When you have banks behaving as they are, where accumulation and preservation of cash is paramount, economies don’t slow down, they stop. Like with hearts, this is an undesirable condition. Restarts are of the decade long brand and economic mass is lost.

Banks want cash to preserve their capital base against eroding mortgage asset value and stem the tide of failing. And they want cash to pay the chain that wants cash from them, which would include depositors, if they don’t keep the heart from stopping.

I expect business to be battering the cage of Congress very soon, making it “transparent” that failure to act cuts off everyone’s money, merchant and citizen. That’s why the banks are stuffing their mattresses.

Into this rode Don Quixote with $5b for the knights at Goldman. In investment theory, that qualifies as genuine “new information”, even if Don has a preferred and secured interest. It’s the first push of big capital in to the financials during this fray, that wasn’t federal money. And done during a furious exit with actors streaming out from every road.

(…and Don Quixote also stole Constellation Energy with a bid last week. Its value had been cut in half, aided by concerns about where it would secure the large amounts of credit that merchant energy and utilities require to service daily operations).