Wall Street: Looking for More Money

For more than a year, savvy Wall Street insiders have feared that the back-office paperwork tangle in brokerage houses might lead to a major scandal. Now those fears have been heightened. Several firms have failed, some others are in obvious financial trouble and the top officers of the New York Stock Exchange are desperately asking Washington for emergency help. Nobody expects a repeat of the classic 19th century panics, when brokerage houses went under in domino fashion, trading was suspended on the Exchange and Wall Street was crowded with frantic depositors trying...