Canary graveyard.

I joke a lot. Too much according to some. I also make a point to have boundaries on this blog - and then push them gently. The fact is though, I am scared. This is a normal reaction because, well, things are scary. If you are not at least a little spooked by what is occurring around and underneath the noise of the inauguration - then you are not looking deeply enough. The economic coalmine has becomes a canary graveyard.

In his book Wealth, War, published last year, former Morgan Stanley chief global strategist Barton Biggs advised people to prepare for the possibility of a total breakdown of civil society.

Even the least prone to apocalyptic thinking should stiffen the spine a bit when the richest people around are in meltdown preparation mode.

A million jobs lost a month this Spring? A million. This is not a normal downturn.

I must admit that some of my fear springs from ignorance. I simply do not understand the intricacies of what is happening. Wealth that "existed" in August is now gone. Further, everyone talks about the coming federal trillions as if that money exists - and is not a printing press creation. Forgive my thickheadedness - but I still do not understand how the Federal national bailout won't snap back and collapse just like the faux housing wealth just did. Everyone realizes, eventually, that conjured wealth is not real wealth. Unless the coming bailout focuses on real, sustainable initiatives - not bogus road building and tax breaks for companies that have already failed us - how will it help past 2010?

I am an outside observer (far outside). But my sense is that our leadership is still working and thinking in a paradigm that is disappearing. And quickly. The Dem/Obama bailout is an attempt to restart a system that is dead. A return to the economic model of perpetual growth should not be the goal. Indeed, it cannot be.

Since we must obtain our energy resources (the final arbiter of "growth") from elsewhere we are in a no growth position and have been since the 70s. (Go on then, google 'real income'. It stagnates right around the time we had to start importing oil.)

The push for constant growth here depends on bubbles. Tech bubble, housing bubble, etc. Who will underwrite the next bubble? The Fed can't without destroying the currency. (Which it has apparently decided to do.) The Fed has been a triage ala M.A.S.H. since last April when Bear Stearns caved. The Chinese, now industrialized themselves, won't be available.

Still, just as "hope" and "change" were misused to the point of being rendered meaningless in 2008. "Collapse" is becoming the most misused word of 2009. We are not on the verge of "collapse". Yet. (Though, I reserve the right to rethink 'collapse' at any moment.) We are, however, being forced to shrink. The contraction is coming on with breathtaking speed.

This recession is different in substance and tone than any I've seen. Still, much of my fear is not purely economics. Most - but not all - people find a way. My fear goes to societal reaction. What will it take to keep the angry and dislocated in line? Is there a centering idea left in this culture that we might rally around? I am very afraid that there is not. Which leaves a personality to fill the void. We all know how that invariably turns out.