You Can't Always Get What You Want

And sometimes, you don't even get what you desperately need, eve in if you only need it because you made a big deal of needing it.

By now you know that the sound you hear, as of a great roar in the distance, is the world economy struggling for survival as the US stock market drags it beneath the water like a great crocodile, pinning it's already ailing victim in the bottom's silty mud and letting its last spark of life ebb away. After a record 770 point drop on the DJIA, Japan's Nikkeei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index both took might wallops, losing five percent of their respective values within minutes of the start of trading, though the Hang Seng managed to recover during the day, closing up almost a percentage point. European markets are the latest in line for a pummeling, with (prepare your shocked face) banking sectors most hard hit, with recent Lloyd's of London acquisition HBOS losing 12% of it's value, and the Royal Bank of Scotland ended the day down 6%. Overall, most of the major European exchanges fell slightly overnight.

So now the financial scary go round comes full circle, and it promises to be another harrowing week day for Wall Street investors. With members of the House taking some time off for Rosh Hashanah, it will probably be at least Thursday before any sort of new plan even has a chance. Lawmakers on the hill are scrambling to put together a new package, but it remains to be seen if this one will be any more palatable than the one that is so unpalatable to voters across the board that most members of Congress won't touch it, even while the financial sky is falling. And that's really bad news, considering that whether or not this bill's passage was necessary when it was proposed, it certainly seems to have become so for the sake of the global economy being able to once more think the happy thoughts on which it survives.

A couple closing thoughts -

- Though she's being derided as a naysayer (go figure) by House Republicans for her speech before the vote, Nancy Pelosi didn't say anything that most of her colleagues - especially the House Republicans who voted against the final bill by a 2-1 margin - weren't thinking or saying.

- John McCain's staffers were eager to make sure their guy got his due credit for getting enough votes in line to pass a palatable bill. Now that all eight House Republicans from his home state of Arizona voted no, will he get his share of the blame?