As explained, you’re definitely right. I still have no idea what the hell it is.

But since it’s becoming increasingly clear that they were deliberately obfuscating their in order to keep the markets from going mental and to win political cover to have a nationalization option, I think we’re going to start seeing pretty soon what their plan really was.

BTW, I’m putting down my marker and predicting a market bottom in the next 1-3 weeks.

Once people see nationalization as an eventuality and understand its consequences, the freakout will be massive, and people will shed everything just because they’re freaked. This will be the big move downwards that will mark the bottom. Its exact depth will depend on whether the Obama administration needs the market to not collapse in order to fix the finance sector (the willingness of private capital to jump in and back the feds’ move when they take over zombie banks will probably be the biggest factor here), and on how well they pull it off if they decide to calm the markets.

Spot on.

That said, Timmy’s plan still sucks.

Beg to differ. I think the market dropped because Wall Street realized they weren’t going to get a fresh infusion of billions of taxpayer dollars with no strings attached.

The reason it didn’t drop further was because there wasn’t clarity. Once it becomes clear Obama will nationalize (or take into receivership or whatever word we’re using now) some major banks, expect the market to fall like a stone as a bunch of shareholders panic once they realize they’re going to get liquidated. It’ll come back, of course, as the plan actually works and the banks left standing and the system itself is are stronger.

Hmmmm….it is doomed, but do it anyway?

Ready, fire, aim….?

If you do something that is doomed to fail, won’t the stock market collapse anyway?

Hmmmm…..