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Hang Seng's down another 1914 points Graph, and the Nikkei 225 closed down another 5.5%. Aussie market dropped 6.69% which brings the Asian markets down at least 10% in the last two days.

Up next is India's Sensex and then on to Europe. It's like the rising sun is melting away paper profits like so much coastal fog. If the European indexes follow up yesterday's losses with another 5-7% drop, I think the Dow will make up for lost time. Whee!

edit: make that down 2106 points
 
Holy crap!

I feel like we are watching that part of the movie "Deep Impact" where they are working on the asteroid and they need to get back to the ship before the sunrise hits them. Robert Duvall is inside the cockpit, watching with the countdown to sunrise tick down to zero! Once the sun hits all hell breaks loose.

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Random speculation: the rebound in the Dollar vs Yen (+.72 in the last 24 hours) spurred by the BoJ holding interest rates steady is being pumped into the DJIA futures, which has been flopping around like a fish out of water all night.
 
Ya gotta love the MSM. Haven't they been saying every day that even though the US economy may be slowing, it is irrelevant because the global economy and the emerging markets will carry the day?
 
The OCR is trying really hard to capture the blogging audience. Check out the recent Q&A with some of the local economists.

Q. What do you make of today’s rate cut?

Puri. The Federal Reserve Bank has rolled the dice hoping that they can shore up consumer confidence and investor confidence because that seems to be the biggest issue right now as markets are tumbling. Obviously the economy is sliding toward a recession. This news by itself, and the fiscal stimulus that they’re going to put together, how much difference that will make, it’s hard to tell, because these things take time.

Funny, I could have sworn last week, Puri still stood by his avert recession theory.

And, you have to love Thornberg...

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Q. Why did the Fed lower interest rates now?

Thornberg: They were going to do this any way, so they said, “Screw it. Let’s do it now.” You saw desperate panic on Wall Street because some of the markets were falling, particularly in Asia. It was nothing more than a panic.

Q. How will Bernanke’s move affect the economy?

Thornberg. There’s not much he can do about consumer spending, not much he can do about the real estate market. He was handed a nasty deck of cards. But what turns a recession into a depression? A meltdown in financial markets. That’s where Bernanke is working. You have to maintain the ability of the system to keep businesses liquid enough.

Q. What does this mean for the Average Joe?

Thornberg. The good old Average Joe is going to have to curtail his spending. The fact is, we’ve been living in a dream world with housing prices going up 20 percent a year, which is unsustainable. Can Bernanke help the Average Joe? It can stop us going into a depression, which would mean unemployment of 14 percent instead of 7 or 8 percent. It means it won’t turn into something worse.
 
Prime Time: A Resurgence Begins in Mortgage Refinancing

http://finance.yahoo.com/loans/article/104260/Prime-Time-A-Resurgence-Begins-in-Mortgage-Refinancing
 
It strikes me that if the Fed had done nothing and the mkt went down 800-900 points, we might be better off than the death of a thousand cuts where the mkt drops 100-200 a day for weeks.

Maybe a good Panic would be emontionally cleansing.

Thing is, what I am worried about is the collapse of the whole system. I don't see that rate cuts down to zero wil help so much if the system fails because too many big banks are so insolvent that they can't hide it under a veil of decency.
 
US's triple-A credit rating 'under threat'

The US is at risk of losing its top-notch triple-A credit rating within a decade unless it takes radical action to curb soaring healthcare and social security spending, Moody's, the credit rating agency, said yesterday.

Right now, the Awgee on my shoulder is asking something about gold....
 
Oh gosh, it might be like the muni's losing their AAA after the insurers fail! Which means the sky is fall ... hey how come nothin's happening? Those ratings are valid and important, the rating agencies told me so!

Taking the tongue out of my cheek though, obviously the healthcare/social security can't continue. Which just means they'll be cut back severely at the last minute by whichever president can't pass the hot potato to his/her successor... baby boomers that didn't save and lost the value of their homes they were counting on, then having to shoulder the unexpected healthcare/lack of social security burden is not going to be pretty.
 
$29 Billion in unallocated bond funds? From 2006? Doesn't California have a $14 Billion dollar shortfall in it's budget? What monkey is in charge of your finances down there?
 
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