As much as I love Ford, I really can't be surprised:(

it all just seems so stupid doesnt it? does anybody really believe that the entire economy has become 40% less valuable in just a few short months. from 14.2k down to 8k in one year, pfff.

utterly ridiculous bullsh*t from a bunch of pessimistic assholes that want a free handout from the government. we have to stop this handout bullshit and let the chips fall where they may.

we've learned nothing from the past. throwing money around solved nothing then and it will solve nothing now. the government should butt the f*ck out and quit spending the peoples money irresponsibly.

maybe its a good time to buy some GM or Ford stock?

"the government should butt the f*ck out and quit spending the peoples money irresponsibly"

What are you talking about? There is NO MONEY, the USA has been bankrupt since the 70's. Look at an inflation chart from the 70's on...the government just prints money (hence why the Federal Reserve stopped showing the M3 stats in 2006 that shows the entirety of the money supply).

Hyper inflation / depression here we come!

Dude what are you talking about? The 90's were an economic boom for the U.S. The U.S. was very profitable during that decade and then the bubble burst but we weren't the only country to suffer the effects from it. Europe, Canada China, Japan, Korea, India, Russia, Mexico etc.. are all suffering right now, it's just not the U.S. China just lost 386 billion in the past couple weeks because no country is importing their goods because they can't afford it. Toyoata just lost 12% of thier stock worth in Japan and it's getting larger by the day. Europe is in worse shape then the US if anyone wants to believe that, because a lot of those European countries are in the same boat as we are with bank laons and because that the majority of them are apart of the EU just can't do a bailout plan like we have in our country, because the EU has to approve of it and rarely does the EU agree on a lot of issues.

Its a global economic mess right now.

Dude, you don't know what you're talking about.

Sure, there's booms and busts, but the US is pretty much bankrupt. Why do you think the US has to borrow so much money from other countries? Not only is everything made in China, but we've borrowed TRILLIONS from them and Japan and many other countries.

As for why all the other countries are suffering, it's because our banks sold all these shitty loans to foreign banks as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). They thought they were going to make $$$$...but we know how that turned out.

And now what's happening? Banks are merging/ buying each other out, the Fed prints up $700 billion out of thin air (more inflation), now GW is talking about the Gov taking over some banks...here's a headline that just popped up at 11:30pm:
"Stocks are on track for their worst year since 1937."

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks it almost seems like this was planned out from the people who really run the world....I suppose you've never read about the military industrial complex either?

Google is your friend.

I just read this if anyone is interested:

