On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:23:40 -0400, "Eisboch" wrote:

Panic struck here in the Northeast and needlessly caused a regional bank to
sell out to a major, foreign based bank.

Sovereign Bank, a mid-sized regional bank in which we used to have our
commercial (business) account plus some personal savings was the victim
of panic withdrawals over the past couple of weeks due to false rumors
spread via the Internet and media. Unfortunate, because the bank was fine
.... solvent, and in no danger of going under.

Contributing to the mass panic run was the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who
decided to withdraw $300 million in deposits.

25% of Sovereign stock is currently owned by a large, Spanish bank who has
agreed to purchase all outstanding stock.

Now, when I go to the ATM for money, I get it in peseta or pesos. :-)

Consider this - one of our major airlines, United, got burned for 1.3
billion in capital losses after a small newspaper in Florida published
an article about United's potential bankruptcy. Which was true, only
it happened three years ago and the article was from a news aggregator
found by a reporter who didn't understand how to read dates.

In my own small world, I had this theory about too much information
and the world wide web, but it's lengthy and I don't feel like pushing
it at the moment.