Meanwhile, trying to present Poland as (Rumsfeld's) New Europe in the middle of this meltdown crisis reminds us of those pollock jokes of the 1960s. Lawrence Welk, where are you?

mabey the world needed some kind of economic slow down, with global demand on everthing going throgh the roof and into outer space. for exp. the price of homes in some areas were doubling if not tripiing, gas prices up over 40%, elictric, heateing, and food prices all up dramiticlly. with in a short peiod of time. the bag of finaces finally bust for us americans. we now have to almost start from the begging and be more carful in what we put in are new bags

Henry and George went up the ‘hill’ to fetch a dodgy bailout

Taxpayers said no, but the Dems said “go’!

And the stocks came tumbling after!

Now that fiscal conservativeness is returning to the US, and consumers are forced to handle their debts instead of inflating super-sized consumption... everyone keep talking about the "world economy problem," and how fiscal conservativeness, oversight and transparency must return... how is the US going to handle it's debt? Or is that not an issue – since it is a "world problem?" Can the US work their way out of the debt – like European countries and emerging markets did? How long will that turn around take?

China is reducing growth from 11% to 9% and Brazil down from 8% to 7% - how much growth does the US need in the coming decades to handle their debt? Or is debt only an issue for consumers – not nations?

Regards,
Johann, Brazil

And now it's time to pass the Fair Tax to fix it!

Or you can sing to Corona's 90's disco hit "Try me out" like this:

Bail me out, please baby bail me out
Just take a chance because I wanna be yours
Bail me out, if you just bail me out
I'll be the bank for your money, let me be yours
Wanna rob you..

why do u enjoy this misery?

One bear said to the other:

"Take what belongs to all living beeings and reward yourself for lending it to them"

Is anyone making money in the current market? Who are they and how do they do it?

Hickory dickory dock. We're waiting on the stocks. The clock struck 9:30. The stocks went down. Hickory dickory dock.

You are incorrect when you say that "this was the week when everything fell." Actually, cash and liquidity became much more valuable.

it's time to stop living waiting on the Government. the fact of the matter is we have not done a good job on educating people in ways of managing there money and being smart. you can bail them you, you can pay their morgage, and you might as well tell them to stop working because if they are ignorant in money they will eventually go broke. if 95% of the US is struggling that means who ever teaching them is failing... but the only way to fix any problem is the source and the source is the people... you can cut taxes or do what ever if the people still buy thing they can't afford they still won't pay their morgages or loans.... time to stop feeding on the ones who have less knowledge then some,,, true change does not begin in the white house it begins in my house

@ m

Nobody is 'enjoying' the misery. This is a British thing. It's called 'putting a brave face on, and laughing through the blitz'. It's so painfully British as to be incomprehensible to most other people.

Brits DO 'gallows' humour'. We even do it where there is no gallows. It's a world-view. It may be a warped one, by by gum, it's ours!

"Indoctrination" - the inability to see anything wrong, or the total absence of self-reflection, understanding one's effects on their surroundings.

Media suppression of what is the real issue here – the enormous debt – it is all so heavily imprinted into minds through "scientific support", research projects and political rhetoric – that people are completely unable to even think in different terms.

Now it is dawning on them that "something is wrong", and they are struggling – just like anyone fighting an addiction or breaking away from a religious cult where their "brain real-estate" is so heavily invested in the ideologies and social structures...

It will be interesting to see if anyone sobers up – like the US comptroller general David M. Walker did – and who will be stuck with the bill in the end. It looks like taxpayers around the world are being strong-armed at the G7 meeting today. Anyone who believes that "altruism" and not "pragmatism" is at work here – are sadly under-educated.

Stop throwing money into the Ocean.
The plan to assist banks and financial institutions is both doomed and unfair .
It is doomed because nobody knows exactly how the banks “ stand”.The original black holes are ever increasing to staggering figures .
The plan originally announced is increasing too .This induces further uncertainty and erodes confidence .
It is unfair because private financial institutions and their shareholders are assisted by the government trough tax payer’s money and the rest of the economy is not .By the way ,what is the difference between the interest rate of the assisted bank and the interest rate of the Federal Reserve .
The world economy needs a development plan sustained both economically and politically .For example the immediate production of electric cars , enormous infrastructure plans ,a reduction of bureaucracy and a significant reduction in government expenditure .
An extraordinary adaptable world economic plan established by world political leaders would give the investors the needed horizon .

To the tune of 'Adeste Fideles' (AKA 'O, Come, All Ye Faithful' - this is a bit more clever if you have the Latin words, as well – because I switched back and forth, depending which scanned better, and was more clever.)

Come, All Ye Faithless

Come, all ye faithless,
fearful and foreclosed-on,
Come, all ye citizens
to New Yo-ork Town.
Come and behold it!
See the numbers plummeting.
O, no! There goes your pension!
O, woe! That was your pension!
And so, there went your pension,
like do-ominoes.

Weep, all share-holders.
Weep, all the world in chorus.
O, weep you participants in
F(oo)TSE and Dax.
Gor! See them par-ty,
to excess all day! O, no!
A I G wants more money.
The Nikkei lost your money.
The Cac Quarante and Hang Seng
fell like do-ominoes.

