Fiscal crisis knows no depths

This just in, from CNN:

-- The Dow Jones industrial average lost 679 points, after hitting its lowest point since May 27, 2003 during the session.

From today's NYT:

WASHINGTON — Having tried without success to unlock frozen credit markets, the Treasury Department is considering taking ownership stakes in many United States banks to try to restore confidence in the financial system, the White House said on Thursday.

Acknowledging that such steps would not seem to fit into President Bush’s free-market philosophy, the president’s chief spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said taking partial ownership of banks and other moves associated with the financial rescue plan would not be “part of his natural instincts.”  . . . .

Behind the scramble for solutions lies a hard reality: the financial crisis has mutated into a global downturn that economists warn will be painful and protracted, and for which there is no quick cure.

The Boston Globe reports on former fiscal titans seeking therapy:

For years, brokers and hedge fund managers suffered from a condition known among therapists as "sudden wealth syndrome." Some even called it "affluenza."

Not anymore. With the sinking stock market and hordes of rich, angry investors, psychologists have a new diagnosis: sudden loss syndrome. And therapists are increasingly busy trying remedy the predicament.