UPDATED ON:
Saturday, October 18, 2008
09:30 Mecca time, 06:30 GMT
 
News Americas
Stocks slide after Bush speech

Bush said the bailout spending would protect the
free market system[AFP]

US stocks have closed lower amid more bleak assessments of the country's economy - just hours after George Bush, the US president, defended the financial bailout of ailing banks.

The Dow Jones index fell 1.4 per cent to close at 8,852 on Friday following reports which indicate poor US consumer confidence and weaknesses in the nation's housing market.

Bush had earlier addressed the US chamber of commerce, saying the country was dealing with a "serious financial crisis".

He is due to meet European leaders on Saturday to discuss the global financial crisis.
Bush is to hold a meeting at Camp David with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Jose Manual Barroso, the European Commission president, who are to stop in the US on their way home from a summit in Canada.

European leaders have said the meeting could pave the way for an overhaul of the global financial regulatory system.

'Focus on economy'

Charlie Parker, an investment editor from Citywire, a financial news service, told Al Jazeera: "The markets have moved from a sense of utter panic last week ... to a sense that the time has come to focus on the economy.

"The problem is, even if markets stabilise, we are looking at a situation where production is falling, unemployment is growing, and not just in the Western world.

IN DEPTH

How the financial bubble burst

Q&A: The US financial meltdown

Reacting to the financial crisis

Wall Street gripped by uncertainty

"In one sense - and I don't want to give credit to George Bush - governments have been pretty decisive around the world.
 
"They reacted and it has helped. Banks are starting to lend again.
 
"Have they avoided a recession? No, they haven't. And really, they were never going to."

Earlier, Bush said every dollar spent on the $700bn bailout, which is using taxpayers money to buy up bad loans held by financial institutions, will be "subject to strong oversight". 

"We're looking into serious incidents of fraud, abuse in the financial system," he said.

"American people want a clear explanation of what this crisis means for them, what the government is doing to fix it and what it means for the future of the free market.

"As a strong believer in the free market, I would oppose such measures [government intervention] under ordinary circumstance, but these are not ordinary circumstances."

Bush blamed the global crisis on bad mortgages, packaged up as "complex financial assets that were sold ... across the world".

Lack of regulation

"Had the government not acted, the hole in our financial system would have grown larger," Bush said, adding that the bailout, passed by congress on October 4, had been necessary in order to avoid "more drastic and costly measures later on".

The bailout plan will also see the US government take stakes in some US institutions, bringing the it closer to deals arranged in Europe.

The US government announced on Tuesday that it would use up to $250bn of the bailout to buy stakes in major banks.

Many Americans see highly paid executives on Wall Street, as well as a lack of regulation of their activities, as being behind the credit problem.

Troubled markets

Rosiland Jordan, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Washington, said that Bush was trying to bolster confidence in the US moves to end the crisis.

"We've heard from President Bush this fall [autumn] much more frequently than one might expect ...  it's very important from where President Bush sits to try to convince people that this crisis will spell itself out," she said.

The falls on Wall Street followed a US government report that said home construction fell more than expected last month to the lowest pace since early 1991.

The commerce department report said that first-time home purchases fell more than six per cent in September, below the 880,000 units forecast by Wall Street economists.

The report is a reminder that the original source of much of the economy's turmoil, the housing market and the sub-prime chaos, remains troubled.

 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Feedback Number of comments : 5
 
JD
United States
18/10/2008
Headline
Your headline suggests a causation/correlation logic trap (markets go up and down, irrespective of speeches). Just FYI. Gov. Palin spoke, and stocks rose. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have been allies for decades, and we appreciate that in this country. It gives us great hope for a peaceful future. Still, we must combat terrorism, and eradicate al qaeda from the face of the earth. www.offeringcommonsense.blogspot.com

richard columbare
United States
19/10/2008
What Bush left out
What Bush neglected to mention about Americas financial crisis is the money spent on an unneccessary war in Iraq and another in Afganistan. Money which if spent in America would have boosted the economy and created jobs and helped stave off all these foreclosures. See it's not how much money a country has but how it spends it. Prioritys count!

Bigmel1981
Malaysia
18/10/2008
Stocks slide after Bush speech
he is a disaster to global economies and security.

Katerina Andreou
United States
18/10/2008
Stocks and Bush
Bush lost his credibility. No one believes a word he says, given he's been proven a pathological liar-in-chief. As soon as he says things are good, or better, it's time to duck and hide. Amidst 8 years of phony "terrorism" alerts, that kept the US on-and-off in fear, to get his agendas through a weak Congress and past a politically-charged in-justice department, we've seen through his schemes and tactics for years. They don't work on most Americans any more as more see through him.

stallion
Oman
19/10/2008
Stocks slide after Bush speech!
Here is the man who went around the world with a message of democratisation of world,Silly Nincompoo! First he should know to put his house in order before he even dare to comment on others! What he has done in all the 8 years let everyone think a while! He Millitarilly destroyed US & He economically crippled US and Finacially he runined it beyond repair! I remember his rhetoric " Either you're with us or against us', Wanted Dead or alive! and Democratisation of middle east. Stallion

 
ARTICLE TOOLS
 Email Article  Email article
 Print Article  Print article
 Send Feedback  Send feedback
 Share article  Share article