This is what is referred to as 'whistling past the graveyard'. What people need to understand is that there are two component pieces to what is happening in the market: nominal & real events.
The nominal event is the short-term liquidity crisis, which, as you suggest, will begin to free up once the CDOs start to unwind and Treas begins making its asset purchases.
However, the much bigger concern is the "real" economy. While this has been fueled for 20+ years primarily by credit expansion, the party is now coming to an end. The only thing that will get it going is true growth, in the form of some new good/service that will stimulate demand. This is what the markets understand: it will take at least 3-5 years for whatever new gizmo is out there to drive the economy.
There is where McC, for all his supposed lack of economic knowledge, has perhaps inadvertently stumbled upon a solution with his promotion of nuclear energy. Not only would the short-term construction activity help, but more importantly, we would have new, extremely important sources of electrical power that would in itself stimulate all sorts of demand for electrical goods (like cars).
Anyway, the point is that throughout US history, sustainable growth came about due to technical revolution. With gov't out of the way, the pursuit of wealth stirred our best & brightest to come up with a better mousetrap.
The good 'ole days of having a house suddenly become worth 3-5x what one paid for it and acting like an ATM to fuel consumer spending is over. Now we need to focus on real productivity improvements.
Yes, the financial sector is forever changed and margins will never, ever come close to what we experienced over the past 5 years.
The housing sector, which is by far the largest sector in dollar terms will change, but we have been there before. It will go back to the seventies and mid eighties as to the way we dole out credit, and the numbers will be half what was achieved recently, but the primary economy of business, will continue unabated, and may even see better access to credit then before as most of the money was plowed into housing and related assets.
The Global trade market will be the replacement for the housing sector and financials as the most invested growing sector, and that is where I am going to put my early money and wait for it to catch up.
In the end, it may be just what the doctor ordered for employment, wages and the economy at large, as housing never did much for that except hold it up. On the other side of the coin, we will be more cyclical, but that is a place we have been as well.
You forgot to factor in a declining energy base....