DEATH CHASES US ALL AROUND: A CAROL FOR VOICES

Another Christmas come and gone-- The powerdown on most of the island is now up but many of the fellow travellers who endured the power disruption now say returning to full electrical power felt confusing and strange sort of like getting your sea legs again-- Asked point blank whether the cold and dark powerdown world of no heat no lights no water was actually the 'real' world, most agreed though some not without looking over their shoulder to see who might be within earshot-- Many averred the experience an eye-opening one and some said their situation led to a different view on Christmas itself becoming less obsessed by the commercial driven demand to shop til you drop-- Other Islanders embraced the adventure as a chance to test survival skills as well as reconnecting to long dormant friendships or certain local aspects of nature the electicity-driven entertainment world usually drowns out-- The swimming pool received more usage than usual-- All in all it could have been worse-- It could have been Iraq--

The greater Middle East is now home however temporarily to an estimated 2 million Iraqi refugees while another half million too poor to emigrate wander inside the confines of Iraq having abandoned their own homes in search for safe haven wherever they find it--One former teacher added his dejected voice to the Christmas choir thusly "I wish I could flee to any third world country and work in garbage collection rather than stay here and live like a frightened rat," Adel Mohammed Aziz, "We are all living in fear for our lives; death chases us all around."

According to the United Nations nearly forty thousand Iraqis leave every month-- Victory there is not around the corner for anybody-- "In areas where Sunnis are a majority, death squads attack in hundreds, taking advantage of curfews and using government police cars," says Sunni Mahmood Abdulla "When we defend ourselves and our homes, they shell us with mortars and Kaytousha missiles. All of this takes place under the eyes of Americans and Iraqi government officials." Um Rheem a young mother from the Shaab district joins the chorus, "We cannot go to work, cannot go to pray in our mosques, and cannot send our children to schools," adding "Many Sunni men have been killed by Shia death squads who have the full support of the government and Americans."

Still more testimony to their abject situation "We cannot open our shops for more than three to four hours a day," intones a carpet seller from Rasheed Street "Many of my colleagues have been abducted for ransom or killed for sectarian reasons on the way to work. We expect death every minute." -- This from a political analyst at Baghdad University "Resistance fighters are Iraqis who are trying to put an end to this vicious occupation" but it was the Americans who "ignited sectarian war so that they reduce the action of national resistance, but the result came to be the opposite, and they are being hit harder and more often."

This resembles a dirge rather than a carol but Americans are adding their voices to reigning confusion surrounding this disaster-- The problematical tactics of a fresh Surge occupy the political and mediasphere in DC in a disengenuous air-- Many news outlets have quoted many, quite a few of them anonymous, sources as to who and how many are in favor and those who are not in favor of injecting a surge of more troops into the house of carnage called Baghdad-- Robert Gates new Def. Sec told reporters he has asked General Casey to make specific recommendations on how to improve security in Iraq and to work with Iraqi military leaders to "put flesh on those bones" of a new security plan."-- Apparently we have a new security plan but barebones as they say void of muscle or definition but as proof more folks are coming around to the Surge "People are warming to the realization that some sort of surge is necessary," said another military official. Is this a strawman's quote?????--

Stop the Post!!!--A new story from the Christian Science Monitor with regard to the meeting held over the weekend at Camp David between Bush, Gates and Casey sheds differing light on the subject-- Casey appears to be open for more troops but refused to formally request them of Bush while Gates is portrayed a unready to play any of his cards yet--

Other military men not fearful of stating their positions include Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, "We would not surge without a purpose," Schoomaker said recently. "And that purpose should be measurable."

Gen. James T. Conway, the new commandant of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs, "We would fully support, I think, as the Joint Chiefs, the idea of putting more troops into Iraq if there is a solid military reason for doing that, if there is something to be gained," he said. "We do not believe that just adding numbers for the sake of adding numbers - just thickening the mix - is necessarily the way to go."

Further adding to the general hubbub Conway went on to warn that adding troops now might mean the military readiness to deploy future troublespots elsewhere in the world would be diminished, "You better make sure your timing is right because if you commit the reserve for something other than a decisive win or to stave off defeat, then you have essentially shot your bolt."

