Wall Street Meltdown 2

I was planning on using my home to secure my future. Better move on to plan "B".

Great job Christof for explaning it for dopes like me who have no idea what is going on.

Now, explain how the government is finding all this bail-out money and why couldn't that money go to the people who need it more.

That's terrible!!
Great reporting!

What makes the crash so sad is the fact that it is the middle class that takes the beating for the blunders of the absurbly rich who, despite whatever the outcome turns out to be has enough finanical cushion to weather the storm. While the real workers suffer the blows of unemployment and the suffocation of debt that so many are trapped under, which in alot of cases was in pursuit of the "American Dream", which ironically was promoted by, the big business mongols who are responsible for putting them in this situation in the first place.

Have you noticed that everything the US government attempts to make better ends up needing to be made better by more meddling by the US government. So much for the free market, eh? What is the opposite of the Midas touch?

You're explanation is terrific but something about it really perturbs me. In many pieces I hear or read about this crisis, much attention is paid to the tremendous losses being incurred by investors - who should have been doing due diligence - and the US taxpayer. Also displayed as victims are the now foreclosed homeowners who knowingly stepped into loans that they had no business shouldering to begin with. Meanwhile the people most directly affected by the failures of these massive corporations are not even mentioned here. Ninety-nine percent of the 13,500 Bear Stearns employees did not own a corporate jet or multiple houses. Most were just doing their jobs in IT, or in the many departments that were not involved in this mess. These are the employees that work hard for their salary, which while not making them poor, is not the type of salary you can afford to lose your job with. Meanwhile, the top executives who are directly responsible for the terrible decision-making at these firms are out of jobs, but do not have to return the absurd bonuses they collected over the past few years ($40 Million for Jimmy Cayne, Bear Stearns CEO in 2006). These bonuses were rewards for the very investments that put many hardworking individuals out of jobs right when they most needed them, as the economy has taken a nosedive. The fact that you choose to ignore these tens of thousands of employees, seemingly lumping them into the "smart folks on wall street" who must forfeit their "fancy second, third, or fourth homes" shows a cruel ignorance and highlights the continuing real problem - why should CEOs care about a company whose worth to them is only a third home? Something must be done to temper outrageous executive compensation. Real employees care about their company, and would not subjugate them to tremendously risky investments, because if it goes down they will lose their first, and only, homes.