Dead Men Walking
August 25, 2008
Last Friday's letter was about the fact that it is not just Freddie and Fannie. There are other problems. The Weekend Edition and today's Wall Street Journal are filled with stories about the problems with Freddie and Fannie. The assumption in so many quarters is that they will soon need government assistance. The only questions seem to be when and in what form? Can this wait until a new president is in place? Congress is leaving town soon. Can it wait until the lame duck session?
As I have been writing for well over a year, the credit crisis is going to be deeper and take longer to correct than the main stream media and economists think. Losses at banks are going to be much larger, and they are going to bleed for a long time. That means we are going to see more banks failing.
Bennet Sedacca, who I quoted in last week's letter, sent out a new letter this morning, providing a list of stocks he thinks may also be in trouble, his "Dead Men Walking" list. He also notes several banks that will be the beneficiaries of the crisis as they gobble up weak competitors.
Caveat: I am not a stock guy, and can't comment on any of the specifics of what Bennet writes about, but I thought it is important for my readers to understand that this crisis is not going to be over when Freddie and Fannie are nationalized. There are still some whales out there left which are coming to the surface. Warning: this is not pleasant reading.
Bennet is the president of Atlantic Advisors in Winter Park, Florida.
John Mauldin, Editor
Outside the Box
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Dead Men Walking
Dead Man Walking - Originally, a phrase in a poem by Thomas Hardy in 1909, but later in a work of non-fiction by Sister Helen Prejean, A Roman catholic nun and one of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille. Prejean later wrote 'Dead Man Walking', which became a hit movie in 1995. The title comes from the traditional exclamation "dead man walking, dead man walking here" used…