Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think many people here actually want “financial armageddon.” Speaking for myself, I’d just like to see a recession, a cleansing of the system, so to speak. There have been some bad financial actors – Countrywide, WaMu, and lots of hedge funds – that NEED – I repeat NEED – to go out of business in order for our economy to function better in the future. This would lead to some financial pain and a recession, to be sure. But I don’t think anyone here – “think” being the operative word – is hoping for a depression. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think your assumption that people here want the world’s financial structures to collapse is incorrect. But, please, anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
A friend called me a couple of hours ago and told me what happened last night. Countrywide’s Mozilo, Sambol (President) and Sieracki (CFO) had a conference call last night with all eleven of their lenders and Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Fed. The asian markets were going apeshit and it looked like today was going to be a bloodbath. Yellen asked, “How can we help, outside of a Fed Funds rate cut?” The response was “lower the discount rate.” And so it was done. And here we are. I, along with many others, thought that maybe this Fed would be different, but clearly the Fed is still in the bailout business, plain and simple. Get used to it.
