Eek! This is Not Looking Good for my Retirement!

According to the NY Times, as of now the Dow Jones has fallen well below 7,000 and isn't showing any signs of coming back up, although the day is not over. It didn't look any better overnight from Europe and Asia, either.

On the bright side, the March snowstorm that hit our area didn't dump quite as much snow on us as forecast. We got about 6 inches maximum. And the beautiful thing is, the forecast was so dire that our company's president called a snow day for today before a single flake had fallen. So we are all working at home and looking at the snow outside our windows.

Hope everyone is enjoying the snow, where it has fallen, and having a good day elsewhere.

I Am Afraid

I am afraid the country is on the verge of another Great Depression.

I am afraid of the vicious, hate-filled mobs who are cheering McCain and Palin.

I am afraid that the government may declare martial law and even postpone the election if the economic situation worsens.

I am afraid that McCain-Palin's completely heinous, false and misleading video about Obama being tied to terrorism might actually work because so much of America is full of people who are ignorant.

I am afraid of the Bradley Effect.

I am afraid of voter purges in swing states, voter suppression, and Diebold.

I am afraid of an October Surprise that would benefit McCain. I wouldn't even put it past the GOP to either engineer or allow a terrorist attack if they thought it would help him beat Obama.

I am afraid of the anger that is seething in America, which could erupt if things get worse.

One part of me is excited that Obama is in the lead but another part of me is full of fear for the future. There are still 27 days until the election. Anything could happen.

I've seen some overconfidence among Democrats - a headline today talking about a possible "Obama Landslide." This also makes me afraid. We cannot become complacent, cannot take anything for granted. This article from Alternet makes some very good points:

"Along with throwing mud and benefitting from racism, McCain stands to gain from the fact that the national Republican Party now has a lot more money in the bank than the Democratic Party does. And in many states, a wide range of anti-democratic measures -- including purges of voter rolls and very unreasonable requirements for voter ID on Election Day -- will work to the benefit of the McCain-Palin ticket.

Overall, the polls showing Obama with a sizeable lead should be taken with a box of salt. The count on election night could be close. In the meantime, McCain can only benefit when progressives assume he'll lose.

Such rosy assumptions are dangerous. They're apt to result in overconfidence, reducing volunteer energy and voter turnout for Obama.

Assume that the economic crisis has doomed the McCain campaign? He hopes you will."

A Cat's Eye View

Baxter here. I have to tell you, I have had a Very Bad Week. On Wednesday evening I used my Box a lot but didn't Do Much, if you know what I mean, and my Female Human dragged me off to the Emergency Clinic at 9 o'clock at Night.

Usually it is That Dog that gets dragged to the Emergency Clinic because of fear of something called Bloat (which always turns out to be Simple Indigestion and is curable with a dose of Pepcid, after my Humans spend hundreds of Dollars). But this time, it was My Turn. About Time they spent some Real Money on Me. After all, I'm Worth It.

I was Taken into the Back and poked and prodded and returned to my Human with a bottle of Disgusting Medicine. The Vet claimed it is Chicken Flavored. Bah! My Humans forced open my Mouth the next Morning and squirted it in and it was the Most Foul Tasting Stuff I've ever had the Misfortune to Taste. Ugh. It made me Foam at the Mouth.

Then yesterday my Male Human dragged me off to the Regular Vet to have what he called an "Ulstrasound." I have No Idea what happened because I fell Asleep very Suddenly after they took me into the Room to do it. When I woke up my Stomach was Naked. Yes, Someone shaved my Stomach while I was Asleep! The Nerve! It is really Embarrassing to have a Naked Stomach when you're a Fine Figure of a Cat.

Apparently Nothing Bad showed up in the Ultrasound and they are just continuing to give me the Disgusting Medicine. In fact, my Female Human is walking around the House calling to me with that Squirt-Thing in her Hand, trying to give Me another Dose of it. Little does she know I have now Sneaked Upstairs and am Blogging. If I hear her coming I may have to stop and run under the Bed for awhile, but I'll be Back.

So, I'm finally getting back to Normal and am ready to talk about this past Week.

In fact, it was a Very Bad Week for Everyone, wasn't it? The Stock Market was like a Roller-Coaster! First it tumbled something like 900 points, then it was up again by the end of the week because the Feds bailed out everybody! So in the End, it didn't really Change. However, the Author of the article Linked Above says:

"Nobody understands who owes what to whom — or whether they have the ability to pay. Counterparties have become afraid to trade with each other. Sovereign wealth funds are no longer willing to supply badly needed capital because they no longer know what they are investing in. The crisis continues because nobody knows what anything is worth. You simply cannot have a functioning market under such circumstances."