This isn't going to settle out until after the Credit Default Swap payoff auctions on Oct 23. Only then will everyone know just how exposed everyone else is. Many banks will fail no matter what the government does. But many will also survive and once shown to be sound their business will resume.
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What is scary to me about this is the way governments are taking over ownership of private sector financial institutions and private industry. Just think of the banks being run like the IRS or the Post Office - and by the very same people with political mandates. While it would hurt, it would be better to just let many of these banks fail and be replaced with new ones. All this life support is going to do is lead to perpetually sick banks run by politicians for political purposes.
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Guess I will repost this for those who didn't see it the first time. Skip it if you have seen it already.
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The $45.6 trillion Credit Default Swap Crash vs. the $700 bil Sub Prime Crash
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All of this because 5% of U.S. mortgages are defaulting? This 5% isn’t that big a number compared to the world financial markets. After all, the other 95% are still paying and yielding a cash flow. So if sub primes didn’t cause this what is going on?
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What is going on is a Credit Default Swap caused crash. A CDS is a form of insurance on loans that pays off if the loan defaults. CDS are totally unregulated and un-monitored by any government agency. CDS are not called insurance because insurance is regulated. If it was called insurance, and regulated, the issuers of the policies would be required to have assets enough to cover any claims. But it isn’t insurance. And it turns out the issuers of CDS never had the assets to cover any claims – even a small claim like the sub prime mortgage defaults. If they had paid off the sub prime defaults everyone would have their money and there would be no bailout.
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The banks and financial institutions that issued unregulated CDS made billions collecting the premiums (but they are not called premiums because it isn’t insurance). But when the sub prime backed instruments started to default they couldn’t pay off because they had no assets to pay off with. AIG is one example. And everyone noticed and started to worry.
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The real problem is that CDS were not sold to cover just mortgages loans. They were sold to cover almost every kind of lending instrument. Obviously, a bond that is insured against defaulting is more valuable and higher rated than one that is not insured. So once the CDS began defaulting on the subprime market it became obvious they were worthless insurance on everything else they insured, which is just about everything else out there. So the value of every bond, hedge fund and other investment instrument dropped on the books of every institution holding them. And they dropped fairly sharply.
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And then there are the CDS themselves. They were on the books as an income producing investment instrument just like a bond from a legitimate insurance company. Now they are virtually worthless. How much were they worth before the truth about them was revealed? $42.6 TRILLION. For perspective, this is equal to the entire household wealth of the U.S.; the U.S. stock market is capitalized at $18.5 trillion. So what really has happened is that the global financial markets have just taken a $42.6 trillion dollar loss of assets.
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Our recent bailout is only $700 billion, a tiny fraction of the outstanding CDS and not enough to make a tiny tiny dent in the debt the financial institutions are now holding. So what did our elected officials just do? They bailed out their campaign donors and gave them a chance to cash in their chips and leave the game with some cash in their pockets.
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The sub prime defaults are just a minor diversion that takes your eyes off what has really happened. Huge companies, here and abroad, (CDS started in Europe) committed a fancy complicated form of fraud. They sold insurance that wasn’t really insurance, collected billions in “premiums” that pumped up their books and made billions for their executives and brokers. They often issued a CDS to a buyer to pump up the price of a bond or financial instrument they were selling and thus increased their profits two ways.
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If a real regulated insurance company had done this the executives would all be indicted, prosecuted and put in jail for a long time. It was fraud and I hope our government will go after these weasels and put them in jail. But I doubt that will happen.
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The problem right now is that no one knows who is holding what or even how to begin to value holdings. The value of holdings of all kinds have clearly dropped. But by how much? In the sub prime mortgage market, for example, the houses are still out there and clearly they have some considerable value. But how much? The same holds across all the markets. The tangible assets securing most of the loans are still out there. But what are they worth now? We are about to see a huge 100 year shake out on the value of everything and everyone is going to take a hit. The more leveraged any business or individual is the more they are going to devalue. And that is another new aspect of this crash.
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Super low interest rates made borrowing possible – smart – at rates that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. 20 years ago being leveraged at a 5 to 1 rate was the normal limit. Today 30 to 1 is normal. 4% interest rates simply could not be ignored and go unused. Hedge funds with 4% interest rates made extreme leveraging even more extreme for large investors and funds. It turns out some hedge funds had 100 to 1 leveraging. (Hedge funds are another unregulated market) So our entire economy, the businesses, the banks, individuals are credit extended like never before in history. So they are all going to be devalued like never before. This is going to be the perfect financial storm. And it isn’t going to end anytime soon.
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A lot of companies are going to fail – unavoidably. There is going to be a lot of unemployment. A lot of retirement funds are going to fail – including government backed retirement funds like state funds. And the U.S. government cannot bail them all out. But it will try at first. And the government will have unemployment claims and welfare claims like never before. And all this will cause another problem that will cause more pain. Inflation.
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Inflation like we haven’t seen in decades. Because the only way the government will have to pay off its debts – and they are going to be huge, even compared to our present huge debt – is to print money. Lots of money.
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We are going to see something unthinkable in the past. High unemployment, bankruptcies, banks closing and a very slow economy, BUT with high inflation because every government in the world is going to print money to try and bail things out.
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What to do? Getting out of debt would be a good idea. Cash is good – but vulnerable to inflation. Gold is better. Start minimizing your expenses in every way possible. If you are about to retire don’t. Keep the job if the job is still there. If your retirement fund doesn’t go bust, inflation will devalue the retirement payments. Things will settle out. The economy will restart. New companies will be started to replace the ones who go under. The sun will come out again. But not for a long time.

I love speeches about how horrible things are or how horrible they are going to be...i suppose it gets attention. Paper gains and losses are all we're seeing....oh no, the market is at it's 2005 point. Unless you're new to the market you've only seen some paper gains go away, in the end most long term investors are still in the positive over the last decade. Sure things could be better, but only stupid people dumped all their assets in the stock market, and you can't fix stupid.
I don't know about everyone else, but myself, most of my friends, most of the people in my community are doing just fine, actually doing very well. Bad times are coming, sure, but only because we've had a decade of prosperity like no one else, I've personally watched my salary double in 4 years, I know growth like that is not sustainable, and if it stay's level for a couple than it's really more of a market correction.
If you're a fool and have too much debt, please do panic, but you deserve it, don't blame others for your bad decisions.

