>>
Following the House vote, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 777 points in a single day, its largest single-day point drop ever.[144] The $1.2 trillion loss in market value received much media attention, although it still does not rank among the index's ten largest drops in percentage terms. The S & P lost 8.8%, its seventh worst day in percentage terms and its worst day since Black Monday in 1987. The NASDAQ composite also had its worst day since Black Monday, losing 9.1% in its third worst day ever.>
>Instead of losing that 1.2 trillion, they could have used it to bail themselves out. Stupid, stupid, shortsighted.
>
>>This is a very well done show... Inside the Meltdown
>>
>>
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/view/>
>The quotes reflect the lack of substance nicely:
>
>
"Rumors are such that they can just plain put you out of business,">
>What value does such a company have? Probably not assets - if you have them, you're OK as long as you don't have to sell them fast. Goodwill? Well, if rumors can ruin the goodwill, what good was it, then? Or if it was about trust... if your customers knew you weren't gambling with their money, they wouldn't care about the rumors. But if you were... it's con art that you call business. The sooner you're ruined, the better - you don't have the time to inflict larger damage.
>
You had asked what had changed. The DOWs one day 777 point drop was one change.
The show is an hour long timeline of the meltdown from the housing boom to bear stearns to fannie to lehman to aig to the tarp... up until Bush leaves office. It covers Paulsons & Bernankes actions during that timeframe, and the frantic late nite meetings with commericial and investment bank personnel. I thought they did a good job with it considering its hour long limitation. Quite riviting actually.
The 'rumor' quote was offered by Bear's former CEO. The show provided context to go along w/ the quote. The rumor focused on the just-surfacing issue of whether the company was in serious trouble due to suprimes and MBSs and whether the company was running out of money.
