Today the Dow Jones average fell to a point not seen since 1997. In effect everything penny of equity anyone earned between 1997 and today has been eliminated, wiped out, erased, obliterated, and expunged. Poof!
Such is the financial world's vote of absolutely no confidence in Mr. Obama's crack-pot stimulus plan, his bank rescue plan, his mortgage rescue plan, his fatuous hope to halve the deficit by 2013, and anything else he and his troupe of know-nothing pseudo-experts want to promise.
Reality is making short shrift of this guy. The horror of it is that Mr. O has no Plan B. If his spending spree doesn't save us (and how could that possibly happen), this guy has not a clue what he'll do next. The speed at which this collapse is accelerating is astounding. Paul Volcker, one of Mr. O's pals, says that things are falling apart faster now than in the Great Depression.
My take on this: I think governments and their financiers in Washington, New York, London, Paris, Zurich, Tokyo, and other capitals know that this time everything's different. They know that they are powerless to stop the crash and subsequent ruin of countless millions. And they know that something else is crashing--their legitimacy. Raw brute force will soon be the only thing keeping governments all across the world in power. The governed will soon stop consenting, then start rioting, then start shooting. As O'Shaughnessy wrote: "For each age is a dream that is dying,/Or one that is coming to birth."
The old world cobbled together after the Second World War has wrecked itself, and a new world is being born out of the rubble. That new world will not be a happy place.
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