Lightning from the skies
Posted by Charles II on March 16, 2008
This is a week for economic lightning to fall from the skies:
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JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy Bear Stearns Cos. for about $2 a share…The central bank will fund as much as $30 billion of Bear Stearns’s “less-liquid assets”…. [it closed on Friday at $30/share]
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The Federal Reserve reduced the rate on direct loans to commercial banks by a quarter-point…The central bank, in a statement today in Washington, also extended the maximum term of discount-window loans to 90 days from 30 days…. Investors expect the Fed to lower its benchmark rate by as much as a full percentage point, to 2 percent
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Euro/dollar at 1.575, yen at 97.9
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Australia and Japan open down
Stormcrow said
PW?
I recall your mention of the fact that FDR’s election in 1932 was the only thing that kept the heads of the ruling elites from being displayed on stakes a few years later.
That’s just become a possibility once again.
I really have no idea what the elastic limit of American public patience is. The only thing I am sure of is that it has one. Just like absolutely every other tool and artifact that humans create and use.
When you ignore the very existence of system limits and keep pushing and pushing and pushing, the consequent failure is often both utterly surprising and utterly catastrophic. This is exactly what’s been happening the last 25 or 30 years.
Ever have a tool suddenly break in your hands? You can get injured when that happens.