Need a 'flying' leap of faith

The innocent majority suffers at the hands of a tyrannous, crooked minority.....

This is clearly evident in the vast swaths of people affected by the decisions of the crooked managers and shareholders of the financial firms. The latter exploited everyone from students to seniors, and the majority pays the price.
Same idea- different event- According to BBC, Nine Muslims were ordered off a US domestic flight after passengers heard one of them make what they thought were suspicious remarks....Mr Irfan said when he boarded Thursday's flight, he mentioned something to his wife and sister-in-law about having to sit in the back. "My wife and I are generally very careful about what we say when we step on the plane," he said, adding that they have received suspicious looks in the past. "We're used to this sort of thing - but obviously not to this extent...

In an article titled "Credit Card Companies Take What They Can Get" NYT reports that
"Hard times are usually good times for debt collectors, who make their money morning and night with the incessant ring of a phone. But in this recession, perhaps the deepest in decades, the unthinkable is happening: collectors, who usually do the squeezing, are getting squeezed a bit themselves.After helping to foster the explosive growth of consumer debt in recent years, credit card companies are realizing that some hard-pressed Americans will not be able to pay their bills as the economy deteriorates. So lenders and their collectors are rushing to round up what money they can before things get worse, even if that means forgiving part of some borrowers’ debts. Increasingly, they are stretching out payments and accepting dimes, if not pennies, on the dollar as payment in full. “You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip,” said Don Siler, the chief marketing officer at MRS Associates, a large collection company that works with seven of the 10 largest credit card companies. “The big settlements just aren’t there anymore.” Lenders are not being charitable. They are simply trying to protect themselves. Banks and card companies are bracing for a wave of defaults on credit card debt in early 2009, and they are vying with each other to get paid first. Besides, the sooner people get their financial houses in order, the sooner they can start borrowing again."

Today's 'real' business news was downright dismal. According to NYT article Manufacturing Reports Show Depth of Global Downturn by Bettina Wassener, "From Australia to Asia and Europe to the United States, the message on Wednesday in the latest economic reports was clear: manufacturing continued to slump amid the worst slowdown since the Great Depression. In the United States on Friday, a crucial measure of manufacturing activity fell to the lowest level in 28 years in December. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing executives, said its manufacturing index was 32.4 in December, down from 36.2 in November. “Manufacturing activity continued to decline at a rapid rate during the month of December,” said Norbert J. Ore, chairman of the Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. This index was at the lowest reading since June 1980, when it was 30.3 percent. “This report indicates that the U.S. economy was on even weaker footing than commonly believed as 2008 came to a close,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist at MFR. “Moreover, the signal from the export orders index is that the rest of the world is right there with us. Hardly a signal for economic recovery anytime soon.” In addition, Mr. Ore said, “new orders have contracted for 13 consecutive months, and are at the lowest level on record going back to January 1948.” The new orders index was 22.7 percent in December, 5.2 percentage points lower than the 27.9 percent registered in November. No industry sector surveyed reported growth in December; the jobs sector was particularly grim. The employment index was 29.9 percent in December, a decrease of 4.3 percentage points from November. That was the lowest reading since November 1982. In Europe, a closely watched index of purchasing managers showed manufacturing hit a low in December, falling to 33.9 from 35.6. Any reading above 50 signals growth, while a reading below 50 indicates contraction in manufacturing. Similarly grim readings in Australia, China and India highlighted how the Asia-Pacific region has become caught up in the global turmoil. In China, the purchasing managers’ index by the brokerage firm CLSA showed the manufacturing sector had contracted for a fifth consecutive month. The survey showed the steepest decline in its history. With five back-to-back purchasing index readings signaling contraction, “the manufacturing sector, which accounts for 43 percent of the Chinese economy, is close to technical recession,” said Eric Fishwick, head of economic research at CLSA in Hong Kong, in a note with the release. The data added to the flood of statistical evidence from across the Asia-Pacific region showing that activity was slowing faster than previously thought as demand withers in the United States and Europe. Australia’s manufacturing index showed a seventh month of contraction, and a similar survey in India showed activity down for a second month in December. In South Korea, December data showed exports plummeted 17.4 percent from a year ago. President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea pledged on Friday that the government would go into emergency mode to pull the country out of its economic crisis. And in Singapore, the economy shrank 12.5 percent in the last quarter of 2008 from the previous period, causing the trade and industry ministry to lower its growth forecast for 2009. The ministry now expects Singapore’s economy to shrink up to 2 percent, with only 1 percent growth at best. Previously, it had expected up to 2 percent growth. The worsening data, combined with a stream of company profit warnings, production cuts and layoffs, raises the pressure on policy makers to step up their efforts to bolster their economies. India on Friday cut its main interest rate by a full percentage point, to 5.5 percent, and took a series of steps to bring more money into the country. It also raised the limit on overseas investments in corporate bonds to $15 billion, from $6 billion, and will contribute 200 billion rupees ($4 billion), to increase the capital of state-run banks."

Wall Street's reaction - the S&P 500 was up 3.16% today. The same managers who lost a lot of other people's money in 2008 are flying again...