Cheap properties are good for middle class because they are the one's who ends up paying three times of purchse price with intrest and closing costs.And don't expect nonsense boom for a while.Good luck for stupid money supply by subprime and primeprime mortgages.Take your losses and be patient and wise for future.try not to screw up system.

So sad to see those "smart" Yankees headed into the poor house! Breaks my heart!

Oh you poor fools. The meltdown on Wall Street is the first step in the meltdown of our economy. It's not just Yankees losing. We are all losing.

I just upgraded Lehman to "buy." LOL

Bank of America payed way too much for MER. Why? They seemingly paid too much for CFC as well. I think they think the dollar is dead meat. They are willing to pay any price because they are short the dollar. Now that Merrill is under their leash; we can expect the dollar to tank...hard.

Can one say it is the Developers who created artificially high home values to maximize profit that has caused the demise of the housing market. Sure we can. Now people owe more than their house is worth, and the Developers are now selling new houses for 30% ti 40% less and still making a profit. That's what I'm think I have seen and understand. What does that tell us? Greed and its results.

Arogance (not following your firms top analysts who cautioned about real estate 2 years ago) Greed, to chase an ill advised levered model as BS to get Bears illusive eps, and third building an inbred board with little tolerance for differing opinions, this is the legacy of Stan O'neill, a true embarrassment to the intellect of the US capital system . To bad for Merrill that they were unfortunate to hire him, and worse., push him up through the ranks.......My thoughts go out to past and current employees when so few can destouy a firm so great...................Jim

holy.... this is going to be one interesting week... to say the least

This is a systemic failure, Lehman is taking the fall because the other banks along with the US Gov don't see how this will cause further panic... this will be followed by selloffs of more banks and many more industries.....if you think we're in a recession, just wait till this now turns into a depression. You can thank our sit-on-their-hands government for it!

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Hey, scammr, you toothless, redneck red state idiots helped cause this mess with your moronic votes for Bush and his brainless administration pumping billions out of the country and turning a winking eye away while giving business carte blanche to put us in this mess, if not stand with thumbs-in-rear only to knee-jerk as it unfolded. We yankees must be stupid to keep letting you bozos steal from us via the feds to fund your guns and religion. If we were smart, we'd bomb the damn red states and get the country back on track... Abortion clinics will be the least of your worries if the country sinks into financial chaos, let alone chokes on its own gutting of health and environmental and climate protections to the highest bidders. Hope you and your ilk are all happy. The politicans and bankers sure won't feel the pinch, let alone lose their homes (how many again, McCain, you ELITIST, OUT-OF-TOUCH FRAUD?!). Keep laughing, scammr, the blue well is about to run dry - who'll fund your food stamps and welfare now?!?!

Hey, scammr, you toothless, redneck red state idiots helped cause this mess with your moronic votes for Bush and his brainless administration pumping billions out of the country and turning a winking eye away while giving business carte blanche to put us in this mess, if not stand with thumbs-in-rear only to knee-jerk as it unfolded. We yankees must be stupid to keep letting you bozos steal from us via the feds to fund your guns and religion. If we were smart, we'd bomb the damn red states and get the country back on track... Abortion clinics will be the least of your worries if the country sinks into financial chaos, let alone chokes on its own gutting of health and environmental and climate protections to the highest bidders. Hope you and your ilk are all happy. The politicans and bankers sure won't feel the pinch, let alone lose their homes (how many again, McCain, you ELITIST, OUT-OF-TOUCH FRAUD?!). Keep laughing, scammr, the blue well is about to run dry - who'll fund your food stamps and welfare now?!?!

To the anonymous user that posted at posted at 12:08EDT, please go back to reading the tabloids. The government is NOT the answer to solving market problems and, in fact, is part of the reason we are in the straits that we are. And, by the way, a recession doesn't mean that you've heard that "things are tough all over" or else how would we really ever know if we were in one. No, it has an actual definition. It is specifically defined as 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. We haven't even had one yet. Again, the VERY BEST thing the government could do is sit on their hands and LET MARKETS WORK!

Hey, scammr, you toothless, redneck red state idiots helped cause this mess with your moronic votes for Bush and his brainless administration pumping billions out of the country and turning a winking eye away while giving business carte blanche to put us in this mess, if not stand with thumbs-in-rear only to knee-jerk as it unfolded. We yankees must be stupid to keep letting you bozos steal from us via the feds to fund your guns and religion. If we were smart, we'd bomb the damn red states and get the country back on track... Abortion clinics will be the least of your worries if the country sinks into financial chaos, let alone chokes on its own gutting of health and environmental and climate protections to the highest bidders. Hope you and your ilk are all happy. The politicans and bankers sure won't feel the pinch, let alone lose their homes (how many again, McCain, you ELITIST, OUT-OF-TOUCH FRAUD?!). Keep laughing, scammr, the blue well is about to run dry - who'll fund your food stamps and welfare now?!?!

This is all playing-out just like the Asian financial crisis of 1997. I thought I I would be a smart allec back then, so I bought several asian funds when I thought the market had tanked. It had not! So, I saw an additional 40% of my capital evaporate. But, 8 years later I was back in the black in a very big way. Much of it had to do with the currency shifts (making asian stocks worth more). People have predicted the bottom for a few months now. I think this is the final leg of the bear market. However, just remember one important thing...markets always overcorrect. So, if the parity here should be a DJIA at 10,000, we could go to 9,500 before we scrape bottom and start to slowly come back up. Get your checkbooks out and get ready to buy some blue chip financial stocks at thrift store prices. Oh, and one last thing. Back in 2006, before Yahoo closed message boards for all newsworthy stories, people were already predicting that housing prices had appreciated too far. I would say that roughly 40% of the posters were logically suggesting that the real estate price boom was a real estate price bubble and something was going to give way. They were right...albeit it was not until the middle of 2007 that we finally saw an end to inflated prices. Frankly, I think it is a mistake for the government to step-in to help lender or home owners. Cheaper home prices would indeed help the middle class more than anyone. Prices in the Washington DC area were astronomical; with small, single family homes selling for $450,000. Now the prices are down to $350,000, but they are still overpriced. When they fall back to $200,000, then we can talk about affordability.

Yes, it should be allowed to go bust. The financial market should look at it affirmatively...that is, one less bad bank to deal with and let other institutions learn from it. That should bode well for a better market future.

Does anyone know how an indvidual with a stock brokerage account at Lehman will be affected? Can they continuing trading their account on Monday morning (assuming the BK is filed)? any difference if the stocks are in street name or held by the individual? Under the bankruptcy, how quickly will individual accounts be transferred to another firm or is the transfer not likely to take place unless Lehman is actually winding down its business?

I hope (and pray) that every investment bank goes under and GOLD enjoys a nice parabolic spike to $10,000. Then there will finally be justice in the world and those who practice and believe in TRUE freedom by holding the only "real" money will be rewarded! R.I.P greedy pigs, R.I.P. worthless fiat currency, R.I.P. wall street mafia. LOL, what a great day!!