What is Digg?276 Comments
- mesasone, on 09/16/2008, -1/+132I don't see any mention of Warren Buffett losing his shirt, in this article or else where. Do you have a source?
- DeathJux, on 09/16/2008, -5/+119I wonder how bad Wall Street smells with all those pants being filled with crap...
- Laminarcissus, on 09/16/2008, -1/+103Call it a hunch, but I think Warren Buffet's going to be okay.
- Dumbledorito, on 09/16/2008, -1/+76Dear Investment Idiots,
You blew it. Big time. Sure, the people you loaned money to took it hand over fist, but you have every right to complain about borrowers borrowing too much money as the butcher shop has to gripe that letting dogs guard raw meat didn't work out as planned.
I'm sick of all the talk about "if we fail, the US Economy fails." Given how many of you screwed up, I'm willing to bet that the "fail" to the economy is going to be less if we let you actually take the hit than it will be to bail all of you ***** out. If I'd been as short-sighted and greedy as you, I'd lose my house. I see no reason why the same shouldn't happen to you.
Screw off.
Signed, the American Taxpayer. - inactive, on 09/16/2008, -7/+78Would be even higher if in Zimbabwe dollars
- inactive, on 09/16/2008, -2/+46
4,959,093,524,630,874.00 ZMK
Enough bills to stretch all the way to Pluto so you can call it a non planet to its face. - jmpeagle, on 09/16/2008, -1/+41Buffet would be hurt by an AIG collapse but he would still most likely be the world's richest man because they literally have stakes in dozens of other companies. His company Berkshire Hathaway's shares still trade at $119,900 for class A shares.
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickc ... - Berkana, on 09/16/2008, -4/+44Everything "Money as debt" warned would happen is gradually coming to pass; our debt based money is proving that such a system is only as good as the debt your money is based on. Our money supply was inflated with money backed with bad debt, and now the party's over.
Money as Debt:
http://digg.com/business_finance/Our_Debt_based_Mo ... - deleo, on 09/16/2008, -6/+39If you are curious as to who is responsible for the deregulation that led to these collapses - it's Phil Graham. If you are curious as to who might be the next U.S. Treasury Secretary if McCain becomes President - it's Phil Graham.
- fuzion8, on 09/16/2008, -2/+33yup, totally inaccurate
- bixby1, on 09/16/2008, -5/+34AIG? The hits just keep on comin'
- Solkre, on 09/16/2008, -1/+28They will tank because everyone pulls out their money.
- dalittle, on 09/16/2008, -3/+26Let them fail. Seize their assets. Publicity humiliate the CEO and management.
- ScrewedThePooch, on 09/16/2008, -0/+23Let big insurance die. From the deaths of huge companies comes the birth of much smaller, more competitive companies. Put an end to huge mergers, and this ***** will not happen as often. Stop bailing out companies that resulted from big mergers. Growing too large will be the downfall of these major corporations. Please, let Wal-Mart be the next to die.
- inactive, on 09/16/2008, -1/+22that was totally uncalled for you insensitive bastard
-plutian, not zm - Scrappy1850, on 09/16/2008, -0/+20the insurance is insured, so smaller insurance companies pick up the tab. weird how that works, huh?
- inactive, on 09/16/2008, -6/+26The Fed won't let AIG go down, they'll just conjure up some more magic money, bail it out and the American tax payer will pick up the cheque.
Again.
That's of course of if they haven't been planing its downfall all along. - rrife, on 09/16/2008, -1/+20We need to start a new financial system where you're not allowed to live outside of your means.
- manstein01, on 09/16/2008, -2/+21It's the legacy of 40 years of a fiat currency, and foreigners willing to hoard it to prop its value up. Bush's administration is a disaster in every sense of the word, but this was coming regardless of who was President at the time.
