I think it's sheer ignorance to believe that this current economic situation is just going to "blow over" like the last recession we had. We're not just going

I think it's sheer ignorance to believe that this current economic situation is just going to "blow over" like the last recession we had. We're not just going to spend and leverage our way out of this one (as we have with previous recessions) because the trust and confidence in credit is extremely shaky. The last 30 years, since about 1980, have been fueled by a ridiculous amount of credit and the bills are coming due. It's now an issue of people and their confidence. The whole system of credit works because of trust, and with each bank failure and company fallout confidence is going to drop. This isn't just consumer confidence too, but also confidence on the part of foreign countries to believe that we'll make good on our insane level of debt. We haven't had a negative quarter or high unemployment yet because 2008 just marked the significant beginning of this erosion of confidence and the revaluing of the massive bullshitting of on-paper "value" created by abnormal demand (fueled by credit). This "confidence crunch" is far from over.