Rewarding the Losers

I wish I hadn't worked hard and saved money and paid off my mortgage early. I wish I wasn't debt free. Right now I wish I was up to my eyeballs in debt and facing foreclosure. THEN, I would qualify for assistance. INSTEAD, I am indirectly penalized for my financial prudence because NO ONE HELPED ME and now you want to take MY tax dollars to "spread the wealth around."

I just realized how pissed off I am.

Everything about this stimulus and bailout sucks. My opinion is that we are creating a much larger problem for the future of this country by making the Bush public debt look trivial compared with the eventual Obama public debt. We are sending the wrong message to the mass of mediocrity that make up this pathetic consumer-driven democracy - that winners are to pay for the sins of the losers and that losers will always be rescued for their sins.

Let Rome burn. (A contemporary Howard Beale.)

The market broke through the November 20 lows today. The Great Recession doesn't want to let up. Today was a Dow Theory reconfirmation of the bear market. Accordingly, things are likely to get much worse now. Gold continues to perform well, however.

Years ago when I first started reading him, Richard Russell made the rather outlandish statement that someday one ounce of gold would buy one share of the Dow. Let's hope things don't get that bad. But, it seems a lot more likely today than back in 2003.

It is a tough situation for any president. Particularly for a one with less than a single-term in the senate, a poetic vocabulary, and a nice suit. I sincerely hope this ain't all you got Obama. This Great Recession wants to eat your administration alive.

The Wall Street Journal argued yesterday that Paulson made a mistake by taking the financial crisis to congress. In doing so, he politicized the whole situation. Undoubtedly, that's what happened. But the WSJ is a bit vague on what the alternatives were.

Is there a viable alternative to this mess? I don't know. I do know that, without the bailouts, the banking system would have probably collapsed by now. No one, of course, wants to see that. But, the question no one seems to ask is are we going to be any better off spending all this money out of thin air? Which is worse - a financial collapse at the end of the Bush administration or postponing the collapse until after we reward the losers with massive assistance?

I guess it doesn't matter. Either way.

The root of the problem has never been addressed. The consumer, debt-ridden culture founded upon fiat money, founded upon nothing at all. Who says the dollar's worth anything?

Richard Russell closed his daily remarks tonight this way: "This looks to me to be the correction of the 64 years of inflation and debt-building that has gone on ever since World War II. I see the months ahead as being very difficult, but I'll do my best to be helpful to my subscribers. I lived through the Great Depression and combat in WW II. I can't imagine that the years ahead will be more difficult than those old bleak and frightening days.

"For decades the American punch bowl overflowed, with the help of the Federal Reserve and the creation of unconstitutional fiat money. There's little sense in analyzing today's market minutiae, the market did what it had to do. It pointed the way for stocks and the economy. The Founding Fathers and creators of the Constitution must be shaking their heads and smiling wryly. The money system that they had so carefully inserted into the Constitution had been thwarted and degraded. Now we must pay."

So, while the stimulus sucks, it is not the problem nor the cure...just a symptom. We asked for this.