Wonkette
- JESUS FUCKING CHRIST: Dow drops 300 … 400 … 450 … 500. Closes down 5.1%, 508 points, under 9,450. S&P drops under 1,000 to 996, lowest since 2003. Five straight days of this shit. How much longer? Two years? Ten years? [Marketwatch]
THE END
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Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Is this like one of those math puzzles, where there’s an infinite number of steps you can take to zero if you keep reducing by 5%?
Of course, we’ll be eating household pets inside a month, if this continues.
Exactly 5 AND A HALF YEARS, so we can learn to sympathize with WALNUTS! Duh.
The marketwatch ’system failure’ page is telling.
THE ECONOMY IS IN THE TANK 4 NOSAMABAMA!!!!!!11!!!1!!!!!
Time to go fight some inner city maggots.
Martial law is comin’. Stock up on your beanie weenies.
Haha, suck it, Wall Street, tax cuts can’t help you when you have no income!
More like FIVE AND A HALF YEARS.
My playlist just brought up ITEOTWAWKI(AIFF) as the market closed. Perfect timing.
Sarah Palin needs to calm our nation’s investors by lynching some subprime borrowers right away.
9000+ points to go to reboot!
Jesus, Ken, don’t wig out. If the Dow drops 500 points a day we’ve got, at most, nine days of this to go. After that, it’s clear sailing.
The revolution is but a few DJI points away.
Bernanke hints at interest cut. Oh, Ben don’t be so coy. In any case, ain’t nothing Benny Boy can do to get the people to buya the stockz.
Invest in guns and canned food.
Oh look, now even those privately-owned retirement assets are going straight to zero:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93LQUFO0&show_article=1
Gee, I wonder why that whole privatize-Social-Security idea never took off.
I never thought I’d own a gun, but maybe now is the time?
Serolf Divad: My Math sux. We’ve got at most 19 days.
Serolf Divad: Excluding weekends, this is enough to get us to election day.
But if you turn the graph upside down then it’s … oh shit, still going down.
The poor Chinese. Who is going to pay their loans back now?
jagorev: My wife and I have agreed to not even look at our 401K or IRAs for another year or so. Really, why bother? We’re nowhere close to retiring, and it will only freak us out to see that our funds have dropped 30%. But for the older folks, damn, this really really sucks.
Good News:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U_xmfSwYSw&feature=related
I am facehead and I approve this survival tip.
As John Oliver noted, Bush can never be the best President, but he sure seems to be pushing to be the last one.
Can someone please tell me who the last president was to leave office with the Dow being lower than it was when he took office??
Serolf Divad: I just assumed that you meant that after the Dow fell below 5000, the traders would all turn feral and feed on themselves.
Which I’m actually in favor of.
Have we picked a central location for Wonkette Hoboland? I’ll need to check train schedules while I still have a computer.
InKnockYouUs: Don’t matter how much Benny and the Jets decrease the interest rates. The banks ain’t got the fund to lend.
NoWireHangers: Larry Fine: Guns are the way to go. You can get all the food you want in the world if you have enough guns. I believe it is the same logic that has resulted us blowing 1 trillion dollars and ~4200 American lives in Iraq.
“if you need your money within the next five years, sell, sell sell” gee, wasn’t that a good idea?
Thank God I invested in deer carcasses and wonderbread.
I feel this sudden urge to go see a talkie picture, pickup a Flapper girl and dance the Charleston.
NoWireHangers: Bought my first one this summer.
Glock, baby!
Dave J.: They’ll just send it to collections, I’m sure.
No one’s retiring for a hundred years, bitches, so get back to work.
My mousetraps (survival machines) are looking like pretty good investments right now. They come in red, white and blue (and gold for the dead end Wall Streeters). Click on THE END OF THE WORLD :
http://homepage.mac.com/mistahcoughdrop/
Lionel Hutz Esq.: You could sell tickets to that and make up a huge chunk of their losses.
facehead: I’m sensing a surge in watersports aficionados around the bend.
Why oh why did I “prudently” put anything into my retirement account instead of spending it on hookers, booze, and cheap greasy comfort food over the last ten years?????
At least that would have generated some hedonistic pleasures…….
ManchuCandidate: I’m telling you, Dance Marathons! For a nickel and three tins of soup, my partner and I will waltz for four straight days.
The Today Show will up the ante tomorrow morning with a public flogging of Jim “Mad Money” Kramer in the plaza. Free cans of beans to all who attend.
Programming note: The Broadway All Stars Wall Street Song ‘n Dance Revue will be postponed as a result. Further schedule changes may occur in order to accommodate more topical entertainment, including presidential candidate lynchings and executive window leaps. Stay tuned!