Then there's this whole thing about Short Selling. Everybody is Upset about it and suddenly it is being Controlled - which is probably like the old Saying, "Closing the Barn Door after the Horse is Gone."

In fact, the New York Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, is launching an Investigation to see if anybody was Manipulating the Markets to fall just to make Short Selling more profitable. But no one would really do That, would They? Hmmmmm....

As near as I can tell, one of the more Egregious Practices on Wall Street is something called Naked Short Selling. Sounds kind of Racy, but it really means selling something at a Lower Price that you don't even Own; in fact, you haven't even borrowed it. According to the Financial Times,

"Short sellers aim to profit from share declines, usually by borrowing a stock, selling it and buying it back after its price has decreased. In abusive 'naked' short selling, the seller does not borrow the stock and fails to deliver it to the buyer."

So for instance, our Neighbor, Ethel, has a lot of Cats. She has a lot of Cat Food out on her Porch for her Cats. It's as if I, Baxter, said to you, "Tell you what. I'll sell you Ethel's Cats' Food for this price." But I don't even have that Food. It's on Ethel's porch.

That's about as far as I can understand this Complex type of Transaction. It sounds kind of Fishy to Me. I know I'm just a Cat, and not a Financial Wizard. But it seems to me that this kind of Wizardry may have gotten us into this Predicament. I hope my Humans will still be able to buy my Cat Food. That is all I care about. So Far so Good in that Department.

However, I don't think this Mess is Over Yet. The underlying Problems are Still There.

"'What we can say is that volatility is extremely high by historical standards,' said Ken Tower, senior vice president at Quantitative Analysis Services.

'What we need to see is volatility to come down, as it reflects market uncertainty,' he said. 'Let's see more about the government's plan and what the market makes of it on Monday.'

'We've now weathered this recent storm,' Tower said. "If somebody wants to talk to me about a two or three months rally, then OK. But it's not the end of this overall downturn, with the economy still going down the drain.'"

On the Bright Side, the Economy's problems seem to be a Big Help to the Obama Human in his Fight against the McCain Human. The latest CBS Poll taken in mid-week shows he has regained the Lead from the McCain Human, 48% to 43%. And also, fascination with the Palin Human may be Waning, which can only be a Plus.

And in Other Good News, the Hillary Clinton Human is really Stepping up to the Plate, showing that those who doubted her Commitment to the Democrats were probably Wrong. She has begun an effort named "Hillary Sent Me" and is urging her Supporters to go to Other States and campaign for Obama, and donate to the Cause.

So that about Sums up This Week. Let's hope the Obama Human can keep this Lead and that the Economy continues to be the Leading Issue, as it seems to help! (But not such an Issue that my Humans' 401ks tank Completely. Or they can never Retire. )

In the meantime, I will leave you with This, from YesWeCanHas.com:

Fiddling While Rome Burns

While McCain whines that Obama was referring to Palin when he used the phrase "lipstick on a pig," and the federal government refuses to step in, Lehman Brothers is going down the tubes, possibly pulling AIG with it, while Merrill Lynch will apparently be acquired by Bank of America.

According to Bloomberg.com,

"Reports this month point to a heightened risk of a recession. Unemployment rose to a five-year high of 6.1 percent last month, and retail sales fell 0.7 percent, excluding autos, the biggest decline this year....

'Financial conditions are extremely fragile,' said former Fed governor Lyle Gramley, now a senior economic adviser for the Stanford Group Company in Washington. 'With the Lehman situation deteriorating, this tends to have knock-on effects.'

In a sign that creditors don't expect Paulson to blink, the cost to protect against defaults by AIG, Merrill, WaMu and Wachovia Corp. reached records. Credit-default swaps on Seattle- based WaMu are trading at levels that imply a 75 percent chance the company will default in the next five years, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. valuation model shows."

This may only be the beginning. According to the New York Times, there is concern that the wave of failures will inspire certain fund managers to look for other weakened financial institutions and try to make a fortune by selling them short.

So where do we go from here? Is this the start of a new Depression, or will the wizards of Wall Street manage to stop the dominoes from falling? Only time will tell. But I do know it is a sign that something is very seriously wrong with our economy, and despite all of these important issues, the only thing the media can talk about is the "lipstick on a pig" controversy.

I am starting to lose hope for this country. The latest polls show that McCain continues to gain on Obama and now the electoral vote is no longer in Obama's favor.

If the American public doesn't wake up and start realizing that the McCain campaign is playing them for fools - just as George W. Bush has done for 8 years - we may get McCain and Palin in the White House. And here we thought maybe, this time, they wouldn't be so stupid.

But as H.L. Mencken said, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

He also said:

"The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."

