The week in turmoil

This past week ill be remembered as one of the most dramatic weeks in financial history because of the unprecendented intervention by the U.S. Government and central banks from around the world. The events are likely too many to list, but you can check out a summary of the week's events at the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/wall-street-in-crisis.html

In a nutshell, the Federal government, along with the Fed, has provided stop-gap measures to help stem the bleeding on Wall Street and to prevent further damage to the economy. There are many "bad players" in this mess and it is not clear how many will bear full or partial cost of their bad decisions. In a free market, these bad players would bear the full cost, but politics and the fear of trickle-down damage to the economy has prevented a free-market solution to the problems.