Capitalism fails to collapse. What’s up with that? (Part II)

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Yes, we had a 777-point drop in the Dow industrials yesterday, but, as our colleague Jyoti Thottam reports, Asian markets trembled but for the most part held up today. She writes:

Japan’s Nikkei Index fell 4.1% on Sept. 30; after declining in early trading, stocks in China and Hong Kong eked out small gains. “The reaction was not as bad as I had feared,” says Dariusz Kowalcyzk, chief investment strategist of CFC Seymour, a boutique investment bank in Hong Kong.

Could all those people who flooded the House with phone calls against the bill be right? Could Armageddon not be around the corner? After all, consumer confidence is actually up, according to the Conference Board survey released today (which ran through Sept. 23). I’m looking at the TV, and the markets are up, too, with a bunch of bank stocks rallying.

I’d encourage a little perspective. First of all, we’re already talking about the many ways Congress can step back in starting on Thursday and revive the bill. Maybe they’ll try for another vote in the House, maybe they’ll go to the Senate first this time. The point is, we still have options.

Second, this was never a stock market issue. Credit is still all locked up. Nothing doing there.

And finally, the stock market has a long reputation for being schizo. Let’s all pull out our Benjamin Graham and remember: “In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.”

Barbara!