Intro -The Wall Street Meltdown

Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was sold out to Bank of America, Washington Mutual became the biggest bank failure in history and the US Government now controls the world’s largest insurer in AIG in addition to owning the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Mortgage Agencies. There is a list of banks and financial companies who are on the ropes or down and out on the canvas - Wachovia in the US and RBS, Fortis and Dexia in Europe. In the UK, HBOS was forced into the arms of Lloyds TSB and Bradford & Bingley has followed Northern Rock into being controlled by the British Government. While in Iceland, the situation was so severe that it led to a total failure of their banking system and the Russians also face a meltdown of their own.

I will be following all events from the start of the Wall Street meltdown to the attemps to rectify the situation including bail-outs, stimulus, regulation, treatment of toxic assets and the subsequent effect on all the players in the Financial Industry and the fall-out from today's G20 meeting in London.