Morgan Stanley and Wachovia in talks to merge

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Morgan Stanley and Wachovia are in talks to potentially merge the two financial institutions. With the recent problems at Lehman Brothers and AIG, many financial institutions have been feeling the pressure of the credit crunch. I find this interesting as Wachovia was one of the banks rumored to be on the FDIC list of troubled banks a couple a months ago.

According to the Wall Street Journal John Mack, Morgan Stanley’s chief executive, received a call from Wachovia about a potential deal. These reports apparently came from people who are close to the  inside. If the economy continues to dive further into the tank you will likely see more of these deals as banks and other financial brokerage institutes attempt to survive this credit crunch and mortgage crisis. Of course I’m still a firm believer that if we can drive down the price of gas and oil then the economy will start to improve. The price was going in the right direction, but then the rumors and speculations of Hurricane Ike shot prices back up. Hopefully people will continue to conserve all the fuel possibly to push the price back down. If the price gets back more reasonable to what the economy can sustain then we should see an improvement in the overall economy and hopefully people will be able to get back to work and start paying their mortgages and loans again. Otherwise I’m sure we are headed for more mergers, bank closings, bankruptcies, etc.. like we have seen lately. Morgan Stanley and Wachovia are just another example of the problems we now find ourselves in.

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