Welp, Bye Bye Miss American Dream…
When the Dow gets to 2500 I’m buying!
I’m going to by a postal uniform and brush up on my Shakespeare.
Barack should say something like, “You know, pundits are saying that this downturn in the economy somehow helps my campaign, but the fact of the matter is, the downturn in the economy doesnt help anyone. But these problems we’re having could have been averted with real leadership in the White House these past eight years. What we now must do is…” and go into this talking point about how he will save kittens from the American terrorist Dow Jones.
Debate. Over.
Gopherit v2.0: I listened to the hearings on that today. They want to outlaw your ability to borrow from your 401K, something I’m DAMN glad I did 2 weeks ago, while my 401K had value. I’m paying it back, with guaranteed 5% interest, using it to pay down a much higher interest credit card. Had I tried to borrow this week, well, not much cash left to rescue. They want to mandate contributing too. For someone on a really low income, well, ouch. I mean, great goal and all, but ouch.
dano: What, the whole DJIA? You probably could.
Dave J.: Yeah, that is Wise. Poor goddamned fools listening to that fucking clown Jim Cramer telling them to dump their stocks when everything’s 30% or more down. That fuck should be put in jail.
At least the Bailout worked out for the guys and gals at AIG.
“She’s a good girl, lives with her mama…”
Terry85: Good question. Some cursory research suggest that it was Richard Nixon.
Dow was at 938 on Jan. 20, 1969, and it was 777 when he left office on August 9, 1975. The Dow touched its late-60s levels couple of times in the 70s, but didn’t leave its pre-Nixon levels behind for good until 1982. Christ, what a wasted decade.
But not as wasted as this one! See below:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aTcXFgR3I_E4
Basically, we’re on course for the first decade-long decline since the 1930s, and the market’s performance so far in the era of Bush has actually been worse than during 1930-1939.
Ken Layne: I didn’t realize anyone ever listened to that blowhard.
Actually this would be a good time to add to your retirement account if you can spare some side cash.
Low prices = more shares of mutual fund to purchase = when market recovers your shares price will rise = profit!
Unless you’re retiring tomorrow, one shouldn’t worry about the retirement funds unless you’ve invested in some sort of weird vehicle.
Ken Layne: Suze Orman did the same thing. In a more just and civilized society, mob justice would keep it from happening again. Instead, they’ll be back on TV tomorrow saying the same garbage.
I have a new money making adventure. A new gladiatorial games for the 21st century and similar to Bum Fights.
Instead of Bum Fights, let’s have Wall St Trader fights. Two Wall St traders enter the ring (made from abandoned SUVs and luxury cars) and only one comes out. The prize? A pound of government cheese.
We make some money (or tin cans or whatever the medium of exchange is) and we get to pare down the douchesack population. It’s win win!
Again, where is the Global War on Bankers?
is there to be a drinking game for tonight’s debate?
This is nothing to be afraid of or worry about. Just learn how to use a gun and become a better criminal.
magic titty: Mr. Magic Titty, you know, I think that would work. Only thing is I think people will be eating their kittens tomorrow.
It really pisses me off that most windows on wall street no longer open.
TGY: WIN!
America : The New Europe!
chrisinnc: The game is this: check your 401k = drink heavily. repeat. If you don’t have a 401k = meh, drink anyways. repeat.
What do you guys think? Is the future going to be like Mad Max, The Road or Red Dawn? I’m hoping it’s a combination of the three.
Cogito Ergo Bibo: LOL! Most of my retirement is in a state retirement fund. I can’t touch it til I quit, get laid off,retire, or die, so though it was spanked hard by the recent market troubles, all I can do is sob quietly.
Prior to the recent kerfuffle, they had been slowly reducing retirement benes for the current retirees. Now? I wouldn’t be surprised if they start paying them off in tickets to An American Carol.
chrisinnc: Hell with that. No random event is going to tell me when to drink. I prefer the game ‘take a sip when you feel like it’.
Of course, Bush isn’t really to blame. Nor are the subprime (read: black) borrowers. Greenspan’s monetary policy in the aftermath of the tech bubble has more to do with it, as do foreign central banks and savers. A glut of dollars force fed capital into America, and resulted in incredibly inefficient investment. I mean, really, we could have built so much with all this money, but instead we chose to build houses. Great.
I hate to say this, but: Ron Paul was right. It’s pretty amazing that the one candidate who had the audacity to talk about the Fed (ie the single most important institution in our economy, and the biggest contributor to bubbles, recessions, inflation, and deflation) basically got laughed off the stage.
