Pullin' on the Sweater

If you want to destroy my sweater

Hold this thread as I walk away

Watch me unravel, I'll soon be naked

Lying on the floor

I've come undone

    - Weezer

Class, your assignment is to first read:  World Markets Plunge on Crisis Fears.

Then compare:  "The USA is taking its hits now, but you people haven't even begun pulling on the sweater.  Europe's got the same toxic debt as here.  China is rapidly losing its (one way) trading partner.  Oil prices will follow demand downward hurting those sympathetic Middle Eastern sheiks and rabble rousers.  Third world nations won't be getting aid."  - Oct 1, 2008

Now answer:  Who was the brilliant & accomplished, no doubt Ivy-league educated, economist who predicted today's headline?  Yep, me. Except Clarkson is ECAC league and I was a C+ engineering student, currently living a B- life.

I bring this up not to toot my own horn so much as to ask why we're not hearing more about the causes, remedies, and ramifications (of, for, and from respectively) this meltdown.

Instead, we hear silence or BS from politicians and news media alike; fundamentally unserious people.  C',mon Phil!  You're just towing the "liberal media" line.  Sorry, this isn't about liberal vs. conservative.  This is honesty vs. deception.  And most of the people above are deceiving themselves first.

Case in point, instead of leveling with the public about dishonest borrowers and deceptive lenders, we get this tripe:

"[$700 billion] is a number that is staggering, but tells us only the costs of the Bush Administration's failed economic policies—policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system.

"Democrats believe in the free market, which can and does create jobs, wealth, and capital, but left to its own devices it has created chaos."  ...so we opposed reform at every turn.

or this:

For years, Republicans warned of this danger and advocated reform of these government-sponsored enterprises. And for years such reforms were thwarted by legislators with deep political ties to the worst offenders, putting the companies' interests ahead of the interests of our country."   ...so we did nothing about it.

All it takes to understand the situation is a smart 5th grader and a set of dominoes.  The US economy has already started to melt.  But the rest of the world is coming with us for the ride. Europe, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, all depend on American largesse and political cover for their own niggardly, dishonest, and self-serving behavior.  Now they'll depend on us figuring out a plan to follow.  Criticizing the US all the while. 

Oh, I forgot.  We've got GWB, San Fran Nan, Barney the gay Dinosaur, Sister Sarah, Katie Olbermann Limbaugh, and the rest.

Back to Wheezer:

Oh no

It go

It gone

Bye-bye

Who I

I think

I sink

And I die