Tag Archives: Wall Street

Reflections of September 11th, 2001

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September 11th, 2001 was one of the worst day the country had experienced. I would have to echo the same. I am going to keep this post to the point, but also be thoughtful.

1997
I went by New York City in 1997 when I went to New Jersey when my mother and her then boyfriend drove through The Bronx and Manhattan. We were going to Six Flags before the Western Mass one would open 3 or so years after. I remember when we tried to get back home (before that, we stopped at my aunts place in Connecticut) we took the wrong way and got off the GWB in Manhattan and I vaguely remember 5th Avenue, and for some reason I remember seeing the Statue of Liberty (however we were in Midtown, so I don’t know if that is true or not.)
2000
I did set foot a few years later on Labor Day weekend of 2000. I was in the whole Wall Street kick back then (and somewhat today even now I believe most of it is rigged.) We also went to Ellis Island and walked around the Statue of Liberty, although we didn’t go in there. I remember seeing the Twin Towers from the distance.
2001
On April Vacation of 2001, my mother and I went to Manhattan ourselves (we managed to get into The City courtesy of my aunt who lived at the time in the Tristate side of Connecticut during the several times we went there where we took the Metro North Rail into Grand Central.
My mother and I got tickets to see the Opening Bell of the start of the trading session at the New York Stock Exchange. However we missed it by a group or two. Regardless, I remembered seeing how dark the Exchange looked like without the magic of spotlights underneath the robotic camera lenses for the news organizations. The floor wasn’t that littered, since it was just past 9:30.  The next stop was we went into the World Trade Center into the lobby and trying to get to the Observation Deck. However with the deal-savy mother I have, there was a deal to go to all the three big skyscrapers (WTC, the Empire State Building and I forgot the 3rd.) Since we wanted to be more prepared we decided to do it another time.
That’s a true definition that there would not be another time.
When we went north into Midtown, after visiting the Nasdaq Marketsite, we noticed unusual security that was invasive at that time. (It was kinda like the post 9/11 security at that time, but only a few months before.) My mother and I were trying to figure it out when we went to lunch after.
Summer 2001
However, the story gets a bit heartbreaking for me. On the 4th of July week, my mother and I took a vacation to California to San Diego specifically Legoland. It was the first time I gone that far west in my lifetime. I remember how relaxed that week was. On our way back home, we had the plane almost to ourselves since people didn’t show up for their flights out of San Diego. We did land in Ohio before coming back to Manchester, which all I can remember we got home within the hour after the landing. For some reason I was very surprised that we were in and out. I also remember not having any jet lag (since jet lag happens when your body clock advances time.) I apparently adapted back to the Eastern Time very quickly.
You can the thought that I could had been a victim of that day since it was a couple months prior to the attack and one of those impacts was going cross country. That thought came to me a while after.
Labor Day Weekend 2001  Less than 2 weeks prior to September 11th
The next big trip was back to the NY/Tristate area that Labor Day weekend. My aunt was at the time dating a guy that worked for a large trading floor in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I was lucky that I got there in time to meet him and see the large floor with countless Bloomberg Terminals (boy was that fun!) Sun workstations, and everything else. However, that floor is a secured environment and he had to use his card to have the elevator go there and there was a security turnstall there as well. (Remember this was late August of 2001, just more than a week away from 9/11.)
We went to Manhattan the next day. My aunt didn’t want to go downtown for the reason that it being a warm, hot day that (allegedly) they do rolling blackouts on the subways which would get people stuck in the trains. I later believed it was likely an excuse to not go there. I never was able to see the complex that day.
I got the local tabloids on September 1st of that year and the stories of that day. It seemed to be a typical summer stories since after all it was Labor Day weekend.
September 11th, 2001
