2008 is moving by with a speed unlike any other year previous for me. 

In just nine short months so many events have taken place, much to the surprise of about everyone involved.  I switched jobs, I found my best friend from high school, I married my best friend – not once but twice – I have been experiencing a lasting and annoying medical issue that never seems to leave. I witnessed the birth of a beautiful child and a true emotional response of a new father. I hit 31 but still desire to be 21 and I saw special members of my family but not the entire east coast clan.

I sit here, realizing it’s the first day of October, I wonder what the next three months will bring…More constant action which leads to stress or a low-keyed, easy going, three month? 

With the holiday season just around the corner I have a feel I know which possibility it will be.  Regardless of which, I just hope the health issue gets better, not worse. 

The Consumer Confidence Index, or the optimism of the U.S. economy, is now at 59.8, up from 58.5 (August). That was a small, unexpected, rise for the month of September as economists were expecting a rating of roughly 55%.

The information was gathered before the political mess known as the financial bailout took place so any fear the consumer / general public is experiencing is not yet reflected in the data.

If Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD for you sales and techie types) is still in the market over the next few weeks, expect this number to fall – along with spending.

So, the world markets have no crashed and the world did not end. Markets are actually mixed the day after the “great sell-off”. Also take into account that DOW futures are 145 points in the positive makes one wonder if the market is OK with the current situation.

For those who blame Republican policy – not greed and poor oversight – please explain to me why Europeans are rescuing banks? Dexia, a large Belgian, wouldn’t be getting a $9.2 billion government bailout if this was simply a U.S. / Republican party issue, would it?

Finally, there is still no word on where we go from here….

I wonder what today will bring.

Jeffrey A. Miron, a senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University, says that Bankruptcy is the answer to the problem as the policies of the past have lead to our current situation. The creation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, along with the push for subprime lending in the 90’s, lead us to where we are….

The government should let the firms go bankrupt instead of shifting the cost to the tax payer. Also, the talk about a crash is fear mongering.

Interesting…

While it mean nothing in terms of the bailout, it’s nice to see the DOW futures poining to a positive open - up 76 points as of this writing.

The question that continues to roll around my head is the one that no one seems to be addressing – where do we go from here?  

Go to the news website of your choice and do a little research.  See if you can find what the next steps are.  Will the bill be rewritten?  When does the house come back? What needs to change in order to pass the House?  If it passes the House how do we know the legislation will pass the Senate?  Where is the President?  Beyond him being “very disappointed” how is he working with the Congress move this forward.

Let’s forget the credit crisis and the impact the lack of liquidity will have for one second – what is killing the Market and economy now is uncertainty.  The longer direction is lacking, the longer the market is in the fog of uncertainty, major volatility can be expected which will only intensify the lack of credit available to the market.

Update

Bloomberg.com has the only “next step” I’ve been able to find.  The Senate will be back in on Thursday an may pass something and then send it back to the House.  

At this point even the politicians have no clue what is coming next and they admit it.

I took a nap this evening because I wasn’t feeling too well. It was a simple matter of needing to sleep it off, not that it totally worked in my favor. Anyway, a number of things…

1. Due to a four hour nap I didn’t get to working on the things I wanted to this evening, more specifically, working on the studio
2. I really don’t want to sit in a 5 hour meeting tomorrow
3. My Dell Laptop, the one that is the workhorse of my studio, seems to have suffered a major crash. This is not a good thing for countless reasons.
4. My cat Bender is on my bad side right now – I cannot stand him

All that said, I have the Venture Brothers to keep my company for another 20 minutes. Thank god for that.

UPDATE

For the love of all thing holy, it looks like there is an error on the boot sector of the laptop. This is not going to be fun to fix.

UPDATE 2

I am sleepy but I’ve managed to get past the boot error and into safe mode. It looks a system restore of some type will be an option.

UPDATE 3

Woo hoo, it’s back!

For the biggest one day drop ever:

There was some concern that the bill was not going to pass the House today and, sure enough, it did not. The Bush Administration, Secretary Paulson, Chairman Bernanke and senior Democratic leadership all supported the bill but the majority of Republicans did not. As a result, the bill appears to be dead in the water.

The DOW was down roughly 700 points after the bill was defeated but this bill is not about the Stock Market, it’s about the credit markets. This bill was designed, fundamentally, to help open up the credit markets. If one looks as at the current Government Bond rates the 3 month yield is at less than one percent – that is to say there is NO MONEY AVAILABLE.

This crisis is about credit, plain and simple. Without credit business cannot spend and growth will stall – if not decrease. Personal credit will dry up and households will not be able to make large purchases such as cars, washers and home improvements. Students may not be able to get loans for college…. and it can go on and on.

What I am not seeing here is leadership on the Republican House side. Where are the leaders making their case as to why they are not passing the bill and what the course of action is? Where is the Republican House leadership and why can they not deliver the votes they need?

For the very, very first time I am truly worried about the financial situation in the United States.

UPDATE: Voting Record

Care to see the AYES/NOES on the bill, you can check it out here.

UPDATE 2

You have to be kidding me – Republican Leadership is blaming Speaker Pelosi for being bipartisan as to why the bill failed. Supposedly she was too negative.

Yes, she hammered the Bush Administration – and I do not agree with what she had stated – but how petty is that if that is truly the case.

Here is the speech (in RealMedia format)

Here is another version – flash player based

So the general feeling is Republicans did not vote due to the fact that she was hammering the current administration. Again, I don’t agree with what she has stated but this is a time to put politics aside and get the deal done.

UPDATE 3

John McCain is shooting back at Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Both sides, no matter what is said, need to wake up.

UPDATE 4

To play politics for a second – the Democrats have the majority in the House of Representatives and could pass the Bill on their own if they truly wanted to.  If that is the case, how come this failed because of the Republicans?

Market consolidation continues.

Citigroup (C) will buy the Wachovia banking assets for $2.2 billion in an all-stock deal. Wachovia was the fourth largest bank in the United States which had about $53 billion debt and a loan portfolio worth more than $300 billion. Due to the purchase Citi will have roughly $42 billion of losses due to bad debt.

Here is the real kicker – let’s say you were a Wachovia share holder. On Friday ever share you owned would have been worth $10 but, as you woke up Monday morning, your shares would have been worth .86 per share.

Ouch.

UPDATE: Why did Wachovia need to sell so quickly?

Be cause it ran out of time. That is to say the bailout did not happen quick enough, it could not get rid of it’s bad loans, and needed to sell before it collapsed.

UPDATE: Shares of National City Pluge 52%

The stock market is wondering who is next to go and, by the looks of it, they are thinking it may be National City.