The Credit/Debt Crisis: A Depression Era Stock Market and America's Financial Failure?
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With the Dow Jones Industrial Average below 9000, we are witnessing an epic battle between the forces of a stock market crash and possible economic deflation, on the one hand, and the might of the Federal Reserve and government, on the other. We face frozen credit markets and a huge debt burden on our citizens and government that has built over decades as both citizens and the federal government have been living beyond their means. The final debt binge led by subprime lending and massive war spending by the government leaves little wiggle room for the consumer and government to bail us out, as happened after the 1987 stock market crash. Deleveraging of the consumer and government debt burden under this scenario may be a painful process.