I remember the morning of 9/11 very vividly. I remember the morning’s stories, the economy was in the fritz for recession, the Chandra Levy love affair story (which I myself got hooked into) and anything else. I left to go to school at about 8:20. The school I was in was kind of a tough school, where lets be honest, where I couldn’t be the boss, or learn or do things that interests me, etc. I figured given their attitude to their students, that they kept zip quiet. No one mentioned anything to us till one of my staff came into the classroom at probably 10:30 and broke the news to us.
Honestly, I froze. When I heard of the World Trade Center, I thought of the Boston WTC since everything was slow for me to process. When I heard about planes flying around, I thought they were flying around the Eastern Rockingham County area. Because my staff was talking slow and I was trying to get answers in a spiffy manner, and after I thought or the mention of the Twin Towers, my soul immediately went into shock. This news came to me about the time after my mother called the school to ask if they had said anything to tell him since was there just in the last week. The school never dismissed us ether, probably since they thought it was a no-news for every other kid in the school and it wouldnt be important to them or whatever.
Trying to go onto any online source came up with an Error 404 since everyone was trying to get stories. The Internet experienced one of the most busiest days since by that time the Web became a serious medium of news, especially with the dynamic updates the sites could support. When I got home, I was watching every channel for their different reports.  And the era of the Big Media, most of the big media properties were sisters to the Big 3 Networks or cable news entities. Some did go off air to redirect viewers to their news outlets. And the radio markets I live in did the same thing wall to wall, and most of the local radio stations were brother stations to the all-news station or the talk radio station.
Post 9/11
I did go to The City 2 more times after, ether February or April Vacation and another Labor Day weekend with my mother as we strolled around Central Park and got a tour of NBC’s 30 Rock operations,etc. I also went to D.C. that following 4th of July and saw the side of the Pentagon that was getting ready to go back for business. My mother and I also went into the Monument that summer as well. I won’t ever forget that.
However post 9/11 was a different world. It changed my view of what America used to be and how the new America isn’t what I like.  I was 14 going on 11 (read a young 14 yead old) so my remaining innocence disappeared.   I would then go and spend the rest of my high school career in Massachusetts, a state known for its far anti American liberalism, where I saw my school take away the Pledge of Allegiance in only a few months. The work around was to do it by ourselves without the help of the paging of our phone system.  A few years prior to Obama being elected, a gut was telling me that someone needed to show more love to this country. That was also the same time I went to more sporting events.  I had felt more proud when I would hear the National Anthem, I felt like it was something missing for quite a while.
There were 3,000 lives that were gone in the 3 locations that day and its very sad to see people dying from the worst kinds of disater to happen. However they did luck out. It could had been a lot worse. I remember hearing from Neil Cavuto last September 10th mentioning there was a late game in The Bronx that the Yankees went to almost midnight, and some people were going to sleep in and go to work about 9:00 the latest. Also I will remember that it was a nice, late summer day. Many people ether took the day off, or went on vacation or whatever else. The complex would hold a daytime population of 50,000.
It was a very sad day on Sunday. I remember just being quiet and just having a sad look. I did have that sick feeling to my tummy on Thursday and Friday but I felt probably shocked. I felt the towers falling down was not only people gone but the country was we knew it. I don’t like how its been changed today, because I think the attacks created a new generation of people and all that crazy Wall Street stuff that got into that mess in 2008 probably took off after that in my observation. The City got more European thanks to the countless elections of Micheal Bloomberg. I have seen in pictures how yuppie it has looked. All those white painted lofts with simple looking office spaces and people with yuppie looks. I don’t remember that being the whole look of New York.
I won’t ever forget that day. It impacted me in so many ways as you have just read.

