and beyond the 'good news' that gas might get cheaper, the declining interest in foreign banks to buy our worthless companies paper is starting to surface everywhere...... at least the wall street brokers are now eating at McDonalds it seems... yeah haw......

By Charley Blaine and Elizabeth Strott
Worries about the viability of investment bank Lehman Bros. (LEH, news, msgs) knocked its stock down by more than 45% and made investors wonder how long the battering of financial stocks can go on.

Lehman Bros. shares fell 45% to $7.79 on news that a Korean bank backed away from talks to buy a stake in the New York bank. As Wall Street wondered how the investment bank was going to raise new capital, short-sellers drove the stock lower.

The Dow Jones industrials dropped 280 points, or 2.4%, to 11,231. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 43 points, or 3.4%, to 1,225, and the Nasdaq Composite Index was off 60 points, or 2.6%, to 2,210.

With today's sell-off, the Dow gave up 97% of its gain on Monday and had its 25th loss of 200 or more points this year. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq saw their Monday gains disappear.

The lesson from today's selling: The huge rally that stocks enjoyed on Monday in the wake of the government's seizure of mortgage companies Fannie Mae (FNM, news, msgs) and Freddie Mac (FRE, news, msgs) was a one-day wonder.

The bigger issues plaguing U.S. stocks -- the health of financial companies, the continued depression in the housing market, high energy prices and increasing evidence of weakening economies around the world -- are still alive and well.

Today's losses were broad. Only five of the 30 Dow stocks had gains, led by McDonald's (MCD, news, msgs), up 1.2% to $63.19 thanks to a report of strong same-store sales in August. In addition, just 39 S&P 500 stocks and 7 stocks in the Nasdaq-100 Index ($NDX.X), which ended down 41 points, or 2.4%, to 1,722. In addition, all 10 sectors of the S&P 500 were lower, with financial and energy shares the biggest losers.

I WISH I were of the mood to take a bow, here. But the state of the financial union scares me to death. I am a miserable 'trader' with a trading account up 24% on the year (yeah, folks who can see the ramps coming are up 200%) but mostly am an American with a hope to afford three squares, a warm hearth, and a loving community.

The financial pages don't give me a lot of hope...

It is amazing that someone out of the "loop" can see all of this coming, and prepare accordingly, but those in charge who are the "experts" continue to make things worse for the country. It would seem greed is quite a bit stronger than most peoples' affinity to help thier fellow man and do the proper thing they were assigned to do. When the dollar is worthless, I hope thier greed will fill the soup pot.