Lehman Brothers: Next Target Of Short-Selling Pools ?

Some of the same greedy monkeys of Wall Street that had the depression-era Glass Steagall ,a.k.a. The Banking Act of 1935 , repealed in 1999 which is the reason banks are in trouble today had another key piece of depression-era market abuse legislation rolled back in 2007. The "short sale uptick rule " was eliminated.

Simply ,short sales of stocks by speculators had to be executed at a higher price than the last sale or equal to the last sale if was a higher price. This uptick rule was part of the The Securities Act Of 1934. The legislation created the Securities And Exchange Commission. The rule was put in place to stop bear raids by individuals and/or groups that drove down stocks causing margin calls and in some cases bankrupticies of the targeted company. Joe Kennedy of the infamous/famous Kennedy family was notorious for this tactic. So much so that Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the first S.E.C. Commisioner . Joe basically wrote the outline for The Securities Act Of 1934 because he knew how best to steal in those unregulated markets and FDR wanted Kennedy to write legislation to stop stock market abuses!

Well Lehman Brothers is down 10% today at $38.00. It's down fro a high of $80.00 about a year ago. The rumors on the Street is that hedge and/or hedge funds are spreading rumors about Lehman's ability to remain solvent. At the same time the hedge funds are selling short Lehman stock on downticks whish is now legal.

It's the same tactic that was used so efffectively to drive Bear Stearns out of business and into a Federal bailout and acquired by J P Morgan Chase. Bear Stearns stock went from a 52 week high of $170.00 to an acquistion price of $10.00 per share. So if Lehman goes down who's next?

Now if the hard learned lessons and legislation of the depression era were just left in place, then most of this market turmoil would not be happening. But of course then we would be dealing with a monkey/primate with real intelligence and not a frivolous primate wearing a three-piece suit.

Another Banking & Brokers Crisis: Can't Learn If Can't Remember.

In 1999 during Clinton's tenure of office The Glass-Steagal Act (a.k.a. Banking Act of 1935) was repealed by the republican controlled Congress . The repeal was pushed by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Citigroup's Chairman Sandy Weil, Secretary Of Treasury Robert Rubin who left government after Glass-Steagall repeal and joined Citigroup and Bill Clinton. The repeal let banks back into the brokerage business. Let Citigroup back into the securities business is an understatement. It was Citigroup's Smith Barney's unit that was part of the fraud at Worldcom that cost investors $ 150 billion in losses. It seems that Sandy and Robert and Smith Barney anaylist Jack Grubman just can't play it straight. The three should have gone to prison.

Banks by nature should be safe and secure. Brokers by nature are anything but safe and secure.Citigroups stock since reentering the brokerage and related security dealings has plunged from $56.00 per share to $19.00. Today Bear Stearns collapsed from a 14 month high of $170.00 per share and was acquired by JP Morgan Chase for $ 2.00 per share. Hello? Anyone remember why the depression-era banking reform legislation happened? What was dumb and risky for the banks in the 1920's and 1930's is still dumb and risky.

Also " Character is fate", acording to the 6th century B.C. Greek philosopher Heraclitus. That hasn't changed either.