How The World Almost Came To An End At 2PM On September 18

Re:How The World Almost Came To An End At 2PM On September 18 by pbrown on Tuesday February 10, 2009 @04:25PM (#475990)

IMHO, the best thing they could do was keep this thing secret while they figured out a way to solve the problem. Not that I think the whole problem was fixed, but this specific problem was fixed. Had the general public been aware, the problem would have been much worse, and John Q. Public would start pulling money out, and shoving it in his mattress, because he didn't understand what was happening. That's why it's called a Panic.

Also IMHO, a lot of the current economic problems have to do with turning on the news every night and seeing "how bad" the economy is and "it's getting worse." Seems like a self-reinforcing problem to me. That's what happens when you make the public aware of the "problem," when they don't understand all the gory details.

As far as the Bush-bashing, and the information not being able to inform current decision making, that's crap. The people that need to know, do know.

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Re:How The World Almost Came To An End At 2PM On September 18 by Daniel_Newby on Tuesday February 10, 2009 @06:48PM (#476199)

Unfortunately, the panic was in large part caused by secrecy, as people realized that many "money good" assets had actually been losing value for over a year, and that the government had been colluding to try to keep anyone from ever finding out.

Look up "level 3 assets".

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