$85B here, $85B there. Whatever it takes get the market up a percentage point.

 

This is so annoying. The only thing I can surmise is that if the government writes the rules, and the big companies follow the rules, then they get bailed out if unforseen market forces caused their failure.

You know, like a down market, houses going down in value, EXTREME stuff like that. These guys were leveraged at up to 30 to 1!!!!! They gamble, and we take the loss.

We're in a nanny state. Fight it, or lay down and wait to be taken care of by the government, when it's your turn.

 

"Unforeseen market forces"? When you make large loans to people who don't qualify for them against collateral that doesn't cover the value of the loan in the first place, betting only that the collateral will magically increase in value, and it doesn't I don't agree that it can be called an "unforeseen market force". Anyone with half a brain and certainly anyone with an education in economics should have foreseen this disaster long ago. And without getting political (both sides carry some blame in all of this), that's about all I can say.

 

martha I detect that cordy had the [extreme_sarcasm] enabled but it didn't show.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. It's early (for me) and I can't have coffee this morning so the neuro transmitters or whatever causes a brain to work are not doing their job. Besides, I didn't realize cordy was anything but 100% serious all of the time!

 

However, I dont see any local gas station owners running out to lower gas prices at the pump. But as soon as oil prices go up they do. Stay calm and stay invested. Market timing is very difficult and those who pull out when things are bad never get back in on time when the market turns around. When stocks are down opportunities to buy low are better. I'm retired and we lost 2.5% of our assets on Monday so I feel the pain.

 

The price at the pump is varying quite a bit around here. Don't buy it that often since I don't drive that much, but there was a $.30 per gallon difference from one station to another not that far apart. A bit surprising.

 

 

Looks like a doooowwwwnnnnn day, but maybe that will change.

 

It's interesting that the local paper here ran a front page story yesterday about how most gas stations around here currently have retail prices 9-20 cents BELOW their wholesale cost, thus losing them $1800-$3000 per tanker of gas. The main reason they give is fear of accusations of price gouging.

Their current wholesale cost is a little over $4/gal, but most retail prices are $3.89-$3.99.

Unfortunately, if/when the wholesale price goes down, they won't have a choice but to keep prices stable to make up the loss they incurred during these weeks, which will make folks complain that the retail price hasn't gone down in response to wholesale prices. Then they will still be accused of gouging.

JonasM