djia crash

To put this in perspective:
history of crashes

It is the largest one day drop, in raw numbers (777 is still a lot). In terms of percentages, both '29 and '87 are much, much worse. But this has been a sustained issue over the past few weeks, much as those were. So at least a recession is likely. (Wall St either was blinded to this for a while or in denial).

I'm only pleased they didn't pass that weirdo bill. Capitalism doesn't work very well if the losses are public instead of private. Let them suffer and if the government uses its unlimited money power to buy out some things, then they should get the profits of whatever is in there.

As to the mortgage associated problem here, it's been a long, long time coming. Very smart economic minds have been avoiding a fair number of banks or trading firms because of the amount of leverage and wacky loaning going on. Most of the very smart minds unfortunately were too busy trying to ride the waves instead of getting out of the water. I say to that: too damn bad. A few people may lose their homes because of the issues with multiple owners of the loans. Most people with simple one mortgage loans or at least two with the same company should be fine. It will be easy with banks in desperate straits for capital to come up with arrangements to keep paying them something so they don't have to sit on an unsold (and unmovable) property for months paying taxes et al on it.