Get your hands off'n that wheelbarrow

A Black Wednesday on Credit Markets; 'Heaven Help Us All'

How close were we to going nuclear?  Here's the lead paragraphs of WSJ's chilling account “ When government officials surveyed the flailing American financial system this week, they didn't see only a collapsed investment bank or the surrender of a giant insurance firm. They saw the circulatory system of the U.S. economy -- credit markets -- starting to fail. Huddled in his office Wednesday with top advisers, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson watched his financial-data terminal with alarm as one market after another began go haywire. Investors were fleeing money-market mutual funds, long considered ultra-safe. The market froze for the short-term loans that banks rely on to fund their day-to-day business. Without such mechanisms, the economy would grind to a halt. Companies would be unable to fund their daily operations. Soon, consumers would panic. ” How Did Our Leaders Respond to This Very Real Crisis? “No one knows what to do,” Reid said. “We are in new territory. This is a different game. When asked whether the Democrats “deserve some responsibility” regarding the economic crisis, Pelosi responded: “No.” (NO?) Pass it, and pass it now. This a monster bill that actually creates a gummint inside the gummint.  A gummint not subject to review.  I think OldSpook sums it up nicely, however. “ I don't like the government bailout, but the consequences of fed inaction were far, far worse now that the better info is out. Its the difference between getting shot by a single high powered rifle bullet and being peppered at long range repeatedly by a shotgun. The total kinetic energy is the same, and the latter hurts and its certainly no fun, but the former will kill you. ” Finally, this admonition I once heard certainly applies to future democrats fixing to tinker with our economy  "Jame Lewis!  Get your hands off'n that wheelbarrow.  You know you don't know nothing about machinery!"