Rest in Peace Mark Haines

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On Tuesday night, Mark Haines, the long time anchor at CNBC unexpectedly passed away. He was 65 years old. I grew up watching the guy when he anchored the original 7:00-10:00 AM edition of Squawk Box and obviously the Squawk on the Street which impacted more people I suppose. He had a legal background from University of PA Law School, and worked at three stations at KYW-TV in Philladelphia, WPRI-TV in Providence and WABC-TV in New York. He then was the original anchors up the startup known at the time as the Consumer News and Business Channel.
I remember watching the program during the dot-com bubble and how goofy the cast including then stocks editor Joe Kernen, and correspondent David Faber while Maria Bartiromo was across the Hudson at the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when at the time the floor was literally flooded with traders. It was that program that allowed cameras on the trading floor under the direction of middle management of NBC and the then head of the NYSE, Dick Grasso, THE defender of the trading floor and a strong proponent of open markets.
What I remember the most was the goofiness of the program. The crew would silly stuff such as playing sound effects, also poking fun at the ETrade commercials of the 90s, with David Faber doing the “I wanna Dannnceee!” (I’ll post the YouTube link of original commercial later.)
He was known to being not fake, and doing what he wanted to do regardless if the General Electric or NBC execs or middle managers of CNBC felt embarrassed. They got tons upon tons of emails of viewers or wall street types of disgrace of letting CNBC run Squawk Box which has been mentioned during the time.
Mark Haines was the everyman and his lawyer instincts was obvious to me, as one that observes inferences a lot. He was best known on camera for ripping people apart for the defense of the at home shareholder which is not seen that much through other CNBC talent of today.
With his legal background he had the smell for BS. If he knew something was amis, he would say it outright in true honesty. I had noticed that in the crash of 2008 and what led after. I can’t describe it because of the depth of that bubble. When he would have guests on, he would treat them as they were guilty of a crime (the lawyer in him) and the guests had to prove that they were innocent. Especially during the bubbles of the last decade and half. If a guest would blurt out a claim without any data or numbers to back up the fact, Mark Haines would quickly catch on that.
I actually have a lot of respect for journalists as with legal background because of how the best lawyers will go on both sides of the table. (Not the fakey journalists that are on “Court TV” with legal background where they are always on the side of the prosecution and feel for the victim on every trial they cover.) The BS theme that has been mentioned about him is something every person should learn, to always be somewhat skeptical and not believe everything you hear see or read and try to sort it all out and be truthful as well.
I remember watching the clips of September 11th, which was his highest moment. He was calm as any reporter at that time of day can be. I did record 6 hours of live coverage on the markets reopening on September 17th on a VHS tape and again he had that same demeanor. It’s pretty errie that the anniversary of the attacks along with a reporter that was covering that dreaded day happens to be very close.
The local stations he worked at mentioned above were all Eyewitness News formatted newscasts. Those formats included the one liners, the honest laughter and just normal people covering the news for the normal audience. Oh don’t forget the movie soundtracks which was often played back in the early years of Squawk. When I had looked at his bio many years back, I felt that personality that is common on those stations. That’s probably why it was successful – it was the Eyewitness News for business news.
I stopped watching CNBC in the last year, since the looks look pretty fancy, the reporters look like Photoshop-fakey-non human-type of personalities (he was the direct opposite.) As I had mentioned earlier I don’t watch the present Squawk Box or the one he was at the NYSE not as religiously as before because it wasn’t the same as back prior the changes in late 2005 or even when they moved their studios out of Fort Lee, New Jersey in an office building just off the George Washington Bridge. That was also CNBC’s more humbler days. Even when CNBC moved into a very lavish studios that was worth over $140 million dollars, Mark Haines brought his humble self over.
(Edit: I was watching the many clips from CNBC, and one of the reasons why he did the show at the NYSE was so he wouldn’t run into the management!) Also from the clips he loved to dress down and when they relocated to Englewood Cliffs, NJ or started his show at the exchange he wasn’t able to wear PJ bottoms, jeans or whatever else that wasn’t dress pants. Bob Psiani, the floor reporter had kidded around that he looked like a homeless man when going into the exchange and out. Since he was a smoker, he took breaks outside of the exchange to smoke with the fellow traders, and diehard viewers that would walk by saw a different side of him that isn’t shown on the air. In fact producers had to arrange the program’s time to fit his breaks.)
He was also was a family guy and instead of talking about the markets to the traders or his guest, he could “talk for hours” about his two kids. Part of the original Squawk gig was after his program, he would leave CNBC and go home to pick up his kids from school since he would only be in CNBC’s building for up to 4 hours in the early years. He would drive his son throughout the East Coast for his volleyball tournaments and with pride as well.
Often when I don’t pay attention to the day’s news, I miss everything. It was less than a month ago Erin Burnett left to go to CNN. I watched the goodbye online and oh boy, did Mark fall apart on live TV than I had ever seen him do before, if he had done it at all. He was a smoker, and overweight, but regardless CNBC or even the business journalism lost someone that was gone too early.
Its unfortunately that its an end of an era, this time in Wall Street reporting.
I just want to say out of someone who hearted Wall Street in his teenage years, with everything that happened during the times I was watching CNBC, and his personality, that I will miss him sincerely.
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Editorial Note: Apparently his family is requesting for in lieu of flowers, to send donations to Autism Speaks. Giving his former corporate boss, Bob Wright that founded the organization, apparently on their website, he made the importance of first World Autism Awareness Day thanks to his Squawk on the Street program. (See Autism Speaks’ obit.) I’m not aware of his connection with Autism Speaks, but as of Friday morning, the hits linking to this post are from searches with Autism, Autism Speaks and Mark Haines or all together from the search engines.