Best Business Commentary
This last quarter was bad, says Tom Petruno in the Los Angeles Times, but many investors are pleasantly surprised “that things weren’t a lot worse.” We’re at the end of “a Tinker Bell financial market,” says Allan Sloan in The Washington Post.
It could have been worse
This last quarter was bad, says Tom Petruno in the Los Angeles Times, but many investors are pleasantly surprised “that things weren’t a lot worse.” Even though U.S. markets had their “heaviest losses in more than five years,” most “key stock indexes” here were down less than 10 percent. There “was plenty to fear,” with the “wrenching credit crunch” and consumer malaise, but the market apparently “isn’t convinced that the economy is headed for even a recession, let alone something worse.” Foreign investors “appear more vexed about the economic outlook,” but if U.S. consumers keep on spending, maybe the economy won’t go “headed off a cliff.”
The Tinker Bell market bust
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
We’re at the end of “a Tinker Bell financial market,” says Allan Sloan in The Washington Post. Highly leveraged money, borrowed in a market that “could exist only as long as everyone agreed to believe in it,” has “vanished like pixie dust.” And giant banks “are, to use the technical term, scared to death”—with good reason. In a normal recession, the economy slumps and the markets follow. But “in this slowdown the markets are dragging down the economy,” and the last time that happened we got the Great Depression. That’s why the Fed is, rightly so, “throwing everything but the kitchen sink at today’s problems.” Its just too bad that taxpayers will pick up the “huge” tab.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
The state of Britain's Armed Forces
The Explainer Geopolitical unrest and the unreliability of the Trump administration have led to a frantic re-evaluation of the UK's military capabilities
By The Week UK
-
Anti-anxiety drug has a not-too-surprising effect on fish
Under the radar The fish act bolder and riskier
By Devika Rao, The Week US
-
Sudoku hard: April 21, 2025
The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff