WAR ~ Slippin' Into Darkness
The damage to the economy from the out of control lending practices plus the headless morons in Congress endlessly dithering resulted in a genuine market melt down today.Stocks fall sharply as global crisis persists
"NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 800 points to trade below the 10,000 mark Monday as nervousness over the credit crisis spread after the U.S. government's $700 billion bailout and interventions in Europe only seemed to add to investor anxiety.
But hopes of a coordinated intervention to stop the bleeding in global markets helped the Dowrecoup half of its losses, to close down 369 points, or 3.6%, to 9,955."
The problem we have is that the financial markets suffered early for the 10 days or so before Congress finally got around to taking action late last week. Every day of their dithering cost hundreds of billions in lost capital in the global market. The results of that were seen today. Only the vague hope of some intervention overseas kept the day from being a total bloodbath.However, I think the respite is only temporary. I predict that you will see several more 500 to 600 point sell offs before the market bottoms out. We lost 10 years of market growth in the last few weeks and stand to lose more before this is over. If the bail out had not happened, I am convinced the damage would have been much more severe. As it is, I expect several hundred banks to close. Without the bailout it would have been thousands.
Look for significant lay offs and a strong recession for the next year, maybe longer. I expect to see unemployment of around 10% (we are at 6.1% now). Do not take on any debt if you can avoid it, try to keep your income level up, and look to cut household expenses.We are in the soup now folks. This is the real deal.
~ 3 Wood
Derek & the Dominoes
Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out
