Well, so much for my intuition.
The only strange thing about what is happening is situations like IBM's earnings. Some firms seem to be doing fine and yet, the talking heads would have us believe the sky is falling. Is it really falling or are we being setup? If they can scare us sufficiently, the government can increase the cash gifts to the banks so the financial industry can avoid the huge losses from the incredibly bad business decisions they made. The "too big to fail" mantra may be the vasoline and the falling market the hammer to convince us to give even more money to the banks.
Anyway, it just seems to me that things are not nearly as bad as they want us to believe, (except for the stock market), and there is no doubt a reason behind this effort. Knowing what it is before we buy into it would be a very good thing.
Bob