THE MORNING ACCORDING TO US

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The problem with selling high to Uncle Sam is he bid the stock up with your own money.

Good morning, and welcome to a world in which Wall Street as we know it has ceased to exist. Last night the two remaining Wall Street investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, decided to scrap the Street model and become commercial banks. "The world has changed," a Morgan spokeswoman said. This means no bank any more just buys and sells securities.

This means the Federal Reserve becomes arguably the most powerful regulator in the world, while the Securities and Exchange Commission becomes the weakest. Nothing this dramatic has happened since the Great Depression. The government will soon take on a $700 billion loan to buy the toxic securities that caused this mess. And it's unknown how much the government will be able to sell back, which means, dear friends, that we will all repay it in the end. Nice going, America.

But here's our sports prediction: Games will continue to sell out. We saw it first in the Great Depression, when horse racing and baseball became Events to Attend to Momentarily Forget Our Lives. The same will hold true this fall, and next spring, and the winter of 2009, and however much longer we stay in this malaise. We need sports, their nightly, and tidy, conflicts and resolutions. So do you know what the news today really means? LeBron and Tiger and every other single name athlete out there (and quite a few two-named ones), will see nothing but gravy. And we'll gladly make sure that remains the case.

Elsewhere?

Gender equity in motorcross. This was basically the first goal of the suffrage movement. Though our textbooks may be a little dated.

Alright, we'll just say it. McCain's VP choice has suddenly made these stories oddly prescient. People just want to read them. So here. Fine.

Wave-stealing surfers face Asbos. We used to think wave-stealing was sort of like sunshine stealing (and we don't mean in the mega sense, ala Mr. Burns), an impossibility. But it can be done. Read up!

A scalper vows to have tickets available for 2010 Olympics. That's just fortitude, brah.

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