It's Here!

And it's not the Bush Boom, Larry. NYTimes (01.17.08):

"Stock markets plunged on Thursday as investors confronted a troubling manufacturing report and new indications of the depth of subprime losses and housing woes. The Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 300 points.

The Standard and Poor’s 500-stock index, a broad measure of the financial markets, tumbled below its low for last year, set in March."

Dow Plunges More Than 300 Points on Grim Outlook

What is it? It would be this.

"'Basically every day now, you have more and more investors leaning toward the camp that yes, this is going to be a recession, and it could be a severe one,' said David Kovacs, a quantitative investment strategist at Turner Investment Partners in Berwyn, Pa."

Please remain seated. Ride's gonna be a little bumpy for a while. Like Duncan said:

"I don't make predictions about the stock market because, well, what do I know, but the degree of optimism from supposed experts over the past year about the broader economy has been somewhat amusing.

I think today's the day it died."