OCTOBER 2008

A Few Words About Current Market Conditions

By Ben Warwick
Sovereign Wealth Management

With all the verbal diarrhea being spouted by the talking heads on CNBC and other channels, I thought it most appropriate to limit my comments on the current market debacle to a few bullet points.

1. The history of government interventions is a profitable one. In the last six completed bailouts dating from the rescue of the Penn Central Railroad in 1970, the Treasury ultimately garnered a slight profit.
2. The situation faced by Lehman Brothers and other firms were as much a function of circumstance as bad management. Certainly there were mistakes made, but even in a perfect sphere of decision-making the firms that are no longer with us would still not likely be around.

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