The “agreement in principle” on a $700-billion mortgage bailout turned pretty quickly into a disagreement Thursday night as House Republicans revolted. Not being a Capitol Hill Kremlinologist, I can’t really tell you how significant this is: This summer’s big housing bill was opposed by 149 of 199 House Republicans, and that sure didn’t …

Some breaking news on the Washington Mutual front. Seems JPMorgan Chase is swooping in to buy WaMu’s deposits—and take over some branches. Details are murky at the moment; we’ll know more after the conference call at 9:15 tonight. Word so far is that the deal was government-brokered. What, exactly, does that mean? Think a lot of people …

A prize to the first person who guesses correctly:

(Hint: It’s one of the reasons we think we need a $700 billion bailout plan.)

Thanks to Bill Saporito, author of this article, for passing along the ad.

Barbara!

Reuters reports:

The U.S Mint said Thursday it was temporarily suspending sales of American Buffalo 24-karat gold one-ounce bullion coins because strong demand depleted its inventory…

Coin dealers from the United States to Canada have recently reported a surge in buying of bullion coins and other gold products as troubles in the

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Lawmakers of both parties emerged a little while ago to say they’d agreed on the principles of the mortgage bailout deal. What are those principles? Here’s the NY Times version (the WSJ’s was similar):

They said the bill would authorize the full $700 billion requested by President Bush, but that Congress was intent on disbursing the

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TIME’s David von Drehle has a wonderful, if ultimately and inevitably inconclusive, essay on Obama, McCain and the economic future. It’s the cover story of the magazine that hits newsstands tomorrow. I could maybe write an article as elegant as that if I had about two weeks. He had two days. Of course, it’s not nearly as good as his …

Falling oil prices have been hammering T. Boone Pickens’ hedge funds lately. Reports the WSJ:

All in, the funds have lost around $1 billion this year, a figure that includes $270 million of personal losses. “It’s my toughest run in 10 years,” said Mr. Pickens, a former geologist who earned billions by building an oil company and

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Yesterday we talked about existing-home sales. Today, some grim figures from the Commerce Department about new construction: new home sales fell by 11.5% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 460,000, the slowest pace since January 1991. What’s particularly worrisome is that after dropping slightly last month, inventory is …

President Bush looked awfully uncomfortable tonight. I don’t know if it was discomfort with the particulars of the financial bailout legislation he found himself having to promote, discomfort with now finding himself the third most powerful person (after Dick Cheney and Hank Paulson) in his own Administration, discomfort with having to …

Today it’s the House’s turn to ask Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke questions about the $700 billion bailout plan. The House is usually more populist than the Senate, but I imagine today will be especially lively, considering that everyone is up for re-election in six weeks. Congressmen will start making their statements at noon, but we’ll …

Home sales are down, after an uptick in July. From the National Association of Realtors:

Nationally, existing-home sales–including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops–declined 2.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.91 million units in August from an upwardly revised pace of 5.02 million in July, but are

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Nouriel Roubini thinks hedge funds are toast. A friend of mine in the business e-mails a different view:

RE: MS and GS becoming banks and the SEC’s role: the SEC, if it has not permanently discredited itself w/ lack of action (perhaps not wholly its fault), may get a new lease on life by regulating hedge funds.

Think of the following

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