I don’t have time to even begin giving this a real analysis right now, but you need to be aware of what is happening today:
In one the most extraordinary days in Wall Street’s history, Merrill Lynch is near an 11th-hour deal with Bank of America to avert a deepening financial crisis while another storied securities firm, Lehman Brothers, hurtled toward liquidation, according to people briefed on the deal.
The moves came after a weekend of frantic negotiations between federal officials and Wall Street executives over how to avert a downward spiral in the markets. Questions still remain about how the market will react and whether other firms may still falter like A.I.G., the large insurer, and Washington Mutual, both of whose stocks fell precipitously last week.
Coming just a week after the government took control of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the magnitude of the industry’s reshaping is staggering: two of the most powerful firms on Wall Street, Merrill Lynch and Lehman, will disappear.
This is simply staggering. In less than one year, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers will have simply disappeared. To put that in some perspective, all three of these banks were founded before and survived the Great Depression. The GSE nationalization is the largest nationalization since at least the Depression, and possibly in all of American history. Another of Wall Street’s most venerable partnerships, Arthur Andersen, one of the five largest accounting firms in America also disappeared during the last eight years.
Someone ought to be making an attack ad right now – if this is how Republicans have governed with regards to the fortunes of Americas biggest financial firms, how can anyone in any small town or city in America believe that they will be able to make a living if they continue to govern in the future?