BTW, it was largely the Dems in Congress who spit in the face of anyone who wanted tighter oversight of Fannie and Freddie. There is plenty of blame to go around. - mesasone, on 09/16/2008, -2/+21None of this speaks to Buffett losing his status as the world's richest man, or how the developments with AIG are effecting him. In fact, it is my understanding that Berkshire Hathaway and AIG are rivals in the insurance market. Your first article only states that Berkshire Hathaway is considering investing in AIG, while the second names Buffett as a witness in a fraud case which he did not testify in.
- inactive, on 09/16/2008, -1/+18And a run on the bank will help this situation how?
- inactive, on 09/16/2008, -0/+14Those company could get overwhelmed rather easily however.
- vessenes, on 09/16/2008, -1/+15Buried as inaccurate, Berkshire Hathaway owns GEICO, not AIG. AIG is looking for buyout / bailout offers from companies like Berkshire right now, though, so it's possible Buffet could snap up a very large bargain in an industry with which he is very familiar.
- mdesilver, on 09/16/2008, -0/+13a lot of you aren't bright at all. This is what needs to, and probably will happen:
1) Fed gives them a $75bil bridge loan
2) AIG sells off assets to raise more capital (jet leasing and car insurance would be first to go)
3) AIG lives to fight another day
Now if #1 doesn't happen, they can still sell off assets, but the price would be garbage and they wouldn't be able to raise enough capital to survive. #1 has to happen to ensure that there isn't a complete and total financial meltdown
Now, yes Buffet owns Berkshire Hathaway, which owns GEICO, but they aren't in talks anymore. They also aren't in talks with any private equity firms. Just the Fed. - muckemuck, on 09/16/2008, -0/+13 errr.. think you meant Phil Gramm:
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/09/15/100-year- ...
and he's not the only one at fault (although he did contribute).. there are loads and loads of managers and workers who were aware of the high risks they were taking. The CEOs were aware long ago. The people who lived waaaay beyond their means and are now defaulting on their debt. The Federal Reserve for making cheap credit available for far too long. Bush and his supporters for continuing to spend hundreds of Billions that we don't have on an occupation that we shouldn't have started. ... and it goes on... - zbeast, on 09/16/2008, -1/+13$1 Trillion that would be the largest bankruptcy since the history of money.
Wow they keep getting bigger and bigger. - inactive, on 09/16/2008, -0/+12@pintomp3: a 'run on the bank' is a generic phrase regarding people stripping an economic institution of all its assets before it's too late to get your money out, usually culminating in total collapse at a much accelerated rate.
- dericko, on 09/16/2008, -0/+12I won't lie.. I am getting a little scared.
I watched the news for an hour last night before bed and it just seemed crazy!
Hurricane Ike remnants, DOW loss, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, AIG, etc, etc, etc.. - holzp, on 09/16/2008, -5/+16American tax payers pick up checks, not cheques.
- inactive, on 09/16/2008, -0/+10Funny how all the financial bigwigs are free market capitalists when things are going great and socialists when they're not.
- KibblesnBitts, on 09/16/2008, -3/+13Remember kids, this is a mental recession, we are but a nation of whiners
- indubitably, on 09/16/2008, -2/+12that's what you get for supporting manchester utd!
- Laminarcissus, on 09/16/2008, -2/+12What do these have to do with anything?
The second one talks about a current trial of some BH employees who are trying to bring Buffet into their trail for fraud to save their skins, regarding a transaction with AIG that took place in 2000.
The first one says that Buffet is currently in talks with AIG about an investment -- which generally means he's *buying into* the company. Probably buying on value after their troubles.
And still waiting for a source on "Warren Buffet is no longer the richest man on the planet."
So please, rather than just posting links, feel free to clarify what you were implying. - mustbepatient, on 09/16/2008, -0/+10Once the dust settles, Buffett will have added billions of dollars of value to his company, just watch. He's an expert at buying when everyone else is looking to sell, and he has plenty of cash to work with.
