Well, what do you know. Despite the depressing activity over on Wall Street yesterday, the sun came up this morning after all.And here's today's Wall Street Journal editorial, the page of this venerable newspaper most deserving of one's trust, with some helpful commentary on what happened, why and where we go from here.
Please keep in mind, however, that the solons of the WSJ refer only to the financial affairs of this temporary realm. Their remarks are certainly of value but hardly comparable to the more profound, more comprehensive perspective of...say, Jesus."But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal." (Matthew 6:20. NASB)
Anyhow, here's the opening of the editorial...
We're happy to report that the world didn't end yesterday, though sometimes it was hard to tell. A major Wall Street banking house filed for bankruptcy, the taxpayers didn't come to the rescue, and financial markets lurched but didn't crash. Amid the current panic, this is a salutary lesson that our fate is in our own hands and that a deeper downturn is far from inevitable.
The immediate priority is to calm markets and prevent a crash, and to do so it helps to recall how we got here. We are not living through some "crisis of capitalism," unless policy blunders make it so. Nor is this largely the fault of the Bush Administration, as Barack Obama claims, or of some lack of regulation, as John McCain asserts. These politically convenient riffs do nothing to reassure the public.
The current panic is the ugly aftermath of the credit mania that took flight in the middle years of this decade. As students of economic historian Charles Kindleberger know ("Panics, Manias, and Crashes"), financial manias throughout history have shared one trait: the excessive expansion of credit. This bubble was no different...
