Word: overnights
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...even felt it. Why, you may be asking yourself, does everyone think there's such a big a problem when you're still being offered credit cards in the mail and 0% financing at the car dealership? Maybe you used to bank with Washington Mutual or Wachovia and overnight you've become a Chase or Wells Fargo customer, but if your money's still there, why does the rest matter...
...vital market for foreign-exchange swaps. Credit--the access to cash that keeps the U.S. and other economies oiled--was simply drying up. Banks stopped lending to other banks, out of fear they would not get the money back. Big companies were having trouble raising cash on the overnight commercial-paper markets. If left unchecked, it would be only a matter of days, maybe less, before businesses would be unable to get the cash they needed to make purchases and meet payrolls...
...asking Congress for $700 billion overnight when lawmakers have been unable for years to find funds for all sorts of other national priorities provoked a bitter and bipartisan backlash. "Paulson confused venture-capital behavior with leading a free society," says former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "I don't know why Bernanke thinks a problem largely created by the Fed and the Treasury is something that only the Fed and the Treasury are smart enough to fix." Others went further: "It's financial socialism," Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky told Paulson and Bernanke at a stormy Senate Banking Committee hearing...
...Obama and McCain have been cautious in adapting their messages to the new reality because no one is sure what the new reality actually means. But they may be reluctant to show their hands in an economy that can turn from forgiving to punishing overnight. On balance, McCain would be a lower-tax, lower-spending President who would agree to stiff regulation when necessary. Obama would be quicker to spend, quicker to regulate but also probably faster to react to economic weakness at home. The choice might be as much about reflexes as about ideology...
...would have to be sold brilliantly. But we have seen our system of high finance transformed overnight. It may be time for a dramatic Information Age renovation of government as well. (To see how TIME has covered Wall Street over the years, click here...