My piece of the Wall Street Fallout.



I owned a few shared of Merrill Lynch back in '07. I was kind of naive and bought it on the "advice" of Eric Bolling who at the time was on CNBC's Fast Money show. Needless to say I bought it at 96.89 and was stopped out at 89.26 Needless to say I wish I was short back in Jan of '07 specifically at that price with my life savings at the time as I would be living in my house all paid for in cash. Yea, hindsight is always 20/20 right?

Well at least someone on (e:strip) is going to get a piece of the "Bailout" money ;-) Or in my case I'm going to get back a portion of my tax dollars to "save the too big's to fail!"

I had some really crazy rant that I posted as a draft last night. It basically came down to me being kind of paranoid to post it. So here instead is a bit of humor that I came across:

News from the Business World
1. The US has made a new weapon that destroys people but keeps the building standing.. Its called the stock market.

2. Do you have any idea how cheap stocks are? Wall Street is now being called Wal-Mart Street.

3. The difference between a pigeon and an investment banker.The pigeon can still make a deposit on a BMW.

4. What's the difference between a guy who lost everything in Las Vegas and an investment banker? A tie!

5. The problem with investment bank balance sheet is that on the left side nothing's right and on the right side nothing's left.

6. I want to warn people from Nigeria. if you get any emails from
Washington asking for money, it's a scam. Don't fall for it..

7. What worries me most about the credit crunch, is that if one of my checks is returned stamped 'insufficient funds'. I won't know whether
that refers to mine or the bank's...


New Stock Market Terms

CEO --Chief Embezzlement Officer.

CFO-- Corporate Fraud Officer.

BULL MARKET -- A random market movement causing an investment banker to
mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET -- A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry.

VALUE INVESTING -- The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO -- The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER -- What my broker has made me.

STANDARD & POOR -- Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST -- Idiot who just downgraded your stock..

STOCK SPLIT -- When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

FINANCIAL PLANNER -- A guy whose phone has been disconnected.

MARKET CORRECTION -- The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW-- The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO -- What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS -- What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR -- Past year investor who should be now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT -- An archaic word no longer in use

Actually this may beat out Cramer's "THEY KNOW NOTHING..." Rant



Part Two later on in the day, a bit more toned down and more debate from the other side.

I know everyone here is We <3 Buffalo, NY but the latest proposed budget just about takes it to the absurd level.



Seriously a 4% tax on itunes, $.50 more a movie ticket, a couple of bucks to a Sabres ticket, 4% to Satt TV or Cable, Additional 4% tax of clothes, A tax on gym memberships, Increased taxes of beverages. Seriously someone making 30K in Buffalo you will have less to spend on entertainment or keeping yourself in shape than elsewhere.

My question is where does all of this money go?

I was up last night and I caught the end of the movie Boiler Room and after reading the news today about this Guy not much has changed in 8 years.

The funny this is in the movie Giovanni Ribisi character realized that there is no way after working @ J. T. Marlin he would ever get a job at a "reputable" firm like Merrill Lynch, HA if he only knew how "Reputable" they would turn out 8 years later.

It just reinforces the face that the as "the game" has been played over the last 25-30 years in the country. That guy that pulled off the biggest ponzi stock scheme was the FORMER CHAIRMAN OF THE NASDAQ!!! Now who can you really trust?

The only part that will be interesting to read/watch will be the fallout of the people at those country clubs in Palm Beach or the Hamptons who now realize that they aren't millionaires after all!!! There should be some good dateline episodes coming out of this for sure. Time to pull the kids out of private school...

Yea, I guess we really are in a "recession."



More carnage to come I'm sure.

It's actually good to see a nice bounce. Even though the Auto Bailout was a bit of a confusing pathetic exercise in money grubbing, Obama got the ball moving his his treasury appointment on Friday & the more money out of thing air coming from the "Bailout Funds" going towards Citigroup.

The breakout of the Long term Support was a "Fakeout" for the time being. Just for future reference if we break though and close for a long time below 7,591, then it's lights out Not the 7,842 which was the low from the "Asian Financial Crisis" in 1998.

All I can say is that I will be glad to take a break from Armageddon for a while. Although I have to stress "Happy Days are not Here Again"


On another note, I'm happy that U.B. has clinched their first bowl game in 50 years! I'd never thought I'd see the day that U.B. was playing in a Bowl Game. Plus, they're the most successful sporting team in the city if you really want to get technical about it.

So they did slip a "bailout" for the U.S. Car makers into an energy Bill

To me this is just going to delay the day of reckoning. What they are going to give them still won't make them whole. If you consider their outstanding debt and Pension liabilities this may make the company only say - 35 Billion in the hole instead of -60 Billion. Consider the Market Cap of GM and Ford was 6.14 Billion on 11/17/2008. In the end this is just good money after bad. They are not going to help change the wage structure that puts them at a disadvantage to Honda and Toyota or change people's buying habits. In the end the only way the will keep the current GM Structure of workers making $75 an hour if you include their benefits is to nationalize the companies.

The market has been testing the 10 year low of the Dow Jones level 7883 made during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998. If it breaks through and closes below that number, you better me on the 2033 Stock Market Plan or aka not thinking of getting ahead until the year 2033. So in simpler terms it will be Game Over.

It's not like I think that it will hold and then we will be off to "happy days again," but for the most part it will just delay the inevitable. Just like the Big 3 American Automakers. From what I can see the economy is going to tank into oblivion come February. We will have the numbers from the Holiday Season and it will just reflect that people just bought gifts for lineal family members only. We will have more abandoned shopping plazas (But in Western New York Benderson will still be building more even though there will be guys hired through Addeco or Apple One smoking and carrying a florescent "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS 40% OFF EVERYTHING" Sandwich Signs outside on the sidewalk of the current plaza that the built 2 years before and is only 30% occupied) ;-) Since we are a country that is fuel by expansive credit and consumption it will get nasty.

But who knows? When the big box/strip mall retailer's business plan blows up, that may create a return to Main St where people just go and start dealing locally with a "Mom & Pop" type of store once again.

With the "Worse Yet to Come" it's kind of funny to see this deal go down locally

Then again Buffalo is a good place to ride out a recession.