are you kidding me?

Morgan Stanley Posts Loss After $9.4B 4th-Qtr Writedown, Gets $5B Investment From China

"Morgan Stanley, the No. 2 U.S. investment bank, reported a $9.4 billion writedown on Wednesday from bad bets on mortgage-related debt, leading it to take a $5 billion infusion from an arm of the Chinese government."

usually when i read stuff like this, i mumble something about tinfoil hats and move on, but no... this is real.

Morgan Stanley becomes the latest on Wall Street to be punished by the unfolding credit crisis -- and to be forced to reach out to a foreign government to secure a major investment to shore up its books. Major global banks have lost $100 billion in the past six months alone.

the "latest"? so let me get this straight. the credit / mortgage crisis begets bailouts from foreign governments (as opposed to foreign business entities), which now own large chunks of american corporations. and some of these governments are run by, you know, the communist party.

and now abu dhabi, one of the united arab emirates, is now the largest shareholder of citigroup.

no, don't reach for your tinfoil hats. this is the world we live in. the dot com bubble begat the real estate / credit bubble, which begat america being up for sale to foreign governments.

wow, that's sad.

anyway, em1... i guess our questions were answered. banks will not collapse. they'll just be bought by communists (and really rich people in the middle east). banks are, in fact, paying out the biggest bonuses in history.

i really can't believe i'm writing this with a straight face. it just seems like something out of a conspiracy theorist's journal, except it's 100% verified and true.