Footnote to the preceding

Updated Well, I suppose we should be extra glad for whatever goodies we managed to get. Because right now, it looks like the bailout may not have done a flipping bit of good. From Agence France Presse (AFP):

Global stock markets reeled Monday, shaken by massive sell-offs by panicked investors who fear a much-vaunted US finance sector bailout will fail to end a crippling credit crisis. "There is all-out panic," said ING senior strategist Adrian van Tiggelen. "Everyone had hoped that after the acceptance of the package in the US and the bailouts in Europe, things would calm down but in effect, there are still strong fears of the domino effect."

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below the key psychological level of 10,000 points for the first time since October 2004. The Dow was down 4.02 percent at 9,910.66 points at mid-day. [It recovered to 9,955.50 by end of day, but still closed below 10,000 for the first time in four years. The average is down 30% from its peak of a year ago. - AP]

The slide in the Dow accelerated huge losses in Europe, with markets in London, Paris and Frankfurt all plunging between 7 and 9 percent. Asian exchanges earlier in the day also closed deeply in negative territory. ...

"Markets are looking ugly around the globe. Investors are voting on the bailout plan with their feet. The crisis is now accelerating," said Barry Ritholtz at Ritholtz Research & Analytics.

There was some indication that the decision by Australia's central bank to cut its interest rate by a full percentage point was helping to stop the bleeding, but "investors remain jittery" and the best face Shrub (Remember him? The guy with the approval rating as low as Nixon's just before he resigned?) can put on things is that "it's going to take awhile."

Is "awhile" a unit of time longer or shorter than that until "Iraqis stand up so we can stand down?"

Updated with an update: That Australian central bank move might - might - have stabilized Asian markets some, but elsewhere it's the continuing saga. The Star (Lebanon) quotes AFP as saying that

[s]tock markets plunged across the Arab world on Tuesday as panic over the global financial crisis gripped investors, wiping billions of dollars off the value of shares. ...

In all, the seven Arab stock markets in the energy-rich Gulf have shed about $150 billion of their capitalization in the past three days alone to around $800 billion.

Saudi economist Abdulwahab Abu-Dahesh called it "a catastrophe." That may be overstating it, but a drop of nearly 16% in three days is still quite serious. As I noted a few days ago, the giant banks and the corporations will be the first to feel the effects, but they won't be the only ones - they're already pushing their losses off onto the rest of us; what would possibly make anyone think they won't do their damnedest to either make us pay the rest of their costs (higher interest rates, more stringent terms) or protect themselves to our detriment (no credit at all)?

Instead of simply blathering on about how important it is to head off a recession or worse, or simply predicting - by some fearfully, by some others almost gleefully - the total meltdown of the world economic system, it's time to start preparing for that "worse."

And if the worst doesn't come? Good. But better to be prepared for a disaster that doesn't come than to be unprepared for one that does.