Monday, October 6, 2008

Financial Terrorists

Stocks dropped all last week while Congress debated passage of the Wall Street bailout... oh, I'm sorry, economic rescue plan.

But now that $700 billion has been cleared for take-off, stocks continue to drop. As of this writing, the Dow was below 10,000 for the first time in four years.

Why?

According to a story this morning from the Associated Press, "The markets have come to the sobering realization that the Bush administration's $700 billion rescue plan won't work quickly to unfreeze the credit markets, and that many banks are still having difficulty gaining access to cash."

In other words, it took only one weekend -- coincidentally the weekend after the "rescue" plan was passed -- for the markets to come to the sobering realization that $700 billion either isn't going to be enough, or that it won't hit their balance books fast enough to avoid the catastrophe they said was imminent if they didn't get $700 billion?

And no one -- NOT ONE SINGLE WALL STREET EXECUTIVE OR GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL? -- had the foresight to see this?

With geniuses like this at the helm, it's no wonder our financial system is in shambles.

You know what? Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and every other financial terrorist on Wall Street had better watch out, because it's looking like circumstances are ripe for a good old-fashioned witch burning.

2 comments:

John Hornor said...

I highly recommend Friday's This American Life, produced right in your neck of the woods. Chi-town.

It's called, "Another Frightening Show About the Economy."

Check it out, here!

I do love Ira Glass.

C. Michael Cook said...

That's a great link, John. Thanks for passing it along. I listened to the story twice, and I still can't say I understand exactly what happened. I don't know if anyone can, and that's a huge part of the problem, I think. What I do know for sure is that a lot of people got rich during the past few years on these things, and my instincts tell me those people are still rich despite everything that's happened. Those are the financial terrorists I'm talking about.