As Things Fall Apart.

First music. It is a holiday shortened week - we need to set priorites.
Yesterday the Gypsy Kings version - today the orginal:


The information in the article linked below is so thick it makes my head hurt. ( I am writing this at night and posting it in the morning - as there will be no heavy lifting by my brain before noon.)
It's no coincidence that AIG, Fannie and Freddie, Lehman Bros, General Motors, General Electric have all fallen off a cliff at the very same time. They are all victims of the same low interest, easy money finance swindle which allowed them to roll over huge amounts of short-term debt at artificially low cost...

I think that means that we've been snookered. Or is it a ponzi scheme? One in which most of us have - driven by blind desire to consume more and more- have been unwitting (witless?) participants. As national crisies go I'd say we are in the midst of a CAT 5. (Forgive my maleable use of metaphors - I was stoned during English in high school.Then got a degree in theater - which hardly helped matters.) While not as abrupt as Pearl Harbor or 9/11 the pain will end up worse for the society but of a diffenent nature.

My natural pessimism springs from a desire to be optimistic. While trying to comprhend what is happening in the econmy I keep atempting to see the silver lining without fantisizing.

So far. So bad.

I really DON'T get it. But I'll try:
The market has fallen 2000 points since Obama won the election and Paulson handed out billions in mystical money. The "they" that does this stuff is, with ever increasing failure, trying to recreate an economy, that was false to begin with, by dumping mystical currency into the system. Gasoline on fire. As they burn, the pretend dollars being dumped are making the fire brighter and hotter. Sadly, Obama's best and brightest are going to pour more on to the fire. This may work in the short run. Things working in the short run IS the problem in the long run.

(Example: Houses are not falling in value - they were never worth that much to begin with. Anyone with half a brain knew this. But if we've learned anything this year we've learned this - I pray-: Fantasies are powerful. Even so the faux wealth created by the faux value of the real estate did give the illusion of real wealth - in the short run.)

Trillions in conjured "wealth" has evaporated. At some point that wealth butts up against reality. Bluntly put: people lose jobs. A lot of them. We'll be lucky if the unemplyment rate is 10% in a year. I think that is optimistic. Then again, as I've said, I'm no ecnomist - just a guy who feels like he has a front row seat to the end of an era. Pass the popcorn - if we can afford it.

George W Bush and his remaining court jesters are incompetent. (Then again, maybe not - W's cabal will probably survive just fine.) On January 20th, with all sorts of fanfare, Obama and his court get the booby prize.

The silver lining? In 10 years we may land back in a nation that has real wealth based on real labor and real manufacturing-not A.R.M.s and houses used as credit cards. But the capucino liberals and the NASCAR conservatives may not take such a romantic view as things fall apart.