The homepage of the New York Times is scaring us. Not surprisingly we're not entirely clear on the details, but if the government just stepped in in order to bail out AIG isn't that supposed to make things better? This graph does not look better, which begs the question, what would have happened if the government hadn't stepped in? Scoopmeister John Carney explains to us why actually bad news is good news, in that the empty glass may one day be full again, sort of way.

There's reason for hope when we see the New York Times become a black hole of depressing news about the markets. Traditionally, when the news cycle turns ferociously bearish we're shaping up for a turnaround. We may still have a month a lot of pain to work out in the markets but if the traditional signaling of newspapers as a contrary indicator holds, it looks like we're getting near the end.