by Dave Manuel…
@#$%! How can this be happening?
“I was scrolling through TechCrunch and noticed an article on their site titled “The Mess on Wall Street: Four Trillion Dollars Down the Drain.” The article linked to a New York Times graphic that illustrated just how far 29 selected financial firms have fallen over the past 11 months. The article goes on to say that the entire stock market had lost approximately $4 trillion dollars in market cap during that time period, and that the financial sector had accounted for a whopping one trillion dollars of that total loss.
These were supposed to be the blue-chip companies that never faltered, no matter how weak the economy was. These were the companies that, conspiracy theorists opined, “controlled everything that took place, and everything was to their benefit.” These were some of the biggest and most storied companies in the history of the United States.
Some of these companies are gone, never to return. Some went bankrupt. Some were swallowed up by the US government in a desperate bid to prop up the entire financial system. Some, while still breathing, are clearly on life support. Others are still alive and kicking, but have dropped many billions of dollars in market capitalization.