Unfortunately, Mencken was apparently a very wise man.

What This Country Needs is a Good Depression!

"What This Country Needs is a Good Depression!"

This is a blasphemous thought that goes through my head every time I drive by a nest of new McMansions that have seemingly sprung up overnight...

...or see them sprouting like some kind of poisonous mushrooms on the outskirts of quaint towns like Newton, New Jersey.

I’ve also thought it when I see teardown after teardown of perfectly good, smaller houses, which are being replaced by huge monstrosities that don’t fit with the neighborhood.
(Picture source: The National Trust. )

It occurs to me when I see the endless stream of malls and shopping centers, all full of places to buy, buy, buy – as they march up and down the highways, encroaching on the farmland and open spaces like some kind of aggressive cancer.

It is a thought that occurs to me as I am almost run down by a Hummer in a parking lot.

The idea has come to me when I read in the New York Times about people who MUST get their preschooler into the “right” preschool or else the child will never make it into the “right” college. And that every kid who is going to apply to college has to have expensive tutoring lessons to ace the SAT exams.

And it has certainly occurred to me when I see the Dow Jones at 14,000 – or even 11,000 – are these companies really worth so much more than the Dow Jones was worth 20 years ago, when it was at 2,000? (See chart below – isn’t there something wrong with this picture?) (source: Generational Dynamics)

Do we really need all this conspicuous consumption? Is it really good for our country? I don’t think it is.

We have become a society that doesn’t value anything old – if it’s old, throw it out and get a new one; if it’s old, tear it down and build a new one; if a person is old, they’re no longer a valuable resource or a potential marketing target, so they become invisible.

We have become a society that doesn’t value saving, but instead values instant gratification.

We have become a society that considers “buying” to be a patriotic duty.

So I often think to myself, “What this country needs is a good Depression.”

But I hadn’t really had the nerve to say it out loud, because it is conventional wisdom that a growing economy is generally a positive thing.

So imagine my delight when I looked at Nick’s blog and found he has the same idea. Finally I can say it out loud!
What this country needs is a good Depression!!!!

Nick’s point is that continued, capitalistic growth is using up resources at a huge rate and this growth is not sustainable.

Quoting from Earth Meanders, his post says:

“Economic growth is a deadly disease upon the Earth, with capitalism as its most virulent strain. Throw-away consumption and explosive population growth are made possible by using up fossil fuels and destroying ecosystems. Holiday shopping numbers are covered by media in the same breath as Arctic ice melt, ignoring their deep connection. Exponential economic growth destroys ecosystems and pushes the biosphere closer to failure.”

Nick’s hope is that this disaster can be prevented by an economic downturn:

“Economic collapse destroyed the Roman Empire, and the Nazis’ dream of global domination. I'm hopeful economic collapse will shrink the USA's addictions to consumerism, material wealth, and global destruction of nature's resources.”

Another aspect of the constant drive for more capitalist growth is the continued need for more and more resources, which results in poor political policies. These policies have led us to war in various locations and have resulted in our reputation suffering throughout the world, to say nothing of the millions of deaths that have occurred.

I urge you to go read the rest of his excellent post. I know no Presidential candidate could possibly win if they started speaking against Capitalism. But even if he or she is able to rein in the excesses we’ve seen in the past 8 years, it would be a start.

Market Woes

According to the New York Times, the Stock Market has plunged 300 points this afternoon, "triggered by weak earnings from oil giant Exxon Mobil and concern that Citigroup’s woes may not be over."

The article goes on to say that the worst may be yet to come:

"Investors may also be unnerved by a disappointing batch of economic data released today. Consumer spending began to slow in September, growing 0.3 percent after a 0.5 percent gain in August. Analysts are predicting a weak fourth quarter, and the Commerce Department report may have confirmed fears of a sharp slowdown in spending as energy costs rise and the housing recession continues to worsen.

Meanwhile, manufacturing activity in October recorded its worst month since March, with American companies hurt by a decline in production coupled with a rise in costs. A closely watched manufacturing index dropped to 50.9 from 52 in September..."

This cheery news does nothing to cement my hope of retiring early. And it just goes to show that Bush's policies have not been beneficial to our economy; on the contrary.

So with that, here is my Haiku of the Day:

Stock market falling
Consumer spending slowing
Retirement's a dream.

A Website That Tells You What the White House is REALLY Saying

As I've mentioned before, I sometimes log into the official White House website to get an exact quote or find out what Dubya is up to when we're not looking.

