Bad News and Bank Runs

[Crewleader]

A Shock to the Collective Psyche

By MIKE WHITNEY

The Bush administration is going to be mailing out more "stimulus" checks in the very near future. There's just no way around it. The Fed is in a pickle and can't lower interest rates for fear that food and energy prices will shoot into the stratosphere. At the same time, the economy is shrinking faster than anyone thought possible with no sign of a rebound. That leaves stimulus checks as the only way to "prime the pump" and keep consumer spending chugging along. Otherwise business activity will slow to a crawl and the economy will tank. There's no other choice.

The daily barrage of bad news is really starting to get on people's nerves; it's obvious everywhere you look. Most of the TV chatterboxes have already cut-out the cheery stock market predictions and no one is praising the "impressive powers of the free market" any more. They know things are bad, real bad. That's why the business news is no longer presented like a happy-go-lucky Bollywood extravaganza with undulating females and exotic music. Now it’s more like B-grade slasher movie where everyone winds up dead at the end of the show.

A pervasive sense of gloom has crept into the television studios just like it has into the stock exchanges and the luxury penthouses on Manhattan's West End. It's palpable. That same sense of foreboding is creeping like a noxious cloud to every town and city across the country. Everyone is cutting back on non-essentials and trimming the fat from the family budget. The days of extravagant impulse-spending at the mall are over. So are the big ticket purchases and the trips to Europe. Consumer confidence is at historic lows, disposal income is a thing of the past, and credit cards are at their limit.

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07282008.html

[Selatius]

1. Bank runs aren't a hit on the free market system. There is no more freedom there.

A bank run is just the final realization that the worker has been screwed and that he realizes the "free market" is really just a figment of imagination of people who wish for something that never will exist. A free market exists with perfect competition; there is no such thing in reality. There is, however, oligopolistic competition instead. To be more cynical, one could call it cartelism.

[sam sarrha]

2. McCain's son resigned from the bank he worked at in NV. i didnt catch it all, but there was somethin...

about speculating with in a foreign currency that his bank would fail, and he didn't think it was illegal at the time.. i thought that was what they said.. i was in the other room trying to shut someone up so i could hear it.. i am not really sure about that, they could have been talking about someone else, my wife had her mouth open in disbelief.. she looked at me and asked if i heard it.., i said i didn't catch it all , she said she didn't understand it all.. but neither of us were surprised if it were true.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/27/171855/189

[PassingFair]

3. If ONLY I hadn't been such a "negative Nellie". None of this would have come to pass.

At least that's how they feel about my attitude at work.

If I had only remained perky and OPTIMISTIC about the
economy, none of this would have happened.

Sorry people....

[Selatius]

4. You should simply say if they want financial advice, you talk to the realist, not the optimist.

If that doesn't put them in their proper place, then they are probably lost causes anyway.

[sendero]

7. Or as my Cherokee grandmother used to say..

... wish in one hand and poop in the other and see which one fills up first.

These delusional optimists are plenty culpable for this mess "don't worry honey housing prices will always go up, we can refinance!"

Idiots.

[PassingFair]

5. Kick, because this is a quick, understandable synopsis of the "bail-out"

...and we should ALL read it.

[DemReadingDU]

6. The Last Hurrah for the Banking System

The title for the same article, different link
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20373.htm