JOLLY DAYS

Jeremiad For Jolly Days

The news is too much with us.

The previous post about David Foster Wallace was generated by news of his suicide. He was 46 and his father said he had struggled for 20 years with depression. His wife found him. He had hung himself. His writing was a bit detached for me, but he clearly had enormous smarts and great gifts. You always wish something could have been done.

Three great investment banks tanking and two more that may go. A conga line of huge financial entities waiting their turn in the spotlight of doubt, with many expecting a cascade of failures and financial catastrophes or at very least a long recession.

There is a lot of ranting now on the campaign trail by both sides, but it is both sides that are to blame. They both lie and have betrayed their early promise. Move On Attack Dog Barack Obama (aka Great Post Partisan Uniter) trying to please his base, and John McCain becoming a conventional Republican while still claiming he is a maverick. By inclination maybe, but not by political behavior.

Here is a discussion about what happened with Fannie and Freddie and why it is the system itself that needs fixing. This does suggest McCain's systemic diagnosis is the way to go. Here is a piece about Fannie and Obama.

One aside about the financial bad news. There is a guy (Nouriel Roubini) who has been appearing on talk shows. He predicted the onset of the current disaster and now everyone is listening to him. It actually makes you start to laugh as he goes on, like the biology teacher on Wonder Years played by Ben Stein, discoursing on the inevitable violent brutish miserable depleted disease enshrined end to which all living things devolve. He even has the same droning speaking pattern.

It reminds me of the old PBS show Wall Street Week. No matter what happened there was always one guy who was optimistic and another pessimistic. So whatever randomness the market's chaos system served up made one or the other look prescient. These commentators were merely coincidental onlookers to a buzzing, blooming reality. Forget experts. This will just have to play itself out and no one knows where it will go. Seems like the country is pretty resilient. Although Obama mocked McCain for saying just that. Obama doesn't disagree. He mocks.

Today there was a piece suggesting Money Market Funds may lose money. They call it “breaking the buck”.

A hurricane just wiped out swaths of Texas. All we need now is an earthquake.