When I was in the green room earlier today at NBC's studio in DC, I was watching CNBC curious to see how the variance finance talking heads would be covering the unfolding drama. The party line was pretty uniform, and a bit bizarre -- basically, the Fed was obviously right to act to prevent Bear Stearns from falling into bankruptcy because the entire global economy is teetering on the brink of collapse and utter doom would strike if they'd done otherwise. But all's well now, thanks! No need to worry, nothing to see here, worst is behind us, etc.

I mean, I suppose that could be right, but common sense indicates that if over the weekend drastic measures were needed to stop everything from unraveling that this week we continue to be in a pretty precarious situation. At a minimum, it seems like the best hope for a turnaround in the "real" economy is for the dollar to fall even farther, providing jobs in exporting and tourism, and as far as best-case scenarios go that doesn't seem like a particularly awesome one.