BB NOTE: Ric Edelman hosts a radio show on financial planning here in the DC area that I listen to regularly. He's the author of The Lies About Money and The Truth About Money.Yesterday he published a column explaining the financial crisis on Wall Street - and he explains it in regular English. From here.
Lehman Brothers, 158 years old and the nation’s fourth largest brokerage firm, has filed for bankruptcy, with the bulk of its assets purchased by Barclays, a British company. The nation’s largest brokerage, 94-year-old Merrill Lynch, is now gone, too, having been acquired by Bank of America (although BofA says it will continue to use the Merrill name). AIG, until recently the largest insurance company on the planet, has been taken over by the federal government. All this follows the demise of Bear Stearns, the nation’s 5th largest investment bank, having been ac-quired by JP Morgan Chase in a government-supported takeover. And Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been nationalized; taxpayers now own 80% of those firms.
Two words come to mind regarding all these firms: comeuppance and good riddance.
Read the whole thing here. Please.
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