Let's Lose Some Money.

How crazy was it today? Here's a snippet from WSJ.com's story on the day's events:

The desperation was especially striking in the market for U.S. government debt, long considered the safest of investments. At one point during the day, investors were willing to pay more for one-month Treasurys than they could expect to get back when the bonds matured. Some investors, in essence, had decided that a small but known loss was better than the uncertainty connected to any other type of investment.

That's never happened before. In a special government auction on Wednesday, demand ran so high that the Treasury Department sold $40 billion in bills, far beyond what it needed to cover the government's obligations.

"We've seen crisis. We've seen recession. But we've not seen the core of the financial system shaken like this," says Joseph Balestrino, a portfolio manager at Federated Investors. "It's just crazy."