Everyone Could Use a Little Break

I dunno, probably not, but some people do think so. The basic argument for shutting markets is that stuff is real bad, but temporarily; if markets are open, everyone will be forced to reckon with the badness, sell their assets, call in their margin loans, and generally trigger further badness; if you just put everything on pause for a month, then the temporary badness can recede and everyone can come back, calmed and refreshed and ready to buy assets at their long-term fundamental values. Financial markets are in the business of propagating information; when information is really bad, why propagate it? Why not wait until there is better information to propagate?

I should say that that is the financial argument; there is also a psychological argument along the lines of, aren’t you tired? Wouldn’t you like to stop thinking about the market for a few weeks?