Lehmann Brothers got bankrupt!

This trouble has been a long time coming. End of the nineties the stock market was greatly overvalued. A lot of banks were caught by surprise when that suddenly stopped, but hey they still had reserves. Now the bottom fell out of the greatly overvalued real estate market. Again, the banks slept and just kept handing out mortgages to people who had no business getting them in the first place. Greed and incompetence is what led to this. Those institutions quite deserve what happens to them. And yes, there'll be more. There'll be others to buy them, restructure them, or just buy pieces. A process that was long overdue. We are in a recession, but while it is quite an economic crisis, it won't go into a depression, the last of which was less than a century ago. Alan Greenspan's gloom and doom words, lol. Worst economic crisis of the century! Yeah, it's only eight years old and we had been struggling getting into it. And if memory serves me right, he was still in charge at the time, lol. Yes, he is a great economist, great enough to leave before his legacy could be tarnished. He was in charge during our prosperous times, when it turned bad... lets retire! It's not all gloom and doom. We just have to work our way out of it.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of all of this. One advantage that is not going to suffice for long but is an advantage for now nonetheless is that oil prices are still hovering at around $100 dollars a barrel. As long as the gas prices remain at this level or lower then the "average" consumer may not be so inclined to shut-up shop from a spending perspective for now. The Lehmann collapse will have a tremendous effect on the economy in due course but for now the immediate consequences are still indirectly affecting the "mom and Dad" consumers. It is human nature to respond more negatively to direct implications such as rising gas prices and increasing grocery costs etc more than indirect events like the Lehmann collapse. The flow on effect is on its way but for now I think that many people will only THINK of the eventual consequences that may occur but are unlikely to ACT just yet in regards to their personal spending habits. If the flow on effect couples with a reversal of oil per barrel pricing on an upward cycle then it is going to become very, very bad. The sad thing is this WILL happen, we just have to hope that it is later rather than sooner so other preventative measures can maybe be sourced and put into action to slow this trend.