UPDATE MARKET MINI CRASH. DOW DOWN 500 PTS.

RESPONDING TO SOME OF YOUR INQUIRIES RE HUB BELOW..

RE WELLS FARGO:..CNBC-TV is reporting that "we are now learning that Wells Fargo might also have a (sub prime) problem.

a READER "CAROLYN" outlined a horrible customer service problem

her retired mom was having with her Wels Fargo Branch, and others

kindly lauded my earlier post.

..so tonight this is my response to all:

Thanks for the very kind words. It was a night with 2-3 hours sleep, and yes, my radio with CBS reports was next to one of my three computers in my home office and gave me great heads up info in advance of the CNBC coverage.   Carolyn's sad story which probably could result in a FINRA complaint against WF shows the danger of generalizations. I honestly believed my own Wells Fargo crap this morning. Now, 12 hours later, Bloomberg, Reuters etc shows a WF "Charge" which was accidentally or perhaps on purpose not mentioned earlier. The talking heads stating "it could only be a quarterly charge of $5-90 million" makes me puke. In my county private citizens had to DONATE money for a tiny (first ever) high school because the state education coffers were more naked than a New York gubernatorial play pal.   Things will work out.......my wife thought my enema references were crude and two hours later perky, professional, and prodigious Erin Burnett on CNBC-TV called the then 300-point decline a possible positive "hi-colonic" for the markets. Presidential elections are positive. Political stability is positive. Change of White House regimes are positive....time will tell....in a related matter I had a previously scheduled trip to a tiny studio above the Rio Grande Gorge this morning, for a local production company from the tiny public radio affiliate in Taos (actually out of Alamosa, CO). Let's just say the interviewer pounded the financial industry. Funny thing is that It didn't bother me that much....particularly our AIG clients are nervous and if we have to "pull the plug" on grounds of credit worthiness we will.....more chapters in the days and weeks ahead, but thanks for the comments.  

Some won't believe this, but this is meant as an a-political observation. If Obama and the Dems cannot capitalize and sustain an attack against the current administration and the GOP on today's Wall Street news they absolutely do not deserve the White House. China, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Korea markets are closed today, but we are getting the overnight picture from Singapore, India and the Aussies....steep downslides in equities and a flight to the "safe" currency world of Yens and Swissies. Let's see....Lehman Brothers which pre dated the War Between the States and outlived almost all rivals will be bankrupt by the time you see this. Don't let the spin off of some divisions such as Neuberger Berman fool you. Their recent debt instruments will eventually settle between 20 and 80 cents on the dollar, but as for common stockholders, put a fork in them. They're done. Merrill Lynch which some say had a worse balance sheet than Lehman but much better Beltway connections, gets taken over at a premium to anything approaching fair market value by the new Bank of America financial hegemony machine. The only problem is that B of A may not get under its ill-timed and ill-thought acquisition of Countrywide mortgages. Adding more and more debt to a bank which is of dubious management talent in the best of times probably leaves Wells Fargo as the only recognized national name of quality that any prudent investor would want to own. The tipsy troika is finished by the world's and the nation's (cq) largest insurer American International Group--AIG. With $1 Trillion in assets at least on Friday, this morning a WSJ blog and Financial Times reports estimate maybe $80 billion net in liquidity. AIG is a bit different from the others. They have cash to pay hurricane and other claims, even the insurance they underwrote for other firm's bad mortgages....but in a nervous world the S & P hint of a credit "downgrade" would most likely lead to a run on the bank so to speak. It looks like AIG will squeak out of the hole today but without one or two of their most profitable arms--the biggest airplane leasing company in the world and their annuity business. The election comes in here: I really don't care where you stand on the Iraq invasion. At a time when U.S. companies can not compete with Euro center institutions whose "socialized" universe makes employee health and pension benefits a non-issue when it comes to competition, the current war budget of perhaps another trillion dollars has killed off the dollar along with international trust and respect. Maybe Pres.. Bush's only real mistake on the deck of the carrier was not declaring "Mission Accomplished" and then telling everyone we won and let's go home. Ummmm, I can't recall who won the Korean War.....the Cyprus War....the Darfur War......??? The Party of the Newt, the Party of the Ronald, the Party of smaller government has spent the nation into recession and middle class families into fear. Pray--honest, even if you're an atheist--that you never get cut off your company or pension insurance; never fall short of payments when COBRA runs out, and never rely on your state's insurance or self-insurance pools where "co-pays and deductibles" can be $10,000 (cq) a year.

I never respected Merrill's cookie cutter approach to client portfolios and relations, but they had the best trainers in the world and were the gold standard for many American investors. Lehman and its analysts, bond traders, and money managers covered the globe with a logo and letterhead that meant respect and quality. AIG and its controversial catalyst "Hank" Greenberg cracked international markets for a U.S. based insurer and pioneered innovative retirement and variable annuity products for two generations. I didn't care much for Hank but his back office, customer service, and response to the needs of me and my clients were the best in the financial industry. Something went very wrong on the detour from Kabul to Mosul. Something went very, very wrong, on the road from Camp David to Crawford.