Musings

AIG threw itself a $440,000.00 party AFTER the government bailout was signed into law. Has anyone any decency or shame any more?...The Fed cut interest rates by .5% which was initially greeted with great enthusiasm on Wall Street. However, said enthusiasm quickly died off when the Dow Jones opened down another 100+ points...The Nikkei (Japan's stock market) lost 9% of its value today as well...Russia's stock market lost almost 20% of its value yesterday...The global economy is in a serious slow down being led by the US "recession", as the IMF is now calling it. It's no longer a "mental" thing as Phil Gramm called it a few months ago; people are hurting all over with no end in sight. Even Obama and McCain gave very nondescript answers last night during the debate about how severe this downturn is and long it will last. The one and only answer is that nobody really knows. The other thing we know is that raising taxes will only prolong the "downturn". Furthermore, while each candidate tried to tear down the other's policies, neither candidate could tell us how they plan to pay for their programs or reforms.