What the Hell Happened to Our Economy? (In Plain English)

[proud2BlibKansan]

Here are the headlines today: Fiscal armageddon. The worst crisis since the Great Depression. Entire economy in danger, Bush warns Americans. $700 billion rescue package in peril.

Over and over, we’re told our financial system is in an unprecedented crisis. But how did we get here all of a sudden? What went wrong? Can’t someone answer these questions in plain English?

I’m not an “expert” or even a financial journalist, but the experts are too busy writing about Sarah Palin, politics and God knows what to answer such a simple question from a rube like me. But I wanted to know. So if no one ever reads this, at least I’ll have some idea how I came to be standing in the bread line.

According to the Treasury Department, the root cause of this mess are “illiquid mortgage assets” that have lost value as the housing market collapsed and are now clogging up the financial markets and stopping the flow of credit.

So what, you might say. Fuck those greedy Wall Street assholes. Let the whole thing crash. Well, hold on, there, Mr. Outrage. Credit is the grease that allows the U.S. economy to run.

more . . . http://sethhettena.com/blog/?p=244

[tama]

1. Creditbubble

The nature of all bubbles is to burst.

[tjwash]

2. LOL at the headlines.

Sounds exactly like the whore newspapers trying to convince Americans we needed to attack Iraq back in 2003. Just replace economy, fiscal, and stock market with Saddam, terra, and weapons of mass destruction.