"Still that assumes that all the skeletons still in the closet don't bring down the entire economic system as we know it today.

The worst I have heard from the dozens of people I have listened to in the last three weeks is that what is being done won't work. That is a long way from seeing a "total collapse" which is certainly possible. After all, Roubini and others who forcasted the housing crisis did not see the severity of its impact we are dealing with now, much less what awaits us. Everyone is still talking about a sever recession, lasting 18 to 24 months. When everyone is on one side of the boat I get nervous."

i think we're going to see a much more pro-active fed and treasury.

i have this theory that they were applying their game theory models to lehman thinking the other banks would act together because it was in their own best interest.

the banks of course had their own game theory models : why co-ordinate at our expense when the end game is that the governments will have to nationalize everybody anyway?

in any case, lehman was obviously a mistake as now you've taken a problem that was making news, but was being handled to one in which the president has to get on tv to beg the american people to go along with the plan and congress has hold hearings with everybody in the banking industry.

in short, you've taken a financial calamity and turned it into a crisis of confidence for every middle class family.

in the end, its going to cost a lot more to bail this out, and the longer they take, the more expensive it gets.