We are in a financial turmoil not seen since the Great Depression. President Bush tries his best to sugarcoat things, but this is not good. Not good at all. If AIG falls we will enter a second Great Depression. The stock market will surely crash to the floor. The Fed should not have brought interest rates down so low. Doing so has eroded the value of the dollar greatly. Further, each time one of these giants falls it puts hundreds of people out of work, worsening the unemployment problem. The only good news right now is that oil and gas are plummeting. This will surely help the economy a little, but its problems are so great right now that any benefit from oil and gas will be minimal. Just recently my father changed banks, from Washington Mutual to Suntrust, fearing that Washington Mutual may (and it looks like it very well may) collapse.
This is definitely a financial crisis like none we've seen in many, many years.