Obviously, with Merrill Lynch ceasing to exist as an independent entity, and Lehaman ceasing to exist completely, it has been a busy day.

This update, therefore just covers the more ordinary stories, as opposed to the 767s slamming into the US financial system, though many of these stories are in fact driven by the bigger stories.

Let’s start with one that has nothing to do with Lehman or Merrill, retail gasoline is up for the 3re time in 3 days, because Hurricane Ike has closed about 20% of US refining capacity.

We’ll see how this shakes out over the next few days, but we also now have another unrelated pice of news, that the New York Fed Manufacturing Index Decreased to -7.4 in September, indicating that it’s not just those Wall Street whores getting it up the ass, it’s all of us, which is why
credit card debt and delinquencies are up the past month.

And now on to the main show:

• Oil and gasoline futures fell, the increase in gasoline prices was retail and driven by immediate refinery capacity shortages, but the futures are driven by heavy gloon.
• The Fed has expanded its cash for sh&%-pile program even further, making more money available, and loaning on the basis of even more flaky collateral, and the banks are getting as much as they can through this program.
• The European central banks are shoveling money out the door too.
• The Chinese central bank cut rates, though I’m not sure if that is to strengthen their economy, or to hold down their currency.
• The dollar is taking a pounding (here: and here.)