All bets are off for the moment, obviously. The big question this week is which one of your neighbors you should eat first when things get bad. And of course I expect some sort of zombie problem. But in normal times, the nine point list is useful.
This generation of political leaders is confronting a similar situation, and, so far, they have failed utterly and catastrophically to project any sense of authority, to give the world any reason to believe that this country is being governed.
The American century was created by American leadership, which is scarcer than credit just about now.
"Panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works"
--John Stuart Mill
"There is no socially accepted excuse for being without your cell phone. “I didn’t have my phone”: that just does not sound believable. Either you are lying or you are depressed or you have something to hide. If you receive a text, therefore, you are obliged instantaneously to reply to it, if only to confirm that you are not one of those people who can be without a phone."
--Louis Menand
"...the evidence clearly suggests that the future will be more of a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome-style apocalypse. When you talk about zombies you're just fear-mongering."
--Louis Jeansonne
"If it takes a rocket scientist [to] explain a trade (with no universal agreement as to the explanation) and there is no performing underlying asset, it’s a Ponzi scheme."
--Anonymous, 12:43pm
{Perhaps the title of this post should have been "Goodnight and Good Luck"}
The sight of the overclass clutching our children to their pudgy selves as human shields while shooting at each other is a shaping event. All those ancien regime aristocracies who got mobbed to death: It was ugly, but they bought their ticket in the queue on merit. Mmmphh.
--Richard Kline
I have always said that we do not have to worry about another Great Depression because we know how to get out of one now. (it's simple -- spend money.) The problem is that "we" may not be the ones deciding policy.
- Dean Baker
"But forces have been set in motion and momentum rules. One thing for sure: the American public is about to undergo a severe mood adjustment. There will be fewer American Idol fans and worshippers of Donald Trump by the close of business on Friday."
--James Kunstler
"The conventional wisdom held that the successful passage of the rescue legislation would introduce some stability into the markets. The ink was not dry on the legislation when stocks began to head south again, and in a serious manner. It is beginning to look as though the authorities well need divine intervention to save the day.
My suggestion is that members of the staff at the New York Fed should take some time and trek two blocks south to Our Lady of Victory Church at Pine and William. They should get down on their knees and pray and then light a candle.
That looks like the only viable solution for now."
--John Jansen
"Shall all the countries join hands and sing kumbaya,
or would a nice little war somewhere (like central Europe) be more effective?
or perhaps, a multinational, coordinated lynching of bankers and hedgies on [TV] be paliative?"
So that is where the US is now: in the middle of a financial crisis, with the economy sliding into recession, monetary policy already at maximum easing, and fiscal transfers impotent. That is an unenviable situation, to say the least....
--Martin Feldstein
There's times I'd like to bed down on a sofa,
And let some pretty lady rub my back.
And spend the early morning drinking coffee,
Talkin' about when I'll be coming back.
But I don't let no no woman tie me down,
And I'll never get too old to get around.
I wanna die along the highway, and rot away,
Like some old high-line pole,
Rest this ramblin' fever in my soul.
--Merle Haggard
