The ruptured U.S. financial system was facing an unprecedented shake-up on Sunday that could lead to the failure of Lehman Brothers, the takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co Inc. and huge asset sales by American International Group.
http://www.reuters.com/...
Amazing day. They let one of the "too big to fail"'s fail.
It's anyone's guess how bad "unprecedented" will be. That I won't speculate. Let's watch the news.
This is also occurring around a massive shortage of gasoline supply which may result in price spikes over $10/gal. and/or rationing:
According to EIA data, gasoline inventories the week that Hurricane Gustav hit were the lowest that they had been since 2000, amounting to 187.9 million barrels, or about 21 days supply. Quite a bit of this inventory is needed just to keep the pipelines filled. EIA does not publish information as to how far inventories need to drop before we start seeing outages, but it is clear that we have now reached the point where shortages are developing.
http://www.theoildrum.com/...
We already have shortages and price spike of gas here in Asheville:
Gas prices set a record today in Asheville, but many stations remain out of fuel with plastic bags over their nozzles or yellow tape barricading their pumps.
Where they can find it, Asheville drivers are paying an average of $4.166 per gallon of regular, up 16 cents from Saturday. A month ago, that gallon averaged about $3.772.
Asheville’s prices are higher than the national average of $3.795, according to AAA. In North Carolina, gas prices averaged $4.041 in Charlotte, $3.881 in Fayetteville, $3.982 in Greenboro, $3.986 in Raleigh and $3.887 in Wilmington.
http://www.citizen-times.com/...
Tomorrow, the workers around here will find their 401K's sinking like the Titanic and unable to fill their gas tanks.
Get your popcorn ready to watch as exciting events unfold.