Wonkette
It’s Monday, meaning a bank fell. A major bank, felled. Or didn’t fall? Just “sold off” its entire banking operations: “Citigroup will acquire the banking operations of the Wachovia Corporation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said Monday morning, the latest bank to fall victim to the distressed mortgage market.” While the F.D.I.C. chairman says Wachovia customers should expect business as usual, we think there should be a BANK RUN! EVERYONE FREAK OUT! GET ALL YR MONEY! RUNNNNN!!!! [NYT]
Three banks now control everything and will be too big to fail. There’s no way anything can go wrong now.
I’m putting all of my investments into the companies that make coffee cans and shovels.
NO MORE CAR PAYMENTS FOR ME!!1!!
You guys are just elitist chicken-littles. Everything’s fine.
BTW, when do we know if the world is really going to hell and we should quite the snark and actually get that gun we’ve been talking about?
MrAgro: don’t forget rope companies! everyone needs some hangin’ rope!
This is all happening becuz of that Anti-Happiness, Anti-Jeebus, Muslimist John Hussein McCain
MrAgro: Ha ha! Probably the same company.
I planned ahead. I’m going to have the nicest pencil and apple stand in the fuckin’ country. No dimes will have to be spared for me, I’ll be raking it in. Try not to stare at my opulent pencil wealth while you’re in the soup line.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
Bank failures aren’t limited to Kaliphornians and NYC eelights. Southerners can ruin a bank just as well.
Oh, and just three days ago Martha Stewart was singing praises on her show about Wachovia Bank to her audience. I guess that’ll teach those homemakers and domestic goddesses a lesson about mixing chocolate chips and personal finances!
Fuck, they just bought by Citi. A bank run may actually be rational.
All those years spent buying crack instead of saving for my future. Who’s laughing now?
I found this:
http://burgess.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=103976
Washington, Sep 28 - Under the martial law procedure, long-standing House rules that require at least one day between the unveiling of significant legislation and the House floor vote on that legislation — so that Members can learn what they are being asked to vote on — are swept away. Instead, under “martial law,” the Leadership can file legislation with tens or hundreds of pages of fine print and move immediately to debate and votes on it, before Members of Congress, the media, or the public have an opportunity to understand fully what provisions have been altered or inserted into the legislation behind closed doors. This is the procedure that the Leadership intends to use to muscle through important bills in the next two days.
I haz a mad!
Upthruster: u watch M Stewart???
…I’m glad “Wachovia” went under! What kinda fukkin name is “Wachovia”!?!
I’m being a total masochist and listening to the House of Representative floor debate. It’s insane. There are Republitards who seem to think that we should take ANOTHER week to write up something else.
OMG. My OWN representative just spoke said he’s not voting for this. STFU, you moron! Rep. Goode BITES.
It’s like Bank Highlander: There can be only one!
When do the pinned-striped brokers start hopping out of the windows of their posh skyscapers?
AngryBlakGuy: You give them yer money, and they just Walk Ova Ya.
NoWireHangers: Well, I’m taking up marathon dancing. Care to partner with me?
columnv: Don’t worry, our great overlard (tardlord? tardlard?) Vigilante will let us know. And now in non-snark: Please tell me investments with Wachovia securities aren’t too fucked yet, as my wife was supposed to get her funds out of there last week, but got busy and forgot. I’m learning that it sucks to actually have a little money sometimes.
Cogito Ergo Bibo: Virgil Goode is your rep? I wouldn’t say that too loudly.
grendel:
But there’s only one problem. They’re all Kurgans!
“Better to burn out than fade away!”
Cape Clod: Goode is, without a doubt, THE WORST representative I’ve had in living in four different states. At least we have a great option to vote for this time around. Periello had better crush this partisan idjit. Goode don’t care ’bout no people with 401K’s or checking accounts.
AngryBlakGuy: It’s the ancestral home of Polish jokes.
MrAgro: I’m thinking of buying as much copper as I can… maybe take out loans to do so… When the 1000% inflation hits, my debts will be roughly the price of a loaf of bread, but my sweet sweet metric ton of copper will buy me Rhode Island!
Cape Clod: I’m going with pole-sitting.
Sure am glad I bought all those cans of beans last night. I knew the grocery store was trying to tell me something by putting them all on super sale.
natoslug: You are a Capitalist Roader.
