Tech & Biz

Bush on Markets: "We're All in This Together"

by Jordan Yerman | October 11, 2008 at 07:24 am

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US President Bush told the world something that it already knew: that we're all in this economic crisis together.

``This is a serious global crisis and therefore requires a serious global response,'' Bush said today at the White House after holding talks with finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrial nations.

``We must continue to work collaboratively and ensure that our actions are coordinated,'' Bush said. ``No nation will gain by driving down the fortunes of another. We're in this together. We will come through it together.''

The White House session follows a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers yesterday in Washington, their first gathering since stock indexes this month plunged more than 20 percent from Japan to Europe to North America.

Bush said the U.S. ``has a special role to play in leading the response,'' as financial officials from the world's wealthiest nations stood on the podium behind him. ``Our government will continue using all the tools at our disposal.''

Though Bush blames "uncertainty and fear" for the current quagmire, many others would blame the subprime meltdown: they're not "afraid" that their banks would run out of money... their banks actually ran out of money. Perhaps inadvertently, though, he touched on something that is indeed true: markets are driven by emotion, and the emotion right now is negative.

In a fitting end to the worst week on Wall Street since the Great Depression,the stock market underwent a titanic battle between greed and fear Friday as stock prices rallied from two bone-rattling sell-offs only to fade late in the day.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed lower for the eighth straight session, falling 128 points. But the closing number hardly reflected the day's tortuous twists and turns, as the Dow plunged almost 700 points in the harrowing opening minutes of trading.