The "Mother" of all economies around the world is getting flushed. Think of it as a necessary, yet painful, flushing of the bowels of financial iniquity into the abyss of uncertainty. All the whilst our humble blithering politicians sit around in their easy chairs pointing the finger of blame, careful not to point the finger at a past political fundraiser or attaboy. In this crazy and indeterminate world, we have the Democratic party supporting George W. Bush in his efforts to bailout the banks without account, and the Republican party of George W. Bush thwarting such efforts with a desire for oversight and accountability.
Banks will fail, the government will lose confidence, yet the institutional lending facilities based in Wall St. will survive with the newly socialistic government takeovers that worked oh so well in la belle France in the 1980's when Banque de France tookover many institutions in that country only to burden the French taxpayers with the resultant enormous losses. Credit will tighten for business and personal loans, which whilst painful, must happen. Credit was given out like play money to institutions and individuals that had not a prayer of fulfilling the obligation to return the investment. It was all a gamble, and the house of cards now crumbles into an oblivion once again. All the while Wall Street institutional lending facilities survive under the protection of the governments umbrella, individuals will continue to have homes foreclosed upon. Perhaps these individuals will exercise more caution in the future, but more likely they will not.
Whilst I believe what is transpiring is a bad thing, I believe it a necessary and uncomfortable correction of the sins of the past and recent from greedy financial institutions and even individuals. A lot of belief that what goes up will just continue going up is found to be wrong, yet again. Remember what goes up always comes down, always. Like MK Gandhi said, "Good always wins out in the end, always", so it is with finance.