As Washington bickers about whether to save Detroit, the WSJ and Clusterstock's Joe Weisenthal astutely observe that it is also planning to drive the car-makers right out of business -- by forcing them to build fuel-efficient cars that no one wants now that gas is back to $1.70 a...

After thirteen months of a historic stock market plunge (yes, the worst since the Great Depression), occasionally interrupted by the usual sucker's rallies (of which last week's move may be the latest or may be the start of a recovery), the stock market is, finally, back to a rough approximation...

The latest government bailout, the $800 billion trash-asset-removal-plan announced yesterday, is actually making a difference, at least so far.

One of the goals of the plan is to reduce mortgage rates through government buying of mortgage-backed securities and Fannie and Freddie debt. And it worked immediately. Yesterday saw the biggest...

General Motors' lobbyists are trying to terrify the nation into keeping the company on life-support with another $25 billion bailout. Judging from the panicked noises emanating from Washington, they are succeeding. So it's time we started talking about the conditions that should be put on this latest handout to a...

It's no secret that hedge fund managers are a super-smart lot. How do we know that? Because they went into the hedge fund business!

After all, what's the worst thing that can happen to a hedge fund manager? He can lose so much of his investors' money that they yell...

If President Elect-Obama were the incoming CEO of a corporation, he would now be preparing for the first act of his tenure: A massive write-off of the mountains of rotted junk buried on the company's balance sheet and an announcement that recovery will take a long, long time.

This flush...

Stocks are already down about 40% from their highs. What will happen if the global economy plunges into a second Great Depression, as some economists suggest it might? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if that happens stocks will probably drop at least another 50%+ from here.

The last recession was mild. The stock market and corporate profits tanked, but consumer spending--long the major engine of our economy--danced merrily on through. In recent decades, it has ever been thus: bearish analysts and strategists have been underestimating the voracious spending habits and resilience of the US consumer for...

No, not really. But now you know the worst-case scenario. And here's the good news: The odds that that will happen are likely similar to the odds that a comet will hit the earth (in which case we'll have other things to worry about).

But what will go to zero?

The government's seizure of stakes in nine banks (with thousands of others to come) was designed to finally return the credit markets to some semblance of normal, so consumers and businesses can get access to money again. Unfortunately, we're still waiting.

Yes, the price of credit default swaps (bankruptcy insurance)...

The crash continues to roll from one market to the next, and huge new bailout talks are underway. We're analyzing this morning's events live at Clusterstock -- please feel free to join us. We'll keep the discussion open until about 11:30 ET. Then we'll post the transcript

Believe it or not, there's an economist out there who saw this whole train-wreck coming: Nouriel Roubini of New York University. He stopped by Yahoo TechTicker this morning to give us his latest thoughts. As usual, he wasn't encouraging:

The coordinated global rate cut was helpful but not enough. The...

On the Today Show Monday morning, Jim Cramer told investors to sell everything and get out of the stock market. A Wall Street friend described this as the market's "Munchian scream moment."

"I thought about this all weekend," Cramer told [the Today Show host]. "I do not want to say...

Now that the government has been terrified into rubber-stamping the Wall Street bailout, what happens now?

I wish the news were better, but in my opinion, here's the most likely scenario:

* Hank Paulson & Co. survey the banking industry and decide who will stay and who will go....

John McCain's odds of winning the presidency have plummeted in the past week. Just this morning, in fact, they hit a new low on Intrade: 36%.

In part, this plunge is of McCain's own making: The hamfisted charge to Washington, flip-flopping on the debate, and Bailout debacle have really...

John McCain roared into Washington yesterday and reportedly broke up an agreement on the bailout deal. In doing so, he went against not only Democrats but the Republican president, the panicked Republican Treasury Secretary and Fed Chairman, and Republican Congressional leaders. Instead, he sided with a small band of outraged...

Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson beat the bushes last night and found some members of a great silent minority to voice support for their bailout plan.

The supporters included Warren Buffett, who said on CNBC this morning that implementing some form of the plan was a necessity (and the expectation...

At today's Wall Street Bailout Hearings, we finally learned what Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke are thinking. Specifically, we learned what prices they plan to pay for the crap assets they're buying (more than they're worth). And we learned why they picked this plan instead of one more like Sweden's...

Hank Paulson's plan will soon be rammed through Congress, likely with strings attached for "homeowners" and executive pay. Too bad, because the plan is flawed and taxpayers are likely to get hosed. Especially too bad because a much simpler plan would save the system without socking it to taxpayers.

The...

After a few weeks of trying to stand tough in the face of demands for a wholesale rescue, Hank Paulson couldn't take it anymore. So now we'll have the biggest bailout in history. And it will only cost $1 trillion!

Not surprisingly, the market's up huge on this news:...