Cogito Ergo Bibo: isokay. I’m being a total masochist because I don’t want it to pass. Since getting involved in Sarah Connor Chronicles, methinks it would be really cool to not have to worry about money, just about machines gone wild. It would be nice to see what it’s like to have a life with a purpose. We could all meet up and join together and fight unstoppable robots and come up with snarky things to say to keep our morale up! No more taxes! Woo HOOOOOO!
awww, I gotta has a serious. It says on the third paragraph that the bank didn’t fail, it got bought out (and this IS a big difference (and yes, I realize our glorious editors know this, but a wonketteer of Wachovian descent might be too busy crapping in the pants to notice)). If it failed, any savings someone had above 100k would be gone. Of course, by next week, 100k will be the cost of three apples, so don’t spend it all in one place.
Ramblings at the gates of the apocalypse.
Just remember Vonnegut predicted this: USA Inc. Hi ho
Or was it Tolkein?
One Ring to Rule all the Others
Or was it Palin?
Putin Rears His Head? (Is that a new porn flick?)
I have to brush up on my hobo code. Hope I taped CBS Sunday Morning yesterday. I need to learn the symbols for “Tell the lady of the house a sob story and she’ll feed you” and “Will let you sleep in the barn, overnight.”
If you live in New England, TD Banknorth is solid.
Well, today it is.
facehead: Well… if you read the Wonkette intro to the article, you might have noticed the following: “A major bank, felled. Or didn’t fall? Just “sold off” its entire banking operations”
AngryBlakGuy: In the classic Wachovia, the dancer is almost stationary with knees slightly bent, although may advance forward and back by one or two small rhythmic paces. The arms, with palms flat in line, are held almost straight, alternately flail up and down in the vertical. The head is kept in line with the upper torso but may bob slightly to accentuate the arm flailing. The dance became popular in the American surf/beach sub-culture of 1960s after the release of the song “The Wachovia” by the Orlons., may be enhanced if one imagines that ones feet are on sand.
ihasasad: I prefer a Mad Max future. The clothes are better.
columnv: I love watching this snob make millions showing people how to wash a plate. Only in America!
There goes my moneyz! Oh noes!!
I knew i should have taken my 2K american dollars and exchanged it for a euro.
grendel: Now I’m going to keep repeating “I’m Connor McCloud of the Clan McCloud” over and over and over and over and ov and faster and faster and faster and fa
grendel: Word. If this means Freddy Mercury comes back from the dead to spread the glorious message of cock rock, I’m all in.
madtowngooner:
Nah. It’s a doll. “Peek-A-Boo Putin”
JamesMichaelCurley: Mr. Curley does all sixteen dances!
Cogito Ergo Bibo: Luckily, the Hobo code got caught in the tubes:
http://www.hobo.com/hobo_code.htm
Special Agent Jack Mehoff: I am at your comment!
ihasasad: I’m Connor McCloud of the Bank McCloud Holdings…
For $700 billion, can we at least get a little commie WPA theater?
When I was a kid my grandmother gave me and my cousins all $5000 in bank stock. That bank was eventually acquired by Wachovia. Over the last year that stock has gone from providing me with a nice tidy dividend to help out with the bills every quarter to worthless paper. I’m out about $40k thanks to Bush and his Laissez-faire fundamentalist buddies (and the Titans of industry and Capitalist Heroes in management who ran the bank into the ground by buying to the sub-prime scam in a big way just before the bubble burst). Who’d think that one day I’d be lamenting the fact that I didn’t follow my cousins’ example and liquidate the stock when I turned 18 and spend it on clothes, rounds of drinks at the bar, and fast cars that eventually wound up as twisted hunks of metal abandoned in ditches by the side of the road. At least they’ve got the memories of their exploits.
jinmoom: UGH, you’re being a nerd (in the bad sense). If you had read what I wrote, you’d notice that I said they knew that.
Perhaps I’m being too serious, but I wasn’t incorrect.
natoslug: A friend of mine saw a $50K WaMu bond drop to $125.00 in value last week.
liquiddaddy: Yet another modern architectural mistake: tycoon-proof fixed glass in high-rises.
I think I’ll go put a Big Mac on layaway while they’re still affordable ( $23 adjusted ).
Cogito Ergo Bibo: Iduno…didn’t their teeth look bad? So far, in my future, everyone has nice teeth.
I’m so grateful to be a B of A customer, where “hidden fees” is a term so practiced that the bank denies its existence. It simply melds with the banks philosophy, like a societal enigma. ALL OF MY MONIES ARE BELONGING TO THEM.
