The incredible shrinking economy

Headline today:

Dow falls below 8,700 for first time since 2003 - on the 1-year anniversary of all-time high.

Rad. I think that pretty much wipes out my 401k contributions from the last year.

TBT vs. The Man

Got a notice from blogger the other day saying that TBT "has been identified as a potential spam blog.":

Hello,

Your blog at: http://totalbanktank.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at http://www.blogger.com/unlock-blog.g?lockedBlogID=6559082325940860527

Your blog will be deleted within 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and you'll be unable to publish posts during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected.

We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

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WTF?

This is what happens when you speak the truth. Pretty soon MLB is gonna try to shut down TJT. Where does it end?

Avoid banks that begin with "W"

It's a little bit buried in the news today, you know, with the Dow plunging 778 points today and all.. but Wachovia was bought by Citigroup this morning. Another one bites the dust.

I don't know jack shit about economics, but it seems that a handful of banks are buying up dozens (possibly hundreds by years end) of other banks. Does the idea of having 3 banking options seem weird to anyone else?

If we get service fees galore now with hundreds of competitive banking institutions, what will they do to us when there are 3 banks (that bought billions in "toxic mortgages" that they need to recoup) in charge?

Basically 3 dudes have been in charge of our economy for awhile (Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner) with little oversight and look how well that turned out.

WaMu CEO Alan FIshman Is A COWARD

Newly hired CEO of WaMu, Alan H. Fishman (a total colostomy bag of a human), will probably leave with a giant $11.6M severance package.

What a great guy. This bag-sack was hired less than three weeks ago and is already planning to split and make off like a bandit. Oh, and don't forget about the $7.5 million signing bonus he received when he joined WaMu earlier this month. NO JOKE!!

So with a combined (likely) total of $19.1 pre taxed of course, it's assumed he'll grab this cash and run for the hills, or Mexico, or wherever paradise is. No, actually he'll most likely get hired again somewhere, probably within the Federal Reserve sketchball inner circles. A senior consultant at compensation firm James F. Reda, noted that AIG’s former CEO Robert Willumstad rejected his $22 million severance package earlier this week after the firm was bailed out by the government. Now why can't Fishman do the same?


Read more about it...
NY Times - here.
Financial Week - here.
Business Week - here.

FDIC Insured? Yeah Right.

Fuck this place I'm going to Europe.

Soon my dollar bills won't be worth shit. Thanks America!

BTW - Rudy Guiliani & Karl Rove & Dick Cheney = Fuckers

WaPoo

I want to congratulate WaMu for finally taking the final step in their total and complete fuck up in the world of banking and being taken over by the government and then sold to JP Morgan Chase. Hopefully JPMC will do something to ease the hatred for WaMu, although I doubt it. I wonder if this makes my chances better or worse for recovering the thousands of dollars in fraudulent charges made with my card from a prison that WaMu refuses to pay me back. Fucking fucks. They won't call back, keep making up new rules, hang up on us and generally are of no help and don't ever know what the fuck they are talking about. I hope no one bet it all on WaMu stock as it's hovering around 16 cents right now...

Shit is fucked.

Welcome to what is sure to become the first stop for all financial pundits in days, years and decades to come when trying to figure out what the hell went wrong in the great financial crisis of '08. Most of us here at TBT don't know anything about the financial world, but that hasn't stopped us from talking about other topics on our wide network of hard hitting blogs. Enjoy.