While I have no idea if this thing should have passed or not, I have to wonder what the effect would have been had it passed the first time.
I tend to think the momentum of this collapse might have been broken or at least slowed if the markets saw that the energy was there to take action.
It seems that the bailout NOT passing did nothing good. We all patted each other on the backs for the Republicans standing up to Pelosi...and then the bill passed, after it was loaded up with pork.
I don't think the slowing down is necessarily a bad thing. The market may have WANTED a huge pile of money tossed at it, but even if the bailout passed when originally voted on, would we be right back here in the same spot? Because if it was going to do something by being passed on Monday, well, three quarters of a trillion dollars doesn't just lose its momentum for being passed a few days later. We're not talking the difference between a $700 billion and $70 billion, or something--the bailout was still huge.
But if the whole point of passing it was to be as a psychological jolt, then timing really was everything.
Yes, I believe timing was important, but beyond that, there’s another factor that some folks aren’t going to like. I still think it is a valid factor to mention.
The $700 billion bailout was intended to build confidence. When a significant portion of the public refused to accept the plan, the purpose was defeated long before the bill was passed.
I am very leery of bad-mouthing just about anything that is going to be tried right now. We can’t stop those plans. We’re on the ride. We really do need to quit acting like experts and cheer for any plan that is implemented at this point.
We can’t win the game if we’re going to splinter into three hundred million experts that all know better than our leaders.
We are not going to agree with everything. That’s a given.
Right now, we better hope what they are doing works, even if it is wrong. And we better cheer-lead from the sidelines even so. We must be unified in this.
Personally, I think every single person in the nation should sink their funds in this market today. If we don’t do so soon, there’s not going to be many pieces left to pick up.
Right now this is 99.99% a matter of confidence IMO.