OmegaMom

When people are mentioning the Great Depression in mainstream articles about financial news, one tends to get a wee tad nervous.  When articles say the Fed made a move on Friday that hasn’t been since since the 1930s to bail out Bear Stearns, one tends to get a wee tad nervous.  (Interestingly, they say that, but then don’t explain exactly what the move is, how it differs from other moves the Fed has made recently, and they don’t offer the example back in the ’30s to compare to.)

Then again, I’m the one who read up on Y2K disaster scenarios and made sure OmegaDad and I had two cords of wood on hand for 1/1/00, plus a small supply of drinking water and canned food.  So I’m a Nervous Nellie in general, prone to being swept up on the tides of professional doomsagers across the internet.  That means, if I’m nervous about something, you can probably bet against it.

On the other hand, the doomsagers have been waving their hands at the housing bubble for three years now, prophesying major financial disaster once the house of cards based on outrageous mortgages and real estate prices started tumbling down.

What can one say when the Treasury of the Secretary, in one interview, says both "The financial system is more fragile than we would like right now" and "our financial institutions, our banks and investments banks are very strong".  So which is it?  Is it "strong" or is it "fragile"?  After all, on Monday, the CEO of Bear Stearns came out in an interview and said that BS was in great shape and not facing any problems.  Four days later, Bear Stearns is on the verge of bankruptcy and being bailed out by JP Morgan Stanley and the Feds.

Wasn’t Standard and Poors saying just last week that the worst of the mortgage write-downs are behind us??

Anyway, on my financial blogs, people are nervous about Monday’s market.  They are saying that a deal must be made to settle the Bear Stearns problem before the U.S. markets open.  But things have been so volatile lately, goodness only knows what will happen.

(Ahah!  Deal made, for less than half of Friday’s value of BS stocks!  Later note: Not "less than half"–$2 per share…BS stocks were at $61.85 at Wednesday’s close, $30 at Friday’s close.  Holy cow.  Talk about a fire sale…)

(Note:  I’m still thinking about the Dutch documentary on Chinese adoption.  I haven’t been able to find a transcript anywhere, or any real discussion of the actual details, and am hesitant to make any commentary unless I have real facts to base the commentary on…)