- oldgal, on 09/16/2008, -0/+9I have come to the conclusion that the leadership in the financial industry, the government and the business journals is either profoundly stupid or profoundly unethical, if not criminal. I saw this thing coming 4 or 5 years ago when I realized the million dollar plus houses being sold around here couldn't all be going to drug dealers. So I started researching - first I found the hand-to-mouth-buyers, then I found the voodoo mortgages, and then I found the creative "investment instruments". It was obvious to me that all we needed was a bump in the interest rates (which have been kept artificially low for way too long) or a snag in the economy for everything to unravel...and here we are. If the leaders and gurus (time to turn in your guru badges) didn't see it coming then they are profoundly stupid. If they knew it was coming and did nothing about it then they are profoundly unethical and should be found criminally liable. And who is getting the golden hand-cuffs and parachutes?
- MacSuxWindozSux, on 09/16/2008, -2/+11Looks like all of CNN's sponsors are going out of business.
Now if only they could do something about that damn SUNSETTER RETRACTABLE AWNING company. - wukillabee, on 09/16/2008, -0/+8chuck norris in a bikini?
- inactive, on 09/16/2008, -0/+8The problem is that we don't know what the ***** we are talking about.
- rebotfc, on 09/16/2008, -0/+8Wow they're tumbling like dominoes...
- psykiv, on 09/16/2008, -0/+8Wouldn't walmart be doing better in this kind of economy? When things get bad, people start buying cheap things. walmart's specialty.
- inactive, on 09/16/2008, -17/+25"But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street’s most revered institutions.
Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.
The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but “predatory.”
Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the ’90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.
And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America."
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- http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306370 ... - mikemil828, on 09/16/2008, -1/+8Err...What's the National Debt got to do with the problems a private company is having?
- sleze, on 09/16/2008, -2/+9It's wierd. I don't see the word trillion at all in this article. The largest number I did see was the $75 billion credit.
Is everyone else reading a different article or is this subject totally misleading? - davewashere, on 09/16/2008, -0/+7I'm still trying to find the connection the submitter wanted to make. Berkshire Hathaway has been stable this week despite the turmoil - down a little yesterday, up over 4% today, and they tend to own staple companies that are likely to keep making money even in a downturn or during a financial crisis. Warren Buffett has been invested in financials and insurance over the decades because he knows which ones are well run and he can read their quarterly statements as well as just about anyone and figure out if they're in trouble or not. He's contemplated purchasing some troubled companies this week, but in the end decided the financials just didn't make sense. That's why he's (still) a billionaire and we spend our days writing messages online to people we've probably never met.
- DrDigg, on 09/16/2008, -0/+7"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson
copy/paste was that so hard - Denneval, on 09/16/2008, -5/+12Dimes and nickels... in opposition to the itsy-bitsy, teenie-tiny li'l money "problem" we all face in our own hands. What's the total up to now — like $9,690,131,847,304.49?
Yep. Just dimes and nickels. - muckemuck, on 09/16/2008, -0/+7It looks like a company with initials WM might be next on the block but it's Washington Mutual. Sorry to disappoint you that it isn't Wal-Mart.
- manstein01, on 09/16/2008, -2/+9Lenders have to take the final blame. They should have stopped lending if it meant government penalties, and invested in other enterprises. Instead, through increased securitization they sought to make nice short term profits off of loans with heightened risk.
But you do make a good point (besides the Clinton bashing), and will be dugg down for it, since it fails to blame everything on Republicans. - NinjaBoy, on 09/16/2008, -0/+6Actually this just leads to even BIGGER companies buying them. Before the last depression farming was almost all done by individual farmers. After they sold it all to the banks, and the banks fell, corporations formed and took over that market.
Say goodbye to the banking system as you know it. - chuckDontSurf, on 09/16/2008, -0/+6"The problems are with the AIG holding company, not the individual insurance company subsidiaries that you do business with"
http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/16/news/companies/aig ...
Tax dollars would not be used for this. -
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