MnIndy Interview: Doug Henwood on the bailout, the ‘D’ word, and the Great Panic of ’08

Yesterday afternoon I talked with MnIndy’s favorite business/economics journalist, Doug Henwood of the indispensable Left Business Observer, to see what he’s thinking about the economy and about the panic in credit markets, which so far seems unfazed by the bailout bill or by any of the other measures the Fed and the Treasury have undertaken. “Certainly the risk of something really nasty looks the highest it’s been since the end of World War II,” he tells MnIndy. “Now, if you want to draw some comfort from that, sometimes when people are thinking the world is coming to an end, that can be a sign that we’re close to the bottom. Or that we’re closer to the bottom than we are to the beginning.”

MnIndy interview: Doug Henwood on Lehman, AIG, Gray Monday, and the economy

After Monday’s dramatic tumble in the financial markets–led by dire announcements about Lehman Brothers (bound for bankruptcy court), Merrill Lynch (absorbed by Bank of America) and insurance giant AIG (desperately seeking bridge loans)–I got in touch with Doug Henwood for some help in sorting out these latest developments and what they augur for the US economy on Main Street.

In a 20-minute interview taped Tuesday afternoon, Henwood–the publisher of the invaluable Left Business Observer newsletter and perhaps our most plainspoken economics journalist–took the measure of “Gray Monday” and the arc of the US economy.

The economy: Google News and the ‘D’ word

Several weeks ago, around the time Bear Stearns collapsed, I started checking in on Google News to see how often the word “depression” was popping up in media accounts. I added the word “economy” to the string…