What the financial meltdown means to you -- if you're not in finance world

excellent article. well written, easy to understand... and mostly, i think accurate! good perspective and translation of today's events.
comment on the situation: i think as more large firms collapse and larger firms take them over (i.e. Bank of America) we need to be cautious about monopolies.. or the likes of them. too much power in one place is not good for anyone. not even the monopoly holder.
one question i would like answered once and for all... is what is actually causing this? so many say its 'default mortgages' or 'ever-extention by the consumer' or 'poor management by the federal reserve', etc. etc. is it all of these and more? firms like Merril Lynch are so diversified its amazing that such a collapse could happen!
thanks for the great article!

welcome to how the other half of the world lives.

HA!

The blog is well written for a quick survey.
I do think that the economy needs more attention from a governmental stand point. What I mean is the decline of the economy has been gradual and is now more than ever showing it's decaying effect through over spending in foreign wars and other wrongful governmental spending.
As morbid as this sounds the outlook is bleak, if we continue in the path that we are heading towards, with investments, housing, outsourcing, etc., falling apart,the end result could be devastating.
What we need is a fresh influx of ideas and financing into small businesses and education. One sure way, is through pulling our troops back and concentrating on fixing our failing economy.
The news of Merril Lynch collapsing is just the hand writting on the wall that we need to look inwards as a country rather than outwards to fix others.
We can't continue the way we have been through the Bush years and think all will be well 2 yrs. from now. It's time to rethink our foreign, economic and strategies or else.

thank you so much for writing this to were we all can understand what has happen and what we have to look for. It is us every day people that need to know what is happening . I pray for our country everyday becasue of the shape it is in. We have let it get this way and we will have to live with what we have done.

say NO TO MACCAIN OR THIS WILL GET MUCH WORSE!
He voted with BUSH 90% of time..
Does it have to get any clearer???

(1) Live by the sword ( unbalanced budget) die by the sword. Borrow, Borrow is the foundation of our capitalistic world AND greed. Writing mortgages, giving credit, investing on margin etc. without sound principles is the reason for this climate in the financial world. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure this was coming and it is going to get much much worse. In addition we need to stop the selling of America. China practically owns this country if they would call in their dollar holdings. I have left the market last year. I am only making 2 % on a money market account BUT I have not lost a dime in this crisis.

This is a great article with credible perspective.

Our economy is struggling right now because of this man name,

GEORGE W BUSHIT

Also federal reserve is just printing money, nothing behind it.
we are in debt to the tune of 100 trillion

Thanks for sharing this information with the 'non-financial' populace. This is something every worker, especially workers with 401(k)s, mortgage, credit cards, checking accounts, etc., should know about. However, I find it amazing that these large financial firms keep collapsing. What is actually going on?

Sonja L. Marshall

Not so fast! Loans will be now close to imposible to get for the average American. Read this:

Your Loan Denied: Main Street Fallout of Wall Street Crisis

Posted Sep 15, 2008 01:58pm EDT by Aaron Task in Investing, Recession, Banking
Related: MER, BAC, LEH, ^DJI, ^GSPC, XLF, SPY
The drama on Wall Street is already hitting Main Street U.S.A. in the form of lower stock prices and declining home values. But the situation got even worse over the weekend.

With financial institutions so focused on preserving capital as many fight for survival, "it's going to be much more difficult, if not impossible" for consumer to get a loan now, says Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco.

Given the U.S. economy is driven by consumers, whose spending has been increasingly funded with debt this decade, the inability to get a loan will have profound effects on the U.S. economy. The "credit contraction" that has just begun explains why economist and executives like Bank of America's Ken Lewis are now moving their recovery forecasts to 2010 from 2008 or 2009 previously.

Garnick, whose firm has approximately $500 billion of assets under management, shares these concerns and says the U.S. stock market is far from a bottom as a result.

what is best way to safeguard cash in bank accounts?

The banks are jacking up credit card interest rates to cut thedir losses and wsill bankrupt evryone in the Unired States who has one credit card. What should be done is the Fed should step in and tell the banks to set the interest rates to zero for the next 180 days and set in usuary laws during that period that come into play at the end of the 180 day freeze. But it will not happen the banks will simply bankrupt everyone in America

The financial meltdown means that far too many executives skirted their fudiciary responsiblities in search of maximized profit. To me, it is tantamount to running a car full speed off a cliff or onto a crowded sidewalk. Recklessness is a crime. The FED has much blame, because they added fuel to the fire by lowering rates, devaluing the dollar, offering banks an open credit spigot, and looking the other way for far too long. They fiddled as the economy burned.

Greed, this is all caused by greed and managers presuring workers to do more and more business. Hence money is loaned to people and business that shouldn't get loans. Now we all pay, stocks ans IRA's down along with the value of our home. This will not go away overnight.

Good article. My personal opinion is that the greedy pigs who were responsible for this mess in the first place ought to be punished very severely, although I'm sure they will get away with it because people like that always do. In fact, I think shooting is way too good for them. I know that in many cases, people overstated their income to buy houses that they couldn't afford, but the vast majority of the fault really lies with the sub-prime perpetrators who got rich on commissions by victimizing people who were trusting and naive. Their greed disgusts me. It's times like this that make me long for the days of public humiliation (e.g., the Pilgrims with their use of the stocks). Anyone for a necktie party?

I'm going to get out my Bible and see if Bank of America taking over the world is mentioned anywhere in Revelations.

Is there any truth that these large companies went to Japan and Persia and borrowed money and now these companies have called in their debts.

I heard or saw something about Washington Mutual also having financial problems and looking for a buyer. This one bothers me and it also bothers me that Bank of America (The Gangsters) are so all powerful that they were considered to buy out M/L. They are the most crooked bank and have destroyed several lives of people I know of already by increasing interest, minimums and canceling accounts or lowerering credit balances. I hope to God they aren't thinking of stepping in to "help" Wamu or the feds can get ready for a whole lot more of bankruptcies, Foreclosures, debt and despair!

This should dispell any notion that Bankers and Politicians are very bright.