Today in the Financial Crisis, Sept. 6, 2008--Yikes!

Saturday September 6, 2008 was the day the action really began and I dutifully made my way into the office very early.
The first post of the day was "Friday Fannie, Freddie Bail Out Round Up (FNM; FRE)" with an intro by Lao Tzu and Bill Goldman:

Those who know do not speak,
those who speak do not know.
-Lao Tzu
The Tao Te Ching

Nobody knows anything
-William Goldman
Adventures in the Screen Trade

We'll have more throughout the weekend. For now this is what some smart people are saying....

For some reason this major, major change in the relationship between Washington and Wall Street didn't seem the immediate bowel-churning fright that the events of 2007's September were. Our headlines had degenerated in 2007:
Panic on the streets of Britain: Northern rocked, City shocked

Northern Rock (LON: NRK) Updates

When I read that The City's Stockbrokers and Fund Managers were queuing up to withdraw their deposits, well, it gets your attention.... 

Rock, Paper, Scissored

In 2008 it was less visceral although a (literal) hurricane was on its way:

Hurricane Watch: "Ike's coming to the Gulf. Time to pay attention."

But there was time for science news:

Scientists get death threats over Large Hadron Collider

and a look at global macro:
Theoretical Declines of a Bursting Oil Bubble. And: Warren Buffett Swings By

So, frightful but not incapacitating.

Here's MoneyBeat's recollection of that Saturday (and Sunday):
This Day in Crisis History: Sept. 6 and 7, 2008

It had been a tumultuous first week of September. Having been roiled all week by fears over a growing credit crisis that had seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall 350 points on Thursday, the Dow had ended Friday’s session up 32.73-points.

Bank stocks, including Lehman, were up.

Traders had finished the session Friday knowing that the Treasury was thinking about injecting capital into mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, after government officials concluded that the two companies couldn’t survive in their present forms after a year of heavy losses on ailing mortgage loans....MORE