Wall Street

This is absolutely a joke.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The bailout is now the hottest lobbying game in town.

Insurers, automakers and American subsidiaries of foreign banks all want the Treasury Department to cut them a piece of the largest government rescue in U.S. history.

The betting is that many with their hands out will be successful, especially with financial markets in a stomach-churning dive and predictions the economy is about to tumble into a deep recession.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- First, the $700 billion rescue for the economy was about buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets.

Then it was about using $250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again.

Commentary by William Pesek

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Few questions confound economists more: What might tip China into the meltdown that so many have feared for so many years?

Possibilities include overheating, social instability, corruption, pollution, debt crises, war over Taiwan and a post- Olympics growth swoon. It's a perfectly rational expectation. No rapidly industrializing nation has ever avoided some kind of crisis, least of all upstarts in Asia.

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- There's one glaring weakness in Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's plan to save the U.S. financial system: We know what the plan is. Any other problems with it are mere details.

Much like the credo of Brad Pitt's character in the 1999 movie ``Fight Club,'' the first rule of market manipulation is you don't talk about market manipulation.

16th September 2008, on Yahoo Finance...

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080915/wall_street.html

Stocks retreat amid new Wall Street landscape
Monday September 15, 11:51 am ET
By Tim Paradis, AP Business Writer
Stocks fall but pare steepest losses after Lehman bankruptcy, Merrill sale; AIG remains worry