It's like you're running around on fire, Brady.

People need to calm down, for starters. A Great Depression-type situation probably won't happen; it's very hard to accomplish by this point.

In 1987, the market fell somewhere around 500 points (22%) near our last economic crisis. For us to match that (22%), we'd need to drop somewhere around 2500 points or so. We've seen worse than this, seriously. Is it still bad? Yes, it is, but don't go thinking that this is the first time since 1929 that the economy has shit itself, folks.

Hell, the market in itself is silly. DOW hit 10500 just from Dems and Republicans snipping at eachother earlier.

Adding to things, the Great Depression was ballooned by many reasons. Some of you might remember the stress caused by a little something called the Dust Bowl, alongside some issues (trade and what-not with other countries) following WW1, in addition to issues with the Gold standard.

It isn't an everyday occurrence, but don't think that we'll end up with 25% unemployment or something of the sort. Stock up on guns and cans of beans if you want though~

Well, I certainly agree with you that the conditions are different, Gech. Though I wouldn't count out the gravity of the situation or what could happen if our leaders can't, you know, lead.

Now I'm not an economics expert or anything, but it seems to me that it's the perfect time to buy up all these super-cheap stocks! Upper class, here I come!

That didn't stop some CNN talking heads from saying it is.

I laughed pretty good.

The members of congress are too busy sniping eachother to be of much use right now :V Never had much faith in Washington, meself~

And the DOW goes into another rebound, back to -600. I wanna ride dat rollercoaster

Oh the possibilities.

I've seen DOW hop up and down like a five year old on a sugar high for weeks now :(

OMG IT'S DOWN 500. DOOMED.

OMG IT'S UP 500. FUCK YEAH WE RULE.

OMG IT'S DOWN 500. DOOMED.

Just gotta shrug it off, folks :x Things are going to hiccup quite a lot in the days to come. Let the dust settle, I say.

Now, and call me crazy, I don't think it was the Dow's point level that had people all up in a ruckus.

God dammit

Why didn't we just give them all the free money they wanted

Now we're all gonna be poor

(dissed by canadians ITT)

DOW BACK TO -738

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h3...lercoaster.gif

To the international markets (including Canada, you dissing asses <3):

I am sorry our shitty banks fucked up your banks, guys, really I am.

The markets are now closed. dow closed at -770.59 and nasdaq at -199.

We'll see what happens Wednesday.

Additional Spam:
Fuck you Aardark you were so fucking wrong.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA

Google Finance says DOW closed on lucky sevens -777.68

I already went through the reasons you guys don't want your banks going tits up in this thread but for those for whom two weeks ago is beyond the boundaries of active memory, let's go again.

So the banks won't be getting the bailout they were after. A load of bankers are going to lose their jobs as a result. A significant reduction in the workforce means that fewer people are going to be riding the bus to work, eating lunch, going to the gym, wanting their lawns mowed and so on. As such, the people who work on the buses, in the sandwich shops and gyms and those who mow lawns are all going to lose their jobs. These people are now going to stop buying petrol and computer games and going out to dinner so the people working in petrol stations, computer game shops and restaurants are going to lose their jobs too and so on and so on.

So now you've had a load of job losses, you'd think that'd be the end of the problem right? Nope, because those people are now not paying tax any more. In fact, they're drawing unemployment benefits so they've gone from contributing to the tax purse to being a drain on it. Some lucky ones will have savings to live off, only the banks went bust, so the fed has had to guarantee their savings, that probably won't be cheap. Oh yeah, those banks that went bust, no more tax to pay for them. In the UK, the Bank of Scotland paid £6 Billion in tax last year. Imagine what Lehman's tax bill was, that's now out of the system.

The stock market might not be full on crashing (yet) but the value of a lot of shares has been halved or worse. Any of you got a pension? Not any more you haven't. Pension funds are to a large extent based on share speculation and bank deposits, meaning the value of them has been wiped out. I don't know about the US but over here, companies aren't allowed to have negative equity on their pension schemes so in order to prop them up, they have to save money elsewhere, so say goodbye to a payrise this year. Also, if you don't have a pension scheme, don't be expecting to get one any time soon.

If you work for a Dow listed firm, your job is probably already on the line and the trickle down effect means you'll struggle to find any vacancies elsewhere.

