Sex & Politics

Well what a week it was. Things got so bad this week that the MSM used the dreaded word “Crash” and President Bush held another unscheduled speech to the American populace to calm jittery nerves. We also learned that the Fed may start lending directly to corporations:

The Federal Reserve said it will bypass ailing banks and lend directly to American corporations for the first time since the Great Depression, and it hinted strongly at further interest-rate cuts — a cocktail of unconventional and conventional remedies for an economy whose prognosis is deteriorating rapidly.

And that the Treasury is considering taking ownership stake in banks or a fancy way of saying they’ll be nationalizing them:

Mr. Paulson is “actively considering” making capital injections in banks, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Thursday.

Treasury is figuring out how to structure such infusions so that banks can recapitalize and begin lending. No such moves are imminent, but the fact that the department is engaging in such discussions is an indication of how the crisis is constantly morphing. Such a move was not under consideration just a few days ago but has become more of a possibility in recent days as the stock market has plunged and the credit crunch shows no signs of easing.

Treasury wants to design something voluntary that encourages healthy institutions to participate. Treasury is discussing whether to buy preferred stock or find some other way to inject capital into the firms.

And you could almost see folk doing a happy dance when the market was only down 128 points today:

After trading in a 1,000-point range for the first time ever, stocks ended Friday with a whimper, closing slightly lower amid hopes that the holiday weekend could bring good news.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 both finished the day about 1 percent lower, while the tech gauge Nasdaq ended slightly positive. The Dow and the S&P closed the week off 18 percent, while the Nasdaq dropped about 13 percent.

“An incredible day, but I wasn’t worried,” John Lynch, of Evergreen Investments, said on CNBC. “We were clearly in a scary environment there for a while.”

But surprisingly strong bank stocks held forth and barred the door from further losses. Optimism also surrounded the meeting of the Group of Seven, or G7, as finance leaders from the world’s rich nations pledged a coordinated response to the credit crisis.

Anyone notice how every time folk are “hopeful” the market may go up one day and then crashes miserably the next? I’d say this wild ride is far from over…and this is just the beginning of the pain. The one silver lining? Oil is down and gas may fall below $3.00 a gallon:

The stunning collapse in oil markets accelerated Friday, sending a barrel of crude plunging below $78 as investors grow more pessimistic about resolving a mushrooming global economic crisis.

Oil hasn’t been this cheap in 13 months — a rare silver lining for consumers amid a rapidly imploding financial landscape.

Well, here’s to being happy about something.