Not a good sign – from the AP:
European bank stocks tanked Thursday as fears mounted about their exposure to the region’s debt crisis and weakening economy.
The stock prices of Britain’s Barclays and France’s Societe Generale led the way down, falling 11.5 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Germany’s Commerzbank fell 10 percent.
Analysts said the plunge was partly a reaction to evidence that European banks are being forced to pay more for the short-term loans they need to finance day-to-day operations…
That means that credit is freezing up – no one wants to loan money because no one knows what comes next and better hold on to what you’ve got. But, meanwhile, without easy access to short term loans, the financial system goes in to acute crisis. And this financial crisis is starting to spread to US banks. As Mish puts it:
The global financial system is bankrupt. There is no way loans that have been made can be paid back. That statement applies to the Eurozone, the US, the UK, China, Australia, Canada, and for that matter nearly everywhere one looks.
Perhaps something will be done to loosen things up – some more money printing by the European Central Bank, or the Federal Reserve, or maybe China will dip in to its foreign reserves and bail out the European banks. But even if they nip it here, it just delays the inevitable. Mish is right – the global financial system is bankrupt. Fundamentally, a crash is the only way out – it will kill of that which must economically die and let us know which banks, if any, are solvent. Once that is done, we can start to rebuild knowing where we stand.
Blogs For Victory 
Boy, you right winger sure like to kill things. If it’s not war “over there so it’s not over here,” it’s banks and grandmas.
Of course this is all poor people’s fault for taking out all those bad home loans, right?
OK. Let the banks die. But just remember all those billions and billions of dollars banksters paid out as bonuses for doing a really swell job running those banks. They get to keep it all. DO NOT raise their taxes, whatever you do. It could be bad for the economy.
Bozo,
Even if you taxed away every cent they’ve got, it wouldn’t go even 20% towards solving our overall fiscal crisis, which is not a lack of revenues but an excess of spending. Given that taking all their money won’t help, the only reason you can advance for doing it is revenge…but Christians are forbidden from doing such. Let them keep their money – people who are dumb enough to be rich are best left to wallow in their own folly.
Our problem, right now, isn’t how to roast banksters over a slow fire, but how to deal with the impending crash…and that ain’t looking too good because we’ve got a President who doesn’t know and a central banker who thinks he does…
Do the bankster bonuses come from tax dollars? Isn’t every company allowed to make its own decisions about how to spend its own money? They get to keep it all? They don’t pay taxes on those bonuses?
Are those poor people also stupid people? Too stupid to do the math? Too stupid to wonder how if they have never been able to make house payments before they will somehow be able to make them now? Too stupid to realize they are going to be expected to come up with more money than they make? Thank you for explaining that poor is just another word for dumb. Always nice to see what the left really thinks of people.
Are you just not paying attention? Billions in bonuses would not have been paid without taxpayer dollars.. Does TARP mean anything to you?
TARP was paid back. So bonuses had to come from some other source at some time.
HOW was it supposed to go…when the US Treasury guaranteed loans to private banks…at under 1-2% interest…so that the same banks could loan the same money to US Taxpayers…for mortgages and credit cards…and charge 6-14%…exactly how was it supposed to force the economy to improve…(think hard idiot…for the first time in your life)
tell us exactly where the US Constitution gives congress the right to use our tax dollars that way…authorizing them to print up hundreds of billion…even trillions…of dollars….and to devaluate our currency for private bankers to make more money with….WHERES THE BEEF….
its down to the brass wire eh…congress has created the FEDERAL RESERVE…a private banking institution…to do what congress is supposed to do…to start with…
you can delegage authority…but you cant delegate responsibility…and if our elected representatives chose to shirk thier duty because they want election money so they dont lose thier jobs…then they dont deserve to be elected to start with
the donk party = scams, ponzi schemes, fraud, all for votes power and keeping the drones on the reservation.
It isn’t just Europe that’s in trouble.
You wingnuts are making me sick again. Share the wealth!! Pay your fair share!!! You’ve made enough money already!! Tax me!!! Squezee me until my gold fillings pop out!!!
I would say more but its time to go the grocery store and spend my foodstamps and unemployment bennies to improve the economy.