Our SMART Viewers

Gang,

  It's been a harrowing 2 and a half weeks and I'm still shell (and sticker!!) shocked---$700 BILLION??-- by all that's come to pass.  Just to give you the inside story, for me it all started with Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy.  Folks, Friday September 19th, I was literally swinging from the Beverly Hills city limits sign shooting my "Opportunity in America: My Hometown of Beverly Hills" story when my cell phone rang.  It was a source of mine telling me that Lehman was hanging by a thread that would soon snap.  The source told me that if Lehman didn't find a cash infusion or partner over the weekend (unlikely), then pre-packaged bankruptcy would be staring them in the face come Monday.  I dropped to the grass, told my crew I had to make some phone calls and rushed to the car where I chased down a couple of other sources, got the story confirmed, called into "Countdown to the Closing Bell" (which Brian Sullivan was anchoring for me) and went with the news. 

I took no joy in breaking the news.  You know from this blog that I actually believed the Lehman Bros. would pull a rabbit out of the hat and surprise us all.  Clearly I was wrong.  CEO Dick Fuld's window has slammed shut right on his fingers.  Closed, never to open again.  I went back to playing Tarzan on the Beverly Hills sign (which you'll all see Friday October 17th barring any new financial dramas) and finished my shoot with somewhat of a heavy heart.  

I had NO IDEA what Lehman's failure would trigger.

Since then, it's been a focused push by our team at Fox Business to cover each and every single development of this monster of a story.  Some of us hopped on planes, others stayed up all night waiting for comment from various Congressional members, others ran to Times Square to get comments from regular folk who's 401k's and pensions were shrinking by the minute.  There's been no breakfast except coffee from our green room, and lunch, but only in the form of high-protein Ensure drinks (vanilla's the best).  I ran from my own shows (which we quickly moved to the New York Stock Exchange) to the O'Reilly Factor, to syndicated radio programs across the nation, to CBS News' The Early Show to the "Mike and Juliet Show" and back again just to tell people what was going on with each new development.  Mike and Juliet have a live audience and at one point, I turned to them and said something like, "This is YOUR money. Don't you want answers??" and the entire audience cheered.  I got the blogosphere version of that with your comments.  I was just spending some of my Sunday reading your replies to my "And What Do YOU Think?" blog from last week and I am so bowled over by your responses.  They are so thoughtful and smart and ....ANGRY.  I completely get that emotion, especially when you look at the price-tag of this bill-that's-now-a-law.

Thank you SO much for taking the time to comment.  Knowing where our viewers stand on this is crucial. We're in this for you.  This is FAR from over, I'm sorry to say.  But we'll do our fighting best to give you the proper perspective you won't get anywhere else.  I'm so proud of our team but I'm even more proud that our viewers are with us.  THANK YOU. 

See you tomorrow,

Liz