Bad times can bring out the best and the worst of us. There is a character with a huge heart and apparently stacks of cash for needy folks willing to wait in line for it in Time Square.

He has been cast as "Bailout Bill" and he has created a stir because he is giving away money directly to those in need, figuring that the folks on the bottom rung of the ladder need just as much help as those at the top, that the government has been bailing out.

According to reports, In order to get the money people have to go to the 'Bailout Booth' in the heart of Manhattan's Times Square; to a small cubicle, where, depending on your story you can get a cash stipend to help out with a present financial dilemma.

Last Friday, the big economic news was the shocking loss of 533,000 jobs which spurred President Bush to accept this weekend a bailout plan for the automobile industry likely to be announced in the week ahead. So did stocks crash on Friday as a result of the bad jobs news? No -- the Dow rose 259 points. And despite the daily failure of the stock market to fit the simple storyline that stocks go down with bad news and up with good, this media mental model persists.

In the week ahead, there is likely to be more bad news. Here are three such items:

• Spiking unemployment filings. On Thursday, first time unemployment filings are likely to top 500,000 for the fourth straight week.
• Slumping retail sales. On Friday, retail sales are likely to decline for the fifth month in a row -- the longest such streak since the numbers were first collected.
• Non-forecasting companies. A few companies are expected to report their results and claim that they lack visibility -- code for the future looks dark and they don't want to speculate publicly about just how dark.

So what will the market do this week? I have absolutely no idea. But it would not surprise me if it rose and fell wildly for no apparent reason.