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i can't help but feeling like this "bailout", or whatever you want to call it, is already happening whether we like it or not. the fed, along with seemingly every cental bank in the world, has been pumping billions into the financial markets for the past months -proping up money-market funds, trying to keep the credit markets liquid/fighting the busting of the buck. so it is being done -and there's little that can be done to stop it. i am more than a little curious why bush and the fed felt the need to ask for the money at all in the first place. usually, they'd just take it, or give it, depending on your perspective - under the radar. what's $50 billion a month between friends? (my guess is they requested the $700 billion because what they really need is a couple trillion.) yes, it's frustrating to see how this mess is framed in stock market terms: arrows are easy to read. winners vs. losers. everybody gets that. but, as has been stated by many here, this is fundamentally a credit/commercial paper issue. there just isn't enough capital to go around. because it's a sad reality to modern life: most so-called "healthy" companies, even those with a great bottom-line, need credit and short-term debt to survive day-to-day. take that away, and you've got an economy with a dead circulatory system. rigor mortis sets in, and then what?? do we toss the game board over and let the pieces fall everywhere and start over from scratch? or do we figure out some new moves-and keep playing? part of me hopes this mess gets strung out until next january in some fashiion-when we can get some better minds working on a solution (read: not phil gramm) until then, diversify: -put some of your money in your mattress and some in the sofa.
