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“I have my life savings in Landsbanki Guernsey - a 5 year bond. Have I and all other savers lost everything? Is there any action we can take or are advised to take?”

This was the plea from an angry saver who had lost money in the recent debacle over the collapse of Icelandic banking system. After being given the brush off by the authorities in Guernsey he turned to the forum on Moneysupermarket to see if anyone else was in the same boat. Luckily there were hundreds of people on the site who were. You’ll see from the posting that there were hundreds of posts in the conversation started last week.

As a result they have formed an action group and are organising a mass petition. Technology is taking us back to the good old days when communities rallied round and helped each other. The web makes it easier for us to find people with similar interests or concerns, or people who have expertise that we might need. There’ll be plenty more folks who will need their community in the months to come.

‘Stand by for Black Monday’ screamed the front page of tonight’s London Evening Standard.  Then it hit me.  My mental image of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 is a newspaper front page.   

The market has been in need of a correction, of that there is no doubt.  Long term demand for oil is also a significant underlying factor.  But, the maelstrom in which we are enveloped is a massive over correction and one fuelled by fear and drained confidence.  We need to think about how the plug was pulled.   The ‘Credit Crunch’ is a newspaper headline; squeezing a profusion of complex economic causes and effects into a two word bawling banner.  

More than likely by the time you read this we will know if the markets have ignored the doom prophets or if we are in free-fall once again and the US Senate sees that the Paulson plan is the best worst option.  And what of this plan?  The media have called it a ‘$700 billion bail out’, more headlines, but it is really an attempt to put confidence back into the markets and underwrite the ‘toxic debt’, oh there goes another one.  This isn’t putting taxpayers cash into bank bonuses it is a plan for putting the confidence back into the system from someone that understands the financial markets as well as anyone can.   If it works it won’t cost the US taxpayer a dime, some commentators have even suggested the treasury could profit from the swap. 

If we have hit the bottom, and let’s hope we have,  it is time we put aside the big font fear forecasts in favour of cautious and considered copy.