The thing is you can't really know. There were a few up-indicators in the U.S. so everyone was predicting the end of the bear. Enough for me to wonder pretty hard if it could be so. But the bank plan means banks will have to take some pretty hectic writedowns, we still don't know what's up with the car companies, and the housing indicators only showed a brief slowing the pain, like many brief slowings before. If they keep losing 650k jobs per month for the next year, who cares if the rate doesn't change? If people keep losing jobs, that has to affect property, and cars, and consumer goods. And us. The slowdown is fully in effect in the U.S., is getting there in Europe and developing markets and we're just thinking about it affecting us. The US markets have touched multi-decade lows...ours have only touched 2004/3 prices AFAIK.
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