Look, what have we here?
Confidence evaporates.
Run, all you panicked sheep
and sell while you can!
Jesus! It's gory,
Global, long-term haemorrhage.
Come join in the recession.
They can't stop this recession.
And all 'cause money-lenders,
played do-ominoes.

© 2008 Systemic Economic Meltdown Muzik
Playing in Shop Elevators Everywhere this Christmas
___________________________________

Mr Q,

You should not have got me started. I can set new words to any tune I know (in at least two languages), and have a long, notorious history of doing so, particularly around Christmas.

We could wroite 'em, an 'ave us a luvly sing-along, you an me... Bring Mr H, too! Noice lad, our Charles! Wants to tyke better care of 'imself, 'e duz. Always standin' about in the wet. Wot 'e needs is a noice cuppa, an a sing-alo...

Ahh. Hrrrm. Quate. P'raps not, then.

;-)

Uma

Hi Jim,
Yes you can make money , buy that PUT warrants !!!

So Gordon Brown has produced a bail-out plan!!! but he I believe may have created another problem? He (in his speech to-day) declared that R.B.S, HBOS and Lloyds were being supported by taking Preferred Shares and that "NO DIVIDENDS" would be paid to shareholders. The question is:- why should shareholders, unit trusts, and pension funds hold ANY shares in these banks. Surely fund managers will start disposing of them form their job is to INCREASE value for their clients?????

Who wants to sink alongwith the Titanic (USA) in trying to save it?

It is most surprising that the US government has “STILL NOT” identified its “CORE PROBLEMS”.
Due to this whatever steps they have taken will bring “ZERO” results as the solutions are only effective
once the core problems have been identified. Let me repeat the core problems once again.

1) The Twin Deficits (The Budget Deficit and the Trade Deficit)
2) The National Debt
3) Unemployment

In the coming Near future (3-5 Years) Crime and Law and Order will also
become a Major Core problem .

The G-7 or G-10 don’t realize the seriousness of the problems. Anyone and I mean ALL who try to
coordinate and try to save USA will sink along with it. You may well ask WHY ?

The National Debt of USA has now crossed $ 11,300 Trillion and with the debts of other Industrialized nations (G-7 or G-10) coupled together it will be a miracle if they can manage/save their ownselves under such conditions. Right now Japan is in a bad position and if they take the corrective action and invest in its own economy Instead of US T-Bills/T-Bonds they can rectify and correct their imbalances and in a few years improve their economy. The same can be said of France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Russia, Netherlands/Holland. China is in a Unique position of Strength as the only effect this Recession/Depression or best called “Global Meltdown” . Do the G-7 and G-10 think that is going to blow away with a “Coordinated” action ? If they think This then they are Totally and Completely wrong . They have not fathomed the seriousness and the threat they are facing. The don’t know the size and Seriousness the USA is facing because as I repeat above “THEY HAVE NOT IDENTIFIED THEIR CORE PROBLEMS YET”.

The size and seriousness of the problems each country knows its own problems “EXCEPT USA”.

It is advised for ALL countries save yourself. USA’s problems are more Far Reaching and with far wider implications than they know because they have not addressed the core problems let alone identified it.

For USA its already too late. Now the other countries should decide if they want to save their
ownselves (Their Economies) or they want to Sink along with USA.

As per my calculations the Problem is Not only of “JUST” injecting funds. First things first . They have to consider several things first of all to deal and rectify the Twin deficits and that also on “WAR FOOTING MEANING TODAY”, because the more time elapsed the more chance of “NO RETURN”. The

Richard, Richard where forth art thou Richard?

Can you, or someone else at CNN, please take Paulson on for his disgraceful behavior and lack of service to his employers, the US taxpayers.

This latest bailout proposal should be the nail on his coffin.

Paulson was a former CEO (leading Goldman Sachs to the current predicament) and I would love to ask him what would happen to him if he proposed an investment of his stock holders money on way worse terms than Buffet (when if anything banks are even more desperate and an even better deal would be justifiable). He would be sacked that’s what!

So why is the media letting Paulson get away with this? Why aren't they demanding his sacking as they did for FEMA’s Michael Brown…his handling of a crisis was no worse, and at least his failure was not driven by cronyism!

And where is the promised "oversight" from Senators and members Congress...I mean even a blind man could see how corrupt this is.

Looking up the walls
I smell the sound of Famine.
Who has done this to us
even as the great giant crawl.

Buy! Be careful
Look before you leap
cos the bear is in the market.
The Bear grows fat, look! o! sheep

No matter what happens
some wallets suffer and some gain
Let the intelligent Economist sing now
Who know what bail out will work

Let us think and save the future.
For the solution is under our sleves
Yet no one identifies the source
The caterpillar that eats the crops is attached to it

I am not a very smart American, two questions confused me.
Prolife: No one has address the death penaity.
What is the cost to the tax payer to put a person to death, compare
ot total life in prison,while paying his way to stay alive. and repay back to the tax payers.
With over 138 millions people in U>S What is the size of
government we should have to protect the environment and the
safety of it people ?
is the government to big now as those running for offiice claims?

