My handful of quarters as an atheist who studied these two religions:...
You're wrong. I've studied both the bible (several versions of it) as well as the Qur'an.
What it does, however, is call for the bloodshed of those who DISGRACE and VIOLATE christianity -
Say What??? Any call for bloodshed, whether to be taken literally or metaphorically, ended with Micah; the which foretold of the "Great and Dreadful Day" when "he (Elijah) shall turn the heart of the fathers
The part I want 'splained is: Why does anyone think that the stock market is a serious indicator of the state of the economy? Everyone knows the market is going to be way up in a few years because it is currently highly undervalued but because the vast majority of investing groups are buying and selling with short term gain in mind the market is bouncing around like a superball. Maybe if someone was required to hold a stock for a minimum period of time it would make stocks an indicator of something.
I empathize with your struggle to construct an intelligible declarative sentence that describes the current state of the US economy.... but... NOT "Everyone knows the market is going to be way up in a few years..."
Quite the contrary.
..."For with the US alone having unprecedented and unsustainable household, corporate and public debt of $51.1 trillion at the end of 2007 and projected to be at least $53 trillion (equivalent to nearly the whole economic turnover of the entire world) by the end of this year". [2008] Dr David Hill World Innovation Foundation Charity (WIFC) Bern, Switzerland 27th September 2008
That is a far cry from the $10 trillion ND that most Americans are led to believe [see "National Debt Clock"] is what they are carrying into 2009.
As of 2007, there were about 138 million taxpayers in the United States, including many (about one third of all filers) who don't pay any income tax.
According to GAAP and FASB, (i.e., based on the Accrual Method of Accounting) projections for 2008 put the Federal Debt at $53 trillion. This represents $384,059 of Federal Debt per taxpayer. A 2 income household is on the hook for more than 3/4 of a million dollars.
The interest on this $53 trillion (estimated to average out to 3.77%) amounts to $2 trillion, or $14,493 per taxpayer per year; which interest isn't being paid. It's 'accruing'. It's what economists call "Unfunded Debt".
The simplest, and most accurate 'splanation' is that the US is, and has been for 4-5 years, bankrupt. What we are witnessing isn't a succession of institutional and corporate bailouts and 'stop-gap' measures to buy time until things turn around. No growth potential imaginable can ever catch up to the spiraling debt, now increasing by $2.5 to $2.7 billion a day. Rather, all this busy work amounts to nothing more productive that bailing water from one compartment of a sinking ship into another.
Until the US finally gets around to declaring it's insolvency, no meaningful 'reconstruction' policies and projects are going to be formulated and undertaken.
While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position.