What money the surviving banks do have they're going to hang onto for dear life. So no more lending or selling of debt. This causes stagnation in the economy as no firms can borrow money to invest in research or new premises, especially as nobody has any money to buy anything anyway. Your currency is fucked now so imports are going to cost more which means increased prices on pretty much everything in your shops and more companies going bust as a result.

You could save a fortune by pulling out of Iraq I guess but if you think oil is expensive now, just imagine what it'd cost without the US army stationed round all the drilling platforms.

Essentially, whilst $700 billion sounds like a lot, it's probably not much more than your civic purse is going to lose anyway out of this only without the bail-out it's going to take a shit lot longer for your economy to recover. Sadly, as this thread proves, the American public is for the most part fairly ignorant of the bigger picture and long term ramifications of the recent financial worries and sensationalist headlines about the spending of public money are a powerful thing in an election year. About the only chance your economy really has is if a big Chinese or Arab conglomerate starts buying up your banks. Of course that's never going to happen because, well, Team U.S.A. would rather be dead than red, or in a headscarf right?

You guys are pretty fucked. You're probably going to drag us down with you but our economy is more resiliant than yours, if only because all the big insolvency firms are based in the UK and because we're on better terms with Russia and China than you are.

Wasn't 300 million of that 700 billion going to form a severance package for one of the retiring CEO's?

Isn't that exciting.

Also, does anyone find this whole economy in turmoil! thing a bit convenient for the upcoming presidential election? :/

Fuck the House Republicans, and fuck McCain.

Additional Spam:
Your information is out of date or more likely wrong. You should educate yourself so you stay informed on what the next bill will look like. However, you probably won't follow my advice, so go back to concert hall you mincing faggot.

Where did you read that?

Shin, what did you want us to do? I mean, the alternative was to let the government bail out the banks for their stupid mistakes and let the American people pay for those mistakes?

I'm curious what you think of the alternative, had the bill passed. Not because I want to argue, but because you're more versed in this all than I am.

Both ways you look at it, it's a shit situation. I wish it didn't have to affect the rest of the world.

To all you fucks who think that banks, like all other companies, should be punished for the poor choices they made, there is a really enlightening entry for you to read in Nehmi's journal.

So before you think the rest of us are just big assholes who want to spend your hard-earned taxpayer dollars, remember there is a friend amongst you. Nehmi, a shining becon of truth, an eagle in this den of rats.

I don't remember now, which is why I placed a question mark at the end of that sentence.

I think it may have been a while ago and it was surely off of google news which draws from various sources. I may have also read it wrong it may have been a total severance package for all CEOs or something along those lines.

Go back to Concert Hall, Esch. This bill in particular has been pushed through quite quickly, with intense negotiations on both sides of the aisle. If you think something you dimly half-remember from early last week is still relevant, then you're not ready to read things written by men who are still living.

If it were me and from a purely economic perspective, I would have bailed out the banks. I wouldn't have given the money away and let them get on with it, I would have specified that the money was strictly to be used to improve liquidity. Get money flowing around the system again, allow lending but jog on all the ridiculous financial instruments people have been coming up with to shuffle debts around.

The economy needs banks with money, firstly to stop the unemployment ripple and secondly to allow other companies to borrow the money they need to expand or in some cases, just stay afloat. Share prices are fucked but that in itself is not a problem, until you cash your shares in. With money available to invest, some bright sparks are going to be able to take advantage of the situation and buy up a bunch of stock, consolidating companies and in the long run, create new companies with (Hopefully) greater efficiency and less risk exposure.

Of course, you'd have to make cutbacks elsewhere, the obvious choice being military expenditure. The less popular choice would be to stop over-subsidising your farmers and open up your borders a bit. Increased imports are bad for GDP and don't help growth in the short term but you'd benefit from better relations with trading partner countries and exports would rise as a result, especially with your currency being so cheap at the moment. Capitalise on this and you'll end up with a stronger currency and a positve net import/export ratio in the long run, strengthening your economy.

The problem is, there are no short-term fixes and people want short-term fixes. What needs to be done is some proper long-term (Read ten years) planning but with two changes of president in that period, you're just not going to get that. The World Bank is never going to let the USA completely collapse so you can actually borrow on your GDP to your heart's content so the $700billion really isn't that much money in the grand scheme of things.

The bill that just got voted down would've also paid out the 700 billion in installments, with 250 up front and a ton of oversight. Which is as opposed to the original Paulson plan which promised 700 billion with zero oversight.