Signs That I May Have Underestimated the Badness of Our Economy

I’m beginning to think the economic crisis is worse than I thought—meaning it won’t just hit Wall Street. I’m coming around for a couple of reasons:

1. An awful lot of economists agree there’s a bad problem. Most of them also think the bailout was not the solution.
2. There’s anecdotal evidence that the crisis is breaking out of the financial sector and starting to affect the real economy. Anecdotal evidence isn’t very convincing—there’s always somebody who’s having a very bad quarter—but it’s more immediate than the statistics.
3. At least one vice president of an investment firm has apparently started doing bank robberies.
4. For the first time in many months, I didn’t get any credit card offers in the mail.

(Hat tip: C&F, Crimlaw)

Update: 5. The DOW finished down about 500 points. I normally ignore the DOW as an economic indicator, but this is turning into a nasty trend.