After Joe the Plumber, who's next? Rosie the Rivetter? Are we going to whistle to the bank: Minnie's in the Money or Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

I own a small business (an Engineering firm) in Egypt. We design environmental solutions and import our equipment from Europe. the falling value of the Euro is currently an advantage, but if the Euro bounces back suddenly it will cause me a big problem and may lead to massive losses. I am still pricing everything in terms of 1 Euro= $ 1.5
I have no advantage so far. I just need for someone to forecast how will the currency market change during the next year.

THANX

Ashraf

Do you want to know why the stock market is tanking? I am part of a family of wealth and so are my friend's and we are scared to death what will happen to our wealth if O'Bama gets in. And we are all liquidating our portfolio's.

Better to go out with a bang, than to fade away,
As I always say,
The markets can be good, the markets can be bad,
But it never lasts long, it is so so sad,
To make those paper losses day after day,
would it not be nice to retire with some pay.

It is refreshing to see real intelligence in Mr. Steven Leib, the only talking head that gets what is happening to this economy.

If this were a house, the roof was put on with the 700B failout. The walls were put up by the other bailout for the banks, now we have to try to strengthen our foundation, being the 95%.

What, another insulting $300 to tuck away again? We needed to start from the bottom up with the foundation and rebuild those walls and roof. Let the credit companies fail, let everyone lose. For every loser, there is always a winner. It just seems that government and media, or anyone who has money doesn't want to see that kind of shift.

Greed is running everything, including CNN.

Capitol finally interviewed a representative of the AFL-CIO to get a handle on the uncounted unemployed in the US. I believe the root
cause of the economic crisis is not the housing market. But the
unseen problem is the uncounted unemployed and underemployed.
People can not find work at a desent wage or can not find work at all.

It's simple can find desent work. Then you can't pay the rent. Even
college grades are having an extremely hard time. NAFTA was a US
government disaster. Gobalization is also a disaster.

Take an isolated occurence. Pennsylvania. US sent it's steel industry
to Japan in the 80's and 90's. The region was economically wrecked.
Never recovered. Whole towns emptied out. Immortilized in song by
Billy Jol. Now multiple that by every region in the US. Economic
disaster for the whole country. History has already proven countries
need trade barriers.

Government staistics have been hidding the truth for at least two
years. Their statistics can not pass a hypothesis test. Name a stat.
Inflation, unemployment, GNP. Name one. There is no validation.
Validation is the mark of a professional statistician. The fed did nothing except collect numbers to get the best outcome in a political
light. I speculate that the collection of those numbers are not within any statistical standard or method. If it were the economic crisis would have been a predictable possability or detected earlier.

The recent financial crisis has caused considerable anxiety and the worse is far from over. Various theories will resonate over the years to come. The debate ranges from 2008 economics Nobel Laureate Krugman’s approval of governments’ support to financial institutions to dismay over weak and unethical corporate governance.

As we try to comprehend the intricacies of this debacle, it is disappointing as well as irritating to view an analysis from your Richard Quest, who is possibly an expert on reporting of everyday news. I would recommend that he sticks to stories on business travel and other topics that he is capable of handling more aptly.

Paul Banerjee

I would comment on the larger picture and not only stock markets. Well its good to have such EU-Asia summits but i feel its too little too late. The main cause of ongoing volatility in stock markets / commodity markets is largely because of Fed and US Treassury continuing to inject more stimulus packages into the maket and not allowing the markets to bottom-out. The current volatility is to force Feb to cut another 50 bps – but this makes little sense and the confidence has been lost between the banks for interbank lending. So such rate cuts or fund injection make little or no sense as banks are hoarding cash.

LIBOR and EURIBOR should be maintained at current levels and not dance in line with Fed as now Fed has little or no relevance in today's credit and cash crunch crisis.

Finally consistancy and regulated lending policy, maintain interest rates at current levels and monitor interbank lending will reduce volatility and bring back cash and the confidence.

This comment is in response of your show dated 10/26/08 8:00am pacific time. You stated that it was our fault that we lost our homes due to spending beyond our means. This is not true. We too almost lost our home but it was due to the loan company who deceived us. They told us that our monthly payments would be $1,700.00 per month. It was only after we had packed our things, put in our address change, and paid the down payment, we were told that our payment was really $2,700.00 dollars per month. We stayed in the home for almost a year before our small business started slowing down due to the economy and we thought we had better sell our home before we had lost it because we had trouble making the payment. We did however find a buyer because we would have lost our $100,000.00 deposit. Also when we sold it, we were penalized $ 10,000.00 by Washington Mutual for selling early. This was the clincher "After a year of paying $2,700.00 per month of mortgage payments which we were tricked into, the principal torwards the house was only $ 400.00.

707 431-0110

Tell me why... Tell me why... Tell me why...
[They] don't like Mondays.

- with apologies to the Boomtown Rats

I should really record my 'Homeless for Christmas' cd this year. Bother. I've no money!