More bank failures?

I was hoping that this banking problem was about to be over, but according to Henry Paulson more banks could fail. This from Times Online by Gary Duncan in Washington.


Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, attempted once more to soothe the world’s fractious markets, urging calm and patience while reassuring investors that Washington is movingly as swiftly as feasible to implement the $700 billion bailout for US banks under the Troubled Assets Relief Programme (TARP).

However, Mr Paulson also sought to dampen rising expectations that an even more sweeping global “grand plan” to stabilise the world financial system might emerge from Friday’s meeting of the Group of Seven leading economies, and a further “G20” meeting of the G7 with big emerging market nations on Saturday.

“We are moving as quickly as possible to organise and implement the most effective process possible,” the Treasury Secretary said on the US bailout.

He sounded a warning that “even with the new Treasury authorities, some financial institutions will fail”. The rescue scheme “doesn’t exist to save every financial institution for its own sake”, he added.

Adding that it would several weeks before any distressed assets could be bought up from banks under the Tarp scheme, he urged: “Patience is also needed because the turmoil will not end quickly and significant challenges remain ahead. Neither passage of this new law (the Tarp) nor the implementation of these initiatives will bring an end to immediate difficulties.”

Mr Paulson and his key international aide both pored cold water on speculation over a grand plan by the G7.

“When you look at the G7, we have very different economies of different sizes, financial systems with different needs,” the Treasury Secretary said. “I think it would not make sense to have identical policies. I think we are going to have different policies. The key thing is that we continue to work closely together, we continue to coordinate.”

David McCormick, the US Treasury Under-secretary, reinforced Mr Paulson’s caution that no grand plan was expected to emerge. “I am trying to think about what a global plan would look like because it seems to imply that there is a one size fits all for these challenges,” he said, adding that he saw no such likely approach.

Presidential debate

I listened the Presidential debate yesterday on the radio while I was at work and I have to say it was little bit boring. I thought there was to much bashing and not enough answering the questions. One thing that I am disappointed about is the fact that neither one of the candidates can follow directions very well. How can either one of these people be a good leader if they can not follow a few simple rules. The only one following the rules was the moderator and when he would tell it is time to stop they would get upset. What a couple of little babies. I hope that this is not a sign of things to come.

US Earthquakes

According to to the USGS there have been several earthquakes in the US. They were not very large. The places where they occurred is interesting. Here is the list from the USGS .

2008/09/30 Nevada Magnitude 3
2008/09/30 Ohio Magnitude 2.8
2008/09/28 Washington Magnitude 2.6
2008/09/28 Colorado Magnitude 2.5

six members of a family killed by Jobless Father

The only hints of trouble in the big beige house on Como Lane were the newspapers in the driveway and the lack of any activity behind the front door.

But when police summoned by worried friends of the residents got inside Monday, they found a horror — six members of a family fatally shot in a murder-suicide committed by an unemployed man in financial crisis.

The body of 45-year-old Karthik Rajaram, a gun clutched in one hand, was found by officers who followed a trail of carnage through the home in a gated community in the Porter Ranch area of the San Fernando Valley.

His victims, most slain in their beds, were his wife, three sons and his mother-in-law.
"Absolute devastation," Deputy Chief Michel Moore told reporters outside the home.
Investigators quickly found two suicide letters and a will, and determined that the man once worked for a major accounting firm and was at least the part-owner of a financial holding company.

"The source of it appears to be a financial state, a crisis if you will, that this man became embroiled in that has unfolded over the past weeks," Moore said.

The man wrote in his suicide letter that he felt he had two options — to just kill himself or to kill himself and his family — and decided the second option was more honorable, Moore said.

The bodies were found when officers were sent to make a check on the home Monday morning after the wife failed to show up at a neighbor's home to go to work as a pharmacy bookkeeper, Moore said.

Officers found the mother-in-law, Indra Ramasesham, 69, dead in bed on the first floor. Upstairs, they found a 19-year-old son, Krishna Rajaram, dead in bed in the master bedroom.

The gunman's 39-year-old wife, Subasri, was found in another room, also apparently shot while sleeping, Moore said.

In an adjoining room, a 12-year-old son, Ganesha, was dead on the floor, and his 7-year-old brother, Arjuna, was dead in bed. Their father's body also was found there with a handgun "in his grasp," Moore said. The gun was purchased Sept. 16.

Coroner's assistant chief Ed Winter said the victims were shot multiple times.
The killings occurred some time between midnight Saturday and early Monday morning, Winter said.

Dow Falls Below 10,000 Mark

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street suffered through another traumatic session Monday, with the Dow Jones industrials plunging as much as 800 points and setting a new record for a one-day point drop as investors despaired that the credit crisis would take a heavy toll around the world. The Dow also fell below 10,000 for the first time since 2004, and all the major indexes fell more than 7 percent.
djia below , 10,000
(ABC News Photo Illustration)

The catalyst for the selling was the growing realization that the Bush administration's $700 billion rescue plan and steps taken by other governments won't work quickly to unfreeze the credit markets. Global banks, hobbled by wrong-way bets on mortgage securities, remain starved for cash as credit has dried up.

That sent stocks spiraling downward in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and drove investors to sink money into the relative safety of U.S. government debt. Fears about a global recession also caused oil to drop below $90 a barrel; and the benchmark index that gauges fear in the market jumped to the highest level in its 18-year history.