Editor’s Note: The Down Jones has now rebounded 500 points, up 100 since this article was posted two hours ago. Remember that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is just one small measure of a vastly complex economy, one that is often determined by psychological factors.
Good morning, cosmic siblings,
With the Moon coming to full phase and Mercury stationing direct this week, world finance leaders acted heroically over the weekend, holding meetings on both sides of the Atlantic. In a major strategy move, the Bush administration changed course. Instead of merely buying worthless assets of banks, it will be infusing cash directly into the system, including into foreign banks. Every single rule of a free market economy is being broken; the world has seen nothing like this since the Soviet Union crumbled.
We are as concerned as you are as the situation unfolds, doing our best to approach it with a sense of adventure. However, with all this action being taken with Mercury retrograde, it is questionable whether it will get any results at all: we need to be prepared for that possibility. Some are saying it’s going to stem the tide but not bring the game back to full speed; the game consumed itself, like holding an edible baseball eating competition at the World Series.
Banking customers in Iceland were the first and hopefully the last to see their country run out of cash, unable to take money out of ATMs anymore. The emphasis of the crisis has shifted to Europe, for the moment, with a bit part of the problem in Iceland, where England had ВЈ840 million in cash from more than 100 UK local authorities was invested. In other words, local towns in England had their money in the bank offshore, in Iceland — and basically lost their money.
It’s not all bad news though; here is what we know from Columbus Day weekend. Stock markets are open today, banks are closed and bond markets are closed. News sources are reporting that the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 400 points Monday “following a series of measures and cash injections by governments and central banks designed to prop up the banking sector and avoid a global meltdown,” according to CNBC.
“G-7 met Friday [the biggest seven industrial countries] and issued a statement of cooperation, committing to use all tools to support systemically important financial institutions and to work together to unfreeze credit markets. Earlier in the week, major central banks cooperated in a coordinated interest rate reduction. The G-20 [G-20 includes the G-7 plus countries like India, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Brazil] met Saturday in Washington and Eurozone leaders met Sunday in Paris.”