While the government initiatives agreed to over the weekend are aimed at reassuring the financial markets, some economists fear that the patchwork nature of some of the measures could fuel further instability by tempting investors to move capital around to take advantage of those countries perceived as the safest havens.
“If you build a nice, comfortable ark for the banks, the question is, ‘Who doesn’t get a seat?’ ” said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. “The answer is the emerging markets.”
Newspapers deal with more trouble. Online ad sales "have slowed to a crawl."
TIME
My impulse buy at the supermarket last week was not the traditional candy or gum, but instead a copy of TIME magazine. Largely I bought the magazine for the picture on the front.
It features a black and white photo from the 1930's with people in trench coats and newsie hats lined up at a soup kitchen. The headline reads: "The New Hard Times." However, the best photos can be found in the inside on page 37 (if you have a copy). On the top part of the page is a black and white photo from October 24, 1929 featuring "panicked investors outside the New York Stock Exchange as share prices plunge." The color photo on the bottom of the page was taken on September 30 of this year showing "reporters and others outside the exchange a day after the Dow fell a record of 778 points." The pictures look remarkably similar. The article, "The End of Prosperity?", actually does a good job of outlining the current crisis and comparing it to the crisis of the 1930's. Niall Ferguson, who wrote the article, writes how we can use, and have used, the 1930's as a lesson and how history doesn't have to repeat itself.
Read the article HERE, and see the 10 step process of how we got here.
*Soup Kitchen picture: Chicago, 1931, Corbis photo pulled from Time.com
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