Thread: next move up? (or gov pulls another joker)

OK, Asian markets opened up a couple % higher in the first few hours. I know they're 10% farther down below the S&P over the last few months (or is it last 5 days?) but is this a sign? Are we due for at least something briefly positive?

Credit market parameters (2 yr swap spread, TED, etc.) have stopped going straight up, but remain very tight, and even if there is short term credit easing - the economy as a whole still is questionable. Alot of that is traceable to the bloated housing prices that are now coming back to some normal, and more affordable level.

The wild card, or joker, as it were - is our own Federal Government, which seems capable of coming up with wild ideas, most of which involve printing and throwing away trillions of dollars like confetti. I keep hearing more such moves on about a 2-day cycle, the latest involving tossing another $300B to directly write down more bad mortgages (don't get me started, I'm already puking at the thought). I'm just wondering when they will quit this crisis management/government intervention thing and let the market figure itself out. These bailouts are bad ideas and terrible policy even if they did work, which they haven't yet, and I doubt they ever will (so what does that make them, really bad ideas?).