On Monday afternoon, Wall Street basically stopped trading to watch TV — mainly CNBC — to see how the House of Representatives would vote on the $700 billion bailout package. When it first started looking like the bill would fail, the Dow plummeted 389 points, or 3.6%, in just seven minutes.

Without a Bailout Plan, What Will the Cost Be? – TIME.

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Wow, just wow on that.  Let me see if I can find a good graph….

The Seven Minutes of Death

See that part where the line disappears?  That was where the whole concept of a “rational market” disappeared.

Most economists don’t model for such things, as it would be impossible to do so by definition.