The stock market took a dive today after the House voted down the proposed rescue/bailout plan agreed to by leaders over the weekend. A majority of Republicans and a significant minority of Democrats voted against the plan, motivated largely by a tidal wave of calls from constituents opposing the plan. Speaker Pelosi's pre-vote diatribe and other back-and fourth charges made it a most contentious situation.
So what happens next? Congress will try to come up with a solution that doesn't anger constituents by having them foot the bill for Wall Street excesses and flawed government policies going back over a decade. Finance is not an area I understand very well, though Newt Gingrich and others say there may be a relatively straightforward way of mitigating the situation by suspending an accounting rule called "mark-to-market" that does not require an act of Congress. Probably the best advice for an average citizen investor is not to panic. We'll get through this.
Meanwhile, above it all, the Hubble Space Telescope encountered a serious data handling problem that will delay the upcoming Shuttle servicing mission, probably until early next year. Those of us involved in this mission will be doing some serious replanning in the coming days. We'll get through this too.
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