Its time to go long.
jagorev:
Gold Standard. That’s why.
Oh and the whole racist thing.
ManchuCandidate: Mackerel. Mackerel will be the new medium of exchange:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290720439096481.html
Cogito Ergo Bibo: Wonkette Hoboland should be on Mark Foley’s lawn in West Palm Beach Florida (it’s always warm!). Our currency will be gay blowjobs, which means the higher inflation gets, the happier everyone feels.
Gopherit v2.0: I hear you. I’m waiting for the day they end our pension program, toss us what they decree to be an appropriate compensatory amount and tell us that the IRA markets eagerly await our cash. Of course, I’m damn lucky to have a pension to figure in. But I know better than to think it will really still be there when I retire.
Cogito Ergo Bibo: At least, with an IRA or 401k, your contribution go towards purchasing some actual assets. You actually own the stuff in your account. With a defined bene plan, all you have is a promise to pay from your gubmint, and those benes could be wiped out if, say, your state were to default on its debt or something… or if inflation spikes (unless your payments are indexed to inflation).
The Real JR Revisted: i know right? but i can’t bear to look at my balance to see how many sad little amero’s are available to buy up wall street’s leavings.
jagorev: Which is exactly the fun we’re looking forward to in Illinois where the pension plan is underfunded…
jagorev: Ours are, but they’ve also increased our involuntary contribution from 4 to 11 percent in the last two years. Good times.
jagorev: I dunno. That sounds fishy to me.
Ken, how can we get you to see the bright side of this.
Sure, you’ll never be able to retire, and the 950billion pretty much makes the last hope of social security go bye, bye. But on the other hand you get to spend the rest of your career with us. Doesn’t that make you smile?
Ken? Ken? Why are you chewing on the end of that Smith & Weston?
Well, there is a silver lining, however small..at least this puts a dent in Dubya’s plan of, “replenishing the ole coffers, hehheh”, by him giving speeches.
Lionel Hutz Esq.: The American public will gladly pay back their Chinese overlords to the sound of the lash tearing into their backs in forced labor camps. “Oh happy days are here again . . . .”
Just this morning CNBC had a guy on doing a hilarious routine about how 1,000 on the S&P was the bottom, and we couldn’t possibly drop below that mark, then we’d see a 30% rebound really soon.
I swear to God that station is like a weather vane that has the arrow pointing backwards.
Just listening to Fox Noise on the Internetty and Tom Sullivan, their financial guy with a 3-hour radio show is yakking non-stop about (and in very sad tones) about the coming of Socialism. Income redistribution. And Hopey’s the guy at the head of the parade.
Are the Fox dopes all like this?
what, no more hobo jokes?
jagorev: Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Keram2: Guess that’ll be non-gay blowjobs for me. Good to know I have a marketable skill.
jagorev: The hearings foresaw the demise of defined benefit plans. It’s basically happened in the UK, according to Generic Expert Called to Testify. I know I’m not counting on my pension being there.
Gopherit v2.0: Good. At least they’re doing something about it now. The alternative is that, 30 years from now, they’ll find a way to reduce your benefits to the bone. This is what usually happens with the dinosaur companies (auto-makers) who find out they can no longer support a defined bene plan.
(I consult for money managers, and underfunded pension plans are a huge, nightmarish problem…)
Gopherit v2.0: Jeebus! They are involuntarily swiping 11% of your income, “for your own good”? Criminy. Hope you can still afford soup.
I *think* I’m glad that I just took gov’t job. *Maybe* it’ll be a little more secure than schlepping for vulture capitalists. Please?
jagorev:
Wait till Old Joe Six Pack finds out that much of the funds for those CEO golden handshakes came from the underfunded pension plans.
Five straight days of this shit. How much longer? Two years? Ten years?
Well, eventually we will probably run out of numbers …
Cogito Ergo Bibo: It was pretty stunning the first couple of paychecks. Better that than to see all the retired baby-boomer state employees filling up the soup kitchens and homeless shelters. The majority get next to nothing as it is.
Like i said who wants to make a tent city?
Cogito Ergo Bibo: As for me, I plan to be a ‘paid’ dance partner on cruise ships after I retire and never see land again. Like the Man without a Country or the Flying Dutchman or Jacques Cousteau or somesuch.
When I die, they can give me the heave-ho with a canon ball or the equivalent: possibly tap-weighted Latin shoes and/or shuffleboard disk thingies.
Advocatus_Diaboli: Depends. Which government? Federal government, you’re probably safe. A state govt. that’s relied on booming real estate for most of its tax receipts recently? Ruh roh.
Advocatus_Diaboli: We’ll be the last ones reduced to putting our bindles together.
I still remember the comfort growing up during the trickle-down days that my Mom had great job security as an Unemployment Claims Deputy.
Worlds End:
I personally prefer a laminated cardboard box like a bunch of lettuce boxes.
Advocatus_Diaboli: I work for a municipality..we cower under our desks everyday, I hope it’s better for you, I really do.
jagorev: Wow! We have a plethora of huge nightmarish problems. Are underfunded pensions huge nightmarish problem #10 or higher-up the huge nightmarish problem ladder? Can we please get a reliable top 25 huge nightmarish problem ranking system/poll going here? It will help me sleep better at night. In the alley, next to the dumpster, on some stacked cardboard boxes, with the rats, fighting for bread crumbs, etc . . . .
ManchuCandidate: I’d like to say that could never have happened after Enron and the rest, but ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Tra:
Actually I’d start worrying when they use complex numbers aka square root of -1.
Gopherit v2.0: Oh I completely agree. We’re lucky to HAVE 401K’s. But that’s still gotta be painful.
TGY: Were I a guy (and if the future still had people who could afford cruises), I could see that as a really cool retirement gig. But since I’ll be an old chick, I should probably consider moving to the land of Freedom Fries, where they value women with “life experience.”
Gopherit v2.0: That’s not true…. my job in the legal world is safer than any government job, ever. People are suing the pants off each other right now.
I used to own a 357 magnum in the early 80’s, probably from watching a lot of Dirty Harry movies. It had an awesome recoil on it so I just used .38’s with it. But the 6 inch barrel made it hard to carry around even though I had a shoulder holster. I sold it to a pawn shop in the 90’s. Now I think a nice .38 revolver w/ several quick reloaders will be nice for holding off the hoardes. I went pacifist and have only owned stunguns til now. But guns and canned food does seem like the best bet right now. Don’t forget to buy several guality can openers. I have a propane burner and 3 tanks. I don’t like bottled water, so a good field filter for me. O, and I have several jumpstarter 12 v packs which will service a portable DVD player for weeks.
jagorev:
Thanks. I’ve been feverishly (well, not really) looking for this for months but haven’t been able to find much information on it.
Platypus: I’d like to see that list. It probably includes the complete collapse of the entire world banking structure, as well.
lovethebomb: Fuck it…..a p-38 will last you long enough to cover your final, miserable years. Bonus that you can hang it from a chain around your neck.
Platypus: You get bread crumbs and a cardboard box?! Luxury! All I have to look forward to is a dinner of hot gravel before I crawl into my hole in the middle of the road.
The revolution, obviously, will not be monetized.
shortsshortsshorts: For now. When things go into the shitter , shorts, lawyers will be the other white meat.
Cogito Ergo Bibo: I’m certain the list will also include dead puppies and kittens. The fact that we ate them only adds to the nightmarishness. Oh, and little children will cry too.
chrisinnc: Yeah, here’s the game: I try to drink fast enough to pass out before rage compels me to start torching the neighborhood. It’s a great game–either I win or everyone loses. I call it Wall Street Tequila Bailout.
Gopherit v2.0: Yikes. If anyone asks, I’m a librarian. With a gun.
ManchuCandidate: There’s all ways vans down by the river
500? that’s chump change. Wake me when the major indicies start to go into the negatives
WALNUTS! will continue to fight Wall Street if it takes 100 years!
Gopherit v2.0: I’ve got two horses, five dogs, four lizards, three cats, two frogs, nine chickens and a newt with five legs, so I’ll be eating quite well for a bit. Well, until I get down to the mutant newt at least. Most of my neighbors are pretty old, so I’ve got a good chance of being the last man standing around here once it’s time to turn cannibal. Good times.
401k dude on phone was VERY CONCERNED that I would get hosed with the 10% penalty for hardship withdrawal. I’m truly grateful for his guidance. I had failed to fully appreciate that if I lose the house, then I’ll lose the mortgage deduction, catapulting me into a higher tax bracket. And even though I don’t have a job….uh….wait. Hmmm. Give me a minute. ($0.00 income + (401k - 20% it lost over last 3 months) + 10% penalty for paltry hardship withdrawal = dryer change)…THANK YOU WALL STREET FOR SAVING ME FROM THE IRS MINIONS!
Aww wonketteers, I’ve missed you too much, time spent tanking and going short on “the fundamentals are strong…” Huzzar!
I’m still long Irish Pubs on McArthur Bvd, short getting beer in fascist Mongomery County…
Love to all
CC
Terry85: Jimmy Carter
January 20, 1977 972
January 20, 1981 950