Call me crazy, but what's the REAL intent behind all this crisis?

[maryburton]

Unfortunately, this  affects all of us, in one way or another we have to live with it and survive it!

[NoMoneyDown]

My question to this bailout is why $700B (or, with the added pork, $800B)?  Why not $100B or $300B or $521,243,334?

I read an article recently that suggested that $700B is the amount needed to cover the interest on our countries debt for the year?

I agree something needed to be done.  What I question is the amount.

[propertymanager]

Something does need to be done, but borrowing (printing out of thin air) another $700B as a cure for over-borrowing is INSANE!  We need a Depression to wash out all the excess.  We need go get rid of the Federal Reserve (for a third time).  We need to get back on the gold standard.  We need to get rid of government over-regulation of business.  We need to ship all the socialists to socialist countries.  We need to get rid of political correctness.  We need to drill EVERYWHERE there is oil.

In my opinion, what we are seeing now is a very calm, very organized sell-off.  We won't see a near term bottom in the stock market until we see some REAL capitulation (with all the markets down limits and stops put in place).  It will be interesting to see if the DOW can close below 10,000, which would normally be a major psychological barrier.  I thought it would at least bounce at 10,000 a little this morning before dropping below 10,000.

Mike

[NoMoneyDown]

That's just it, Mike - the government is doing whatever it can to keep the status quo, instead of doing what is right.  They have a "let's have a little pain now and let us deal with the consequences later" attitude, when it should be "let's fix this now, go through a lot of pain, and come out better in the end" attitude.  I'm just wondering when the next round of "handouts" are going to come (to the banks - not us).

[propertymanager]

I'm just wondering when the next round of "handouts" are going to come (to the banks - not us).

They're on the way!  Bailouts for everyone (yes, including you).  The ironic thing is that the bailouts will only make things worse in the long run - MUCH WORSE!  The cure to being over-extended is NOT to borrow (print) trillions more!!!

Mike

[hassansr]

my take on it is this. The credit market is falling apart because banks don't trust each other and their borrowers due to the fact that they can't verify what their assets are worth.

Because of that banks are becoming more and more unwilling to lend to each other and to their customers, in some cases cutting them off from loans. Most businesses use short term loans to bridge the gap between when they have an expense to cover (like inventory purchases) and when they get cash from sales. When businesses don't have access to these loans they are forced to pay their expenses with cash, which can run out very quickly if not managed correctly.

When businesses run out of cash they are done. If you ran out of credit and were forced to work with cash only, how quickly do you think you would run out of it? Especially when things like replacing or repairing cars and putting your kids through school pop up.

They need to fix this quick