[KSagal]

I agree with the majority of what Civicsman just posted, with the exception that this is something that just happened in just a few weeks...

The government mandate to loan money to people who clearly could not pay it back is something that has been going on for years.

The banks would not do it, except for the fact that government managed companies (Freddy and Fanny) always bought the bad paper.

Everyone was greedy, and taking their slice of this rotten pie. The people responsible to keep the pie from being rotten were the ones forcing the bad fruit into the mix, on the promise that they would keep the house of cards afloat.

Eventually, the bad paper was reshuffled into larger and larger decks of bad investment packages, and every time someone sold one of these rotten pies, (or truckloads of pies) they took their greedy commission... It got to the point that they all knew they were bad paper, but they wanted their commissions, so they kept selling them back and forth...

Then, supposedly all of the sudden, someone noticed that they had sold and resold and taken profit on so much worthless paper, that the house of cards started to collapse. They pumped in $100s of Billions and it still falls.

No, this did not take a few weeks. And several people said this was coming. Some were even working for the government, and were fired because they warned of it.

Now,

There have been reports for weeks how new car sales have been down 30 to 50% over last year. Last year the sales were also down significantly. While most large manufactures have a lag time in the manufacturing process to the sales floor, it is hard for them to scale back fast enough for this unprecedented decline. (The decline in sales is not unprecedented, but the scope of it is)

Since we have been hearing about such poor car sales for weeks now, and also hearing for months how 1/2 million or more people per month are loosing their jobs, what did you expect the picture of that at the ports or parking lots to look like?

When the economy radically slows down, things pile up. That is the way it works...

When the economy radically speeds up, parking lots are empty.

Less than 6 months ago, in New England, the gas prices were much higher, and there was a 6 month wait for a Toyota Prius hybrid. Now, prices for gas are 1/2 what they were, and they are offering rebates on that same Prius... That is what is happening.

There has been government endorsed fundamental greed and avarice built into the banking system for decades. This is not a new problem. The fact that it boiled over may seem new, but this cauldron has been on high boil for a while now...


Edit:

One final thought... If you watched the CEO of GM go to congress in his private jet and say that either you give me $50 Billion or I will fold up my company and put everyone out of work... Then two visits later, they give him 1/2 of that money... So, it seems to me that if you believe this guy, he is either going out of business, or back to the taxpayers, within a short matter of months... Would you buy a car, on a note, from him? I would not.