Yesterday, I said this about what to expect in the near future:

One or two or more big retailers go belly up. No one is going to be spending money this holiday season. You know the problem is acute when you read, as I did yesterday in the Financial Times, that Las Vegas is in a big downturn. With home equity loans a thing of the past, most people will have no more credit–and those that might have some cash are going to sit on it because everyone is worried about their jobs. No money spent=retailers go bye-bye.

   And, today, here is what is happening. The Wall Street Journal:

But the retailers who reported their September same-store sales so far Wednesday — with the exception of discounters such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. — are indicating the promotions hardly helped as consumers increasingly pulled back on buying discretionary items amid worsening economic conditions.

  And…

The other sectors are expected to report much larger declines. Among department stores — expected to be the worst-performing sector — heavyweight J.C. Penney Co. has projected its drop will reach the mid-to-high single digits.

General apparel retailers are also seen reporting weakness, with heavyweight Gap Inc. projected to report an 8.3% drop amid troubles at its Old Navy and Banana Republic chains.

   J.C. Penny may be gone by 2009, even as the Beast of Bentonville continues to prey on poverty–both on consumers who have no choice but to shop at Wal-Mart, and workers who have no other options.

   So, even when the credit crisis subsides a bit–meaning, when banks decide to start lending out money–there will be a much longer, painful recession. It isn’t worth following the daily gyrations of the stock market–which today opened down 200 points and, then, within 10 minutes went back into positive territory–because there is a deeper, longer-term story here:

People don’t have money to spend–paychecks aren’t going up and there isn’t any more dough to find in those collapsed home equity values. That isn’t going to change overnight, no matter what the Fed does or how many bailouts are done. The bailouts are aimed at avoiding complete collapse. But, they won’t change the essential dynamic of peoples’ daily struggle to pay bills.