Some Wall Street bailout perspective from 1987, please

As far as Wall Street crying over spilled melamine-laced milk to the tune of 778 points and $1.2 trillion, you have to look at percentage of drop to put the Street into perspective.

In terms of percentage, 1987 was far worse.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, here’s some talking points. In loose-floating numbers, the drop was “just” 508 points, but…

That was 22.7 percent of the 1987 Dow, more than three times today's fallout.

In response, the NYSE and other markets were placed on restricted trading.

NYSE CEO Duncan Niederauer certainly has that option, either alone or in conjunction with London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Tokyo and a few other places, of doing the same tomorrow. Why he wasn’t already prepared to do that today is beyond me.

And, today wasn’t even the second-worst loss in terms of percentage, because 1987 wasn't the worst. That happened in December 1914, when the NYSE reopened after a long siesta at the start of WWI. The Dow fell more than 24 percent that day.

Second, as I said in mybailout alternative post, it’s now a “seller’s market,” or a “buyer’s market,” depending on how you define buyer and seller.

If the Street is really THAT worried, it will agree to new regulatory issues on the Democratic side. And, it will threaten, at least, GOP Congressmen with stopping the campaign check gravy train. THAT, more than potential public reaction, would get House GOP members’ attention with five weeks left until Election Day.

Finally, I said earlier that a real bailout bill would push for looking at possible criminality.

Pelosi and Reid, if you really want leverage, go up to AG Mukasey, since he just approved a special prosecutor on the attorney firings, and tell him you want a special prosecutor for this, too.

You will see Henry Paulson and Wall Street shit their collective pants.

So, let’s put this all into some perspective.