All the Money's Gone, Nowhere to Go



Michael Douglas, Greed Is Good.
The Ethiopians, Everything Crash.
The Beatles, You Never Give Me Your Money.
Jimmy Witherspoon, Money Getting Cheaper (Times Getting Tougher).
Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, We Need Some Money.
Gus Cannon, My Money Never Runs Out.
Howlin' Wolf, Work For Your Money.
Duke Ellington, Wall Street Wail.

The Federal Reserve, in an attempt to prevent the crisis on Wall Street from infecting its two premier institutions, took the extraordinary measure on Sunday night of agreeing to convert investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. into traditional bank holding companies.

With the move, Wall Street as it has long been known -- a coterie of independent brokerage firms that buy and sell securities, advise clients and are less regulated than old-fashioned banks -- will cease to exist.

The Wall Street Journal, 22 September 2008.

Every day carry bucket to the well,
One day the bucket bottom must drop out.
Every day carry bucket to the well,
One day the bucket bottom must drop out.

The Ethiopians, "Everything Crash."

Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

NY Times, 22 September 2008.

Creditors and debtors: Beatles; Ethiopians; Witherspoon; Chuck Brown; Gus Cannon; Howlin' Wolf; Duke Ellington.