Wonkette

Here’s a frightening math chart from the mathies at Calculated Risk putting that record 2.8% October retail sales decline in perspective. (As if a record drop in consumer spending needed more perspective!) Sales are down 8.8% on a year-over-year basis, which may just strike you as, “bah, some dumb number,” but this graph shows that that is what we call a “free fall.” MORE »

Money and numbers dorks are all excited this morning, speculating about who Barack Obama might select for the most thankless job in America. Will it be Larry Summers, again? Your editor would kind of like to see the very competent FDIC chairman and level-headed Kansan Sheila Bair get the post, but that’s mostly because Bair was so great on Charlie Rose that one time and Warren Buffett likes her. [Bloomberg]

Hey hobos! If you are looking for some Golden Ameros to replace your lost I-banking wages, or your lost 401(k), or your lost home, look no farther than your local pawn shop! They can give you all the money that the banks can’t, now that the banks don’t have any money. MORE »

Oh this is hilarious, on CNN we have a split screen with Barry finally laying out his detailed, comprehensive policy proposal on the left, and on the right we have a bunch of sad orange roses waiting for George Bush to stomp all over them. MORE »

Well good morning to you! The Dow dropped over 660 points after opening, which is to say, it’s just another beautiful day on Wall Street. Our president, George W. Bush, will once again scurry out of his spider hole to choke out a few brief words about our flourishing economy before he glimpses his shadow and disappears for another six weeks. So of course we will liveblog all 90 seconds of his remarks, so stay tuned! [Yahoo Finance]

When the markets tank, editors need a photograph to illustrate the terrible loss of value in equities most people either don’t own and don’t understand. The obvious photograph — poor people eating trash in the alley because they have no food and no home — is never used, because it would seem racist. Instead, the general-news media relies on a never-ending stock collection of floor traders looking exhausted, or, like in this AP-Yahoo photo used today, floor traders simultaneously vomiting into their hands. Let’s laugh at them, together. MORE »

Hey, you half-million people seeking unemployment checks last month: Did you not hear that Congress and Hank Paulson are going to Save the Economy? And what about you Wall Street analysts finally admitting, today, that the United States is in a terrible recession? Did you forget that John McCain believes the fundamentals are strong? MORE »

It’s Monday, meaning a bank fell. A major bank, felled. Or didn’t fall? Just “sold off” its entire banking operations: “Citigroup will acquire the banking operations of the Wachovia Corporation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said Monday morning, the latest bank to fall victim to the distressed mortgage market.” While the F.D.I.C. chairman says Wachovia customers should expect business as usual, we think there should be a BANK RUN! EVERYONE FREAK OUT! GET ALL YR MONEY! RUNNNNN!!!! [NYT]

Barney Frank is ANGRY, again, and John McCain better stay away from the portly House Financial Services Committee chairman. He says they’re all working with “serious Republicans” but that obviously means no McCain. Frank’s doing a live press conference, which we would liveblog, but we already did one of those this morning and it’s not even noon. Also, the People are going to start lynching CEOs (which is racist) if there’s not some relief for the common folks, &c. MORE »

• OH, UH …. “Chinese regulators have told domestic banks to stop interbank lending to U.S. financial institutions to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis.” [REUTERS]