Look on the Bright Side

Look on the Bright Side

Five reasons to give thanks for the financial collapse of the decade.

Posted Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 8:27am

Thanks to the current panic many Americans have learned that the experts who advise them what to do with their savings are, at best, fools. Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. and all the rest persuaded their most valuable customers to buy auction-rate bonds, telling them the securities were as good as cash.

Those customers will now think twice before they listen to their brokers ever again.

Many, I'm sure, are just waiting to get their money back from their brokers before they race for the exits and introduce themselves to Charles Schwab.

Bank of America Corp. will soon discover that the relationship between Merrill Lynch and its customers isn't what it used to be, but Bank of America's loss is America's gain.

4) We have lots of new houses.

Not all of them have people in them, sadly, but that's a minor detail. Even better, no one has had to pay for them, and probably never will. I'm betting that the U.S. government will soon have no choice but to take the final step and guarantee every bad mortgage loan ever made by Wall Street.

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  • Michael Lewis is a Bloomberg columnist and author, most recently, of The Blind Side.
(Wall Street photo by Donovan Reese)
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Submitted by Steve C. on Fri, 09/19/2008 - 4:42pm.

the bright side

"First, let's kill all the lawyers...no, wait! First, let's kill all the ratings agencies...no, wait! Oh Crap! they're all out of range now! Arrrrgh!
Did anyone notice that the courts just got around to finding that Charles Keating can't be personally held responsible for the Savings and Loan bailout, from, what was it, the 1980's? I'm guessing the silver linings have already left the country.
Steve C.

Submitted by lbsterling on Fri, 09/19/2008 - 5:48am.

best line

I was partial to "A lot of attractive office space seems to be opening up in midtown Manhattan"

This was time well misspent.

Submitted by ghostdan on Fri, 09/19/2008 - 1:04am.

Quotes

"Bail out that one. No! Not that one -- the other one!'' is a classic, right up there with "Ready! Fire! Aim!", which is probably what most of them have been doing in this last week anyway.

Submitted by dcmovin on Thu, 09/18/2008 - 12:54pm.

great article

very informative.. gave me a new perspective.

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