• Listen to this segment

US stocks fell even more this morning, consistent with a global market sell-off as investors around the nation and world continue to react to a wide-reaching recession. The past two months have been the worst in recent history for the stock market, with the credit market choking off access to much-needed capital. The $700 billion bailout package voted by Congress has not yet been doled out in its entirety and little in known about who will benefit and why, and if there will be any conditions attached. Meanwhile, Fed chief Ben Bernanke announced that even that will not be enough and an additional package may likely be needed. His predecessor, Alan Greenspan testified to Congress last week and was grilled for keeping interest rates too low, pushing for too much deregulation, and declining to reign in risky lending. While bailouts in this country and others have apparently had a loosening effect on credit, investors are not reassured enough to hold on to their stocks. David Kelly, chief market strategist for JPMorgan Funds made an interesting analogy. He said, “the market is in a manic phase — it’s like a kid throwing a tantrum. At some point you have to let them cry themselves out because there’s no reasoning with them.”

GUEST: Lew Daly, co-author with Gar Alperowitz of Unjust Desserts: How the Rich are Taking Our Common Inheritance and Why we Should Take it Back, senior fellow at Demos