I love speeches about how horrible things are or how horrible they are going to be...i suppose it gets attention. Paper gains and losses are all we're seeing....oh no, the market is at it's 2005 point. Unless you're new to the market you've only seen some paper gains go away, in the end most long term investors are still in the positive over the last decade. Sure things could be better, but only stupid people dumped all their assets in the stock market, and you can't fix stupid.
I don't know about everyone else, but myself, most of my friends, most of the people in my community are doing just fine, actually doing very well. Bad times are coming, sure, but only because we've had a decade of prosperity like no one else, I've personally watched my salary double in 4 years, I know growth like that is not sustainable, and if it stay's level for a couple than it's really more of a market correction.
If you're a fool and have too much debt, please do panic, but you deserve it, don't blame others for your bad decisions.

I am a complete dipshit.

I do believe that thetruth put it, quite possibly, the best way any (moron) can understand. If you were stupid and fell prey to idiotic mortgages, 2 new SUV payments and revolving debt 10 ft. over your head, then you deserve it. There were much better places for your money during that time, and quite surprisingly, its the same place now...the stock market and banks. Market readjustment, not collapse.

A few of us that post here said months ago GM was insolvent on the books and it was a matter of time before they would fold. Or worse, be picked up by some India company like Jaguar was. I am not a Chevy man, but I will lament the ending of such a great company. The affect they had on the auto industry changed the face of the world. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

thetruth:

Market is now at 5 year low, thats right. But it doesnt mean market is at 2003 level, there are hundreds of new IPO every year add up to the stock market, so we can say we are in deep trouble when minus the newly IPOs, then Dows might be at 10 year low already...
Lehmen bankbrupted around 2, will Ford and GM bankrupt soon? Who started the 0 down for buying new houses promotions? Thats all the dipsh!t begins...

I have nothing against bicycle.

@Noya Imposter

"I am a complete dipshit."

Get off the internet then, we don't need any word from a "complete dipshit" like you.

So what car is this economic crisis you all talk about?

Noya what i stated was fact. Our deficit in the 90's were the lowest that they ever were since before WWII, dont' give me that crap. The fact is to say the the U.S. wasn't profitable since the 70's is false. We didn't start to barrow billions of dollars from other countries didn't get to record highs until deficit G.W. decided that invaded Iraq that's what drove our defeacet way up. Just go look at how much money that we have spent in that place alone. We started a war that we couldn't afford so we had to barrow money from other countries to continue it.

"Google is your friend"

So why haven't you used it yet.

Noya, do you have a link for that?

" :( :

it all just seems so stupid doesnt it? does anybody really believe that the entire economy has become 40% less valuable in just a few short months. from 14.2k down to 8k in one year, pfff."

The economy has been so artificially inflated for so long its just making a natural correction back to where it realistically belongs. Blame this on the oil companies for thinking this fleecing of the world could go on forever, and for the banks watching the oil companies, following suit, and thinking they could get away with fleecing the people without penalties as well. Now they are paying the piper and they deserve it.

"Reports: Chrysler, GM discuss merger, acquisition"

HA HA HA, Chrysler you fail!!! I hope the rest of the US economy fails too!!! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

@Grizz
I dont know how you could be possibly more wrong. Perhaps its best to say nothing.

Since when did oil companies set world price? Its called OPEC moron, look it up. I dont know if youve noticed but oil companies will be the last ones paying the piper in this whole mess.

Banks? Banks are still in great shape. The only bank that is failing is wachovia and thats because they recently bought into part of the problem, LENDING Institutions. If youve been paying any attention you would know banks are buying up pieces of the market as they fail. Banks are performing their jobs perfectly right now.

Fannie, Freddie, Lehman and others are lending institutions not banks and they are the cause of this along with a congressional push to give the lower class loans for homes and cars these people couldnt afford.

What about Washing Mutual, that wasn't a Bank?? Moron...

actually moron there is an acceptable level of bank failures per year. its usual 9-12. this happens every year and its not usually news worthy. we are still below average for the year mainly because of the government interference in the natural process of the market.

and by the way there are two entities to washington mutual, the banking company (WaMu Bank) and the holding/lending company (WaMu Inc). The Feds didnt want the holding companies failure to destroy the banking institution so they broke it off and sold it to JP Morgan and let the holding company go chapter 11.

open your fucking eyes. what ive said has resonated through the market over the weekend. the market over sold and today we have the largest increase in the stock market in history. my only question was whether anyone truly believed there was a 40% drop in everything and the market responded today with a resounding NO.

THIS IS ALL WRONG

"Also GM's shares haven't been this low since the 1950's"

If you were to take inflation into account, both GM and Ford are penny stocks.

$1 in 1950 had a purchasing power of about $9. That means, the present 2008 value of GM stock of $4.7 is equivalent to $0.53 in 1950!!! And, Ford is equivalent to about $0.23.

Is this the lowest they have ever been? Could not find price for the depresion stock market crash.