Wall Street gets walloped

Again. The Dow lost another 238 points, in part because of the concerns about Countrywide (see below), but more broadly, because of worries that the worsening economy is moving well beyond the housing and financial sectors. Ruffling everybody's feathers were the comments of AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who said that slower growth has led to "softness" in the home phone and Internet businesses. Specifically, he said AT&T is disconnecting more home-phone and high-speed Internet customers for failing to pay their bills (AT&T took a big hit today). The economy doesn't seem to be hurting the mobile-phone and corporate sales side.