It truly is A Wonderful Life…
If the house always wins in gambling, and speculation is gambling, then who’s the house and how can I get a jobz with them?
ihasasad: I just want to dress like Tina Turner in thunderdome.
facehead: I was actually looking for something more like this: http://www.worldpath.net/~minstrel/hobosign.htm Memorize ‘em now, while you still have access to fancy shmancy computers!
Servo:
My hero will be the guy who works out a way to reheat McDonalds’ fries so that they’re still edible. You realize that one McDonald’s fry provides enough fat energy to lift a VW bug ten feet in the air for 15 minutes? You could totally wait of the impending depression by subsisting on a diet of a small McDonald’s fries per day and a handful of Flintstones vitamins.
Wachovia has all these fancy signs around town, in SPANISH!, you know, for all the Mexicans. Well, I think their “Bienvenidos a Wachovia” signs now say “Adios y Via Con Dios.”
grendel: *cue Queen soundtrack*
Ha ha, fuck em all. I DON’T HAVE NO STINKIN’ MONEY. I’ve cashed everything out and am starting — get this — a wine importing business. Not expensive stuff either. Delicious Italian stuff that’s AFFORDABLE so you can drink it while your fucking life GOES DOWN THE SERIES OF TUBES and you MOVE INTO YOUR MINIVAN.
Ha ha. He who laffs last laffs last. Or whatever.
Oh, shit, I’m just back in the USSA and it’s time to plug my fucking blog, and fuck you commie socialist bailout pissants if ya don’t like it:
mondosapore.com
PS– Have a blessed day! ;))
Cogito Ergo Bibo: Nice lady symbol is a cat face, right?
Looking for somewhere to invest your last two shiny pennies? Buy up shares in whoever owns the rights to the Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Leadbelly catalogs. You think I’m kidding? Check the charts for our last great trickle-downer tailspin under Ron “Pretty Vacant” Reagan.
We’re gonna be hearing alot of “I ain’t got no home in this world anymore” ditties in the coming Hobocalypse.
I think the ad promoting Tin House to the left has the right idea. I’m horadin’ my scrap metal.
sanantonerose: Well done! You will be fed…by a lady with a cat face. Seriously, why IS that symbol a cat?
ManchuCandidate: Bank of America’s HQ is also right up the street from Wachovia.
V572625694: like a sneeze-guard on a salad bar?
Cogito Ergo Bibo: Well, I’m guessing it has something to do with ladyparts. Srsly. I came across this stuff when I was researching Woody Guthrie. Hobo Life, dig it.
sanantonerose: That makes a weird amount of sense. Interesting!
AngryBlakGuy: yeah. sounds like some made-up german-balkan name, maybe from the same folks who brought you “austria-hungary” That didn’t end up so well.
And there’s this.
I’d like to announce that I am acquiring US Bank for some bus tickets and a really good kung pao chicken recipe.
grendel: I’m having trouble saying that one fast
As long as Citigroup converts the Wachovia location next to my favorite bar into a Citibank, I have no complaints.
Cogito Ergo Bibo: Didn’t she have the most awesomest hair? No taxes AND awesome hair, now that’s a future I can believe in!
Cogito Ergo Bibo: don’t try to understand the ways of the Hobo, just live them.
Strangely, ‘
‘ is the symbol for “has bad pokerface and 4 virgin daughters.”
facehead: He already has… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnzMN1369W8
facehead: Umm…smiley done cover up ma link… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnzMN1369W8
wonky, sweetie, bless yer heart, yer periodic cries for bank run is scarin my money, puny as it’s been lookin of late…
Living in Charlotte, I have found the following interesting:
1. The housing bubble was really small here - house values did not rise nearly as much as in other places. House values have decreased and inventories increased, but at a much lower rate than other large cities (IE, Phoenix, Vegas, etc…)
2. Foreclosures began to be an issue much earlier than in other parts of the country. The Charlotte Observer did a great series of reports about low and middle income neighbourhoods that had serious foreclosure issues over a year ago.
Now, I am sure that there are much more complicated reasons for the above two facts, but it would seem to me that in the place where 50K+ bankers live and work this mess has been much less profound. Sort of like they knew what they were doing, on some semi or subconscious level, would be terribly messy and therefore took steps to not shit in their own backyard.
But now, at $1 a share, the shitbirds have come home to roost.
I’m glad I put all of my money into leather bondage gear. I’ll be getting rich any day now.