For instance, today it has his official radio address in which he discusses the "period of adjustment" that the mortgage industry is going through. In his address, W says that his priority is "to help American homeowners navigate these financial challenges, so that as many families as possible can stay in their homes. The Federal government will not bail out lenders -- because that would only make a recurrence of the problem more likely. And it is not the government's job to bail out speculators, or those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford. But I support action at the Federal level that will help more American families keep their homes."

Hmmm, the Federal government will not bail out lenders...what is it then, when you lower the prime rate? Isn't that lowering the rate at which the Federal Government lends money to banks? Doesn't that kind of help the lenders? Please, those of you with more understanding of these complicated financial things than I have, correct me if I'm wrong on this.

OK, now as to the next part, about it not being the government's job to bail out "those who made the decision to buy a home they knew they could never afford." Isn't that the problem here? The people who bought these houses can't afford them? Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of sympathy for the people who found banks that willingly lent them money for mortgages for which they wouldn't ordinarily qualify. But let's call a spade a spade here.

Naturally W's solution is...tax breaks. I'm sure that will do those low income people a lot of good. He also has a couple of other fixes, so we'll see...Given his track record, I expect most of it will benefit the rich and not the poor, but I'll welcome any further knowledge others can provide.

There was actually a very good article in the NY Times magazine on Sunday about how we came to be in this mess. As usual it all goes back to greed and gambling.

However, I digress.

What I was going to tell you about when I started this post was the OTHER White House website. The one I accidentally stumbled upon when I was looking for the Whitehouse.gov site. I typed in "www.whitehouse.org" by mistake and got this! At first as I was reading it I thought it was real. It almost sounded like something W would have said. Then it dawned on me that this was satire. I remembered having read about this alternate "White House" website awhile back but had never read it before.

Check it out, you may find it's closer to the truth than we'd like to think.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

I happened to log into the on-line version of the New York Times and saw the headline, "Dow Off 167 Points in Late Swoon." This, I knew, was on top of all the previous losses, and did not make me happy. I had been lulled into a false sense of security a month or so ago, as every time I checked my 401k balance, it had risen still further and was looking good. Now it looks sadly similar to what it looked like at the beginning of 2007. And did I mention I kind of need the 401k to keep going up in order to achieve my dearest goal: early retirement?

There is something wrong with a system that has the stock market going sky high, hitting new records of 14,000 points only a month ago, and now plummeting day after day. The conditions have not changed so much in the past month to warrant this big a difference. The leading economic indicators are looking good; so why is this not reflected in the markets?

As the Times article says, "Though the latest economic readings indicate that growth is steady, they also make a rate cut by the Federal Reserve less likely. And a rate cut is what many on Wall Street have been hoping for, underscoring the growing disconnect between what economic indicators are saying about the health of the American economy and what is playing out in the stock market."

The purpose of the stock market was once to actually sell shares in viable companies that had solid futures ahead of them. Under that premise, the success of the overall economy would likely lead to investment in the companies that make up the stock market. But now, as in 1929, people are just using the stock market as a fancy form of gambling. It seems to bear no reflection on either the state of the economy, or even the health of the companies whose shares are being traded.

The other thing that always bothers me about the stock market's performance is that when a company lays off thousands of people, their stock goes up. To me, there is something wrong with a system that profits off of the ordinary working man's misfortunes.

Now that so many companies have gotten rid of their pension plans and are getting their employees into 401k's instead, investing in the stock market is no longer a real choice for many middle class people. They have to do it in order to save money for retirement. And saving that money in government securities or other low interest funds will never get them to the level of savings that will enable them to have as comfortable a retirement as they would have had with a pension, unless they invest in riskier funds, such as stocks.

In 401k's, we employees can't play the markets the way the rich do, selling short and performing various other clever maneuvers that I don't even understand. Our only option is to switch between funds, but we are always advised to remember we are in the market for the long haul, and not to move things around too much. But when you're nearing the magic age of retirement, you aren't in it for the long haul anymore. And that's when losses like this hurt.

So, we sit here and watch as our 401k's plummet and lose everything they've gained in the past year, all because of a bunch of rich gamblers who like to play in the stock market. Retirement now looks more and more like a vague dream rather than a future reality. Surely there must be a better way.

Moving on....


As many have already commented on Rove's departure from the Bush administration, I will be brief on the subject. This man was responsible for much of the small mindedness, the hostility, the partisanship, and general hatefulness of the political scene over the past generation. Here is a great article that details all of his dirty tricks over the past 35+ years. This is a man who started out with no integrity and went downhill from there.

The really scary part of the article is in the second-to-last paragraph, where it mentions that "Rove and his wife have built a house in the Florida Panhandle -- the "Republican Riviera" -- and that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will be 59 in 2012, a ripe age for a run for the White House."

Oh My God. Not that. Rove helping another Bush get into the White House would be more than I could take.