Current stock market values are built on that. If they can't restore at least the illusion of easy credit, world markets are in for a hard fall.
The US economy has been hijacked to pay for globalization. To do this, the country had to be transformed from a producer nation (using the United Nations ‘sustainable development’ to shut down economic sectors using natural resources) to a debtor nation, using foreign ‘investment’ to prop up the economy (UN human settlements program and ‘sustainable development’ begat the Community Reinvestment Act and the ‘restructuring’ of the housing finance market). The debt was leveraged into the stratosphere, leaving the United States virtually bankrupt, and now the taxpaying citizen is a literal slave to the global economy with the Oct 3 ‘bailout’.
Globalization could not occur without the US taxpayer funding it. The Congress and the President have now ensured that we, and our progeny will pay and pay and pay.
The reason I sold was that I realized the problem was worldwide "deflation" and that the dollar would quickly return to the values it had the day the Euro was issued. At the same time average home prices would probably drop a bit more ~ more toward the price of 5 years ago.
More importantly I realized that hedge fund managers were going to have to buy stocks quickly to cover up any naked short sales (where they turn things around so fast they never bother to acquire the certificates) ~ and they would need certificates, and lo and behold, the ITF I was holding had been hard hit by these guys for the last 3 or 4 years.
The hedge fund guys bought everything they could get giving me a 15% premium over the current market.
Then, having acquired certificates so they wouldn't end up going to prison, they began selling. They continue to sell heavy. In a few weeks they'll be done selling. By then the markets ought to be down by 50% or more. My guess is that if you have any ITFs into the DOW, Russell, S&P or European indices they'll have dropped 75% (ITFs being popular among hedge fund operators since no one at any particular company is watching what happens to ITFs, just the handful ~ relatively speaking ~ holding ITFs).
I am probably going to go right back in and buy up all my shares, but this time expand out into other ITFs to "spread the risk" so to speak. They'll be back to my original sales price before summer.