With bated breath the New Year awaits........!!!!

GHOST OF SHINSEKI

It is not surprising that Daddy Baker's ISG report is being shredded, vilified, savaged, lacerated, tarnished, decried, dismissed and detested seemingly by everyone with an agenda or a political candidacy offwing because for the most part it probably deserves it-- One factoid surfacing out the frenzied maelstrom of the blathersphere last week centered on the Green Zone fortress in Iraq where all the visiting fact-finding dignitaries both political and military(ret.) from the American Elite go to receive their briefings from the elegantly housed and fed US Ambassadorial staffers and their hardworking anonymous Iraqi servants(anonymous because some whose employment by the Americans should it become known even by their immediate family could result in death/dismemberment for many involved) -- Of all those visiting dignitaries only Chuck Robb ventured outside the Green Zone ostensibly to see just how insecure the streets of the real Baghdad really are-- Very few in the Baker Group and very few of those providing information to the group have actually seen the real boots on the ground Iraq-- Their testimony has to be considered suspect-- Their information tainted, incomplete and insufficient-- How far behind the real events befalling Iraq daily is their intel??-- And how exactly would they know it??--

With heavy hitters like Kissinger weighing in on the impossibility of military 'victory' it seems only natural that those imperial true-believer Neocons, who so ardently professed and predicted effortlessly easy military victory at the outset of what has become, despite the rigorous fantasm of denial, the greatest foreign policy debacle in the short history of this great nation, would rise in dispute of what must be a canard inspired by insufficient intelligence at best-- After all Doctor Kissengenuous as well as the Baker ilk and certainly including the feebly backboned US Congress led by demie milktoast Harry Reid, would most assuredly be averse to strolling Baghdad's Sadr City or, say, the boulevards of Anbar Province for a first hand assessment of the lack of security and lack of a genuine nation-state-- Why should anybody still believing in Hail Mary passes and miraculous intercession succumb to the notion of defeat even while being slapped in the face by it??--God knows none of the Neocons and their ardent supporters believed in the serious war-of-civilization rhetoric enough to risk anything very important like , say, enlisting their own sons or daughters for a little first hand danger in this wonderful think-tank crusade-- So why is the 'Victory' rhetoric any less delusional than that of the 'Defeatist'??--Since the intel that initiated this spectacular failure was 'fixed' as the Downing Street memo stated why is there any reason to believe any intel coming out of the Green Zone or DC proper??-- Careers are at stake here not truth even with a lower case 't'-- It seems like the 79-step Baker plan is competing now with dozens of other plans from well intentioned career-driven Beltway warriors whose current paradigm is incapable of reconnoitering the actual depth of chaos deeply embedded in the dust the rubble and the vicious violent anger now constantly engulfing the real terrain of this destroyed and murdered country--

So here comes Kagan and Kristol demanding many more American troops (the ones coming from other families and lower classes) to delay recognizing the defeat that has already occurred for at least the next two years under the aegis of 'victory' a strategery parlanced by the nakedly strange and wanting term....'Surge'....Just the verb or noun to confidently convey an ensured success-- The reason America is 'not winning' the war and 'not losing' the war is patently obvious to these erudite fantasists...We just haven't been surging enough---

The next Surger to the fore is not Kristol's Kagan but the emminent Frederick W. Kagan championing 50,000 additional troops and Kristol so enthralled by the plan fails to explicate for or from Frederick's 50,ooo man plan where these troops would deploy from or what exactly their mission so far undefined by nearly everyone certainly in DC-- Kristol demurs whether we even need to know what any of this posturing actually entails-- Trust us, they wink--

General Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff, your turn, the deadly neocon lecturn awaits... and we know you are not alone, Mr. Kristol/Kagan have informed us mightily-- "A few months ago, Army Maj. General Paul Eaton, who until his retirement had been in charge of building up the Iraqi Security Forces, told Senate Democrats (and all too obviously some republicans)what they didn't want to hear: that American force levels in Iraq were not nearly high enough, and that "we are, conservatively, 60,000 soldiers short."-- After Eaton Kristol/Kagan line up their big guns foremost the truly and completely unbiased Wall Street Journal which recently reported (italics, mine) "most military officers . . . seem to believe that a pullback of U.S. forces would only trigger more violence and make political compromise in the country impossible. These officers argue that 20,000 U.S. troops are needed to bring order to Baghdad. Another 10,000 U.S. soldiers would also be needed" presumably as, now indispensible to success, trainers and advisers to the Iraqi army. As the Journal reports, the officers "bristle at the idea that it is too hard or impossible." And now their most vainglorious attempt to rub the skeptics noses into their own defeatism the Kristol/Kagan duo trot out a comment not exactly buffing up their premise by ret. General Anthony Zinni an Iraq war opponent from the get-go and who was vilified as a traitor among other pejoratives by the neocon smear-squads when he stood up valiantly and demanded ret. Def Sec Rumsfeld resign due to abject incompetence-- His quote by the New York Times, "There is a premise that the Iraqis are not doing enough now, that there is a capability that they have not employed or used. I am not so sure they are capable of stopping sectarian violence." Splicing into this a later quote "it would make more sense to consider deploying additional American forces over the next six months to 'regain momentum' as part of a broader effort to stabilize Iraq that would create more jobs, foster political reconciliation and develop more effective Iraqi security forces."--

Nowhere in the the article do Kristol/kagan find an explicit defining of the mission or the tactics other than a less than resonant "regain momentum"-- When and where exactly did US effort lose this momentum??-- Was it lack of troops or did the resourceful and resilient nsurgency have something to do with it??-- Zinni, one would wager, would most likely agree that the troops who control the time and the terrain on which they do battle are the troops with the momentum--This backhanded slur against the incredible effort put forth by American troops so far given their impossible and undefined mission (for accuracy's sake the mission has been constantly defined and then redefined ad infinauseum ) is disgustingly deployed to expiate the Neocons impending realization of the guilt they must assume for their failure-- It can't be the neocons who caused all this-- The plan was ideal-- Cheney endorsed it and so did Blair and let's not forget Olmert and Netanyahu-- Rumsfeld can only be scapegoated for a short while longer--

Kristol/kagan spared us a presidential endorsement for Sen. McCain his off the blocks electoral posture calling for the ubiquitous 30,000 but again no defining mission-- Entering from offstage in this Shakespearean tragedy replete with its perfected art of dissembling comes the ghost of General Erik Shinseki to remind us of his soothsaying truth-- Occupation of Iraq would require 350,000 troops at a minimum-- This credo spoken to Bush's lackey congress was predicated, (reiterate, predicated) on keeping the Iraqi army intact-- The minute the army was disbanded the perfect neocon plan went dead in the water-- Shinseki knew then as he does today that with the Iraqi army disbanded 350,000 troops would never be nearly enough-- Now these duplicitously erudite careerist bastards want you to believe an extra 20, 30 or, 'oh wow', even 60,ooo troops will conjure a missing Christmas miracle--All these troop numbers are a complete charade-- Victory never has been right around the corner-- To send a surge of new troops into this hideously violent maelstrom would be to emulate the war criminality of disgraced Israeli politician Ehud Olmert who sent thousands of Israeli troops ill-trained and ill-equipped as well as ill-fed into Hezbollah's bunkered buzzsaw knowing full well a cease fire was in the pipeline and agreed upon already-- But he did it anyway primarily so he could posture he was cheated out of an imminent victory he was never really in range of by blaming the pacifists, or the Americans or whatever other scapegoat du jour these devolving hacks choose to employ-- Our tactics failed to stop the sectarian violence and now the strategeries want the Us to train the Iraqis to employe dour tactics???-- Common sense????--

Kristol/Kagan have saved their ultimate scapegoat (rightfully but not singly so) for last--

President Bush, on the other hand, wants to succeed, and he has staked
his presidency and his legacy for decades to come on the success of the
Iraq mission..... Now he needs to display a different kind of courage. He has to
take into his own hands the fate of Iraq and make his own decisions about what
needs to be done. ... he must also know that his advisers, both civilian and
military, have been failing him for the past three years. American policy, if it
is to have any hope of turning the tide, must change dramatically in the next
month or two. No one other than President Bush can make that change. No one other
than the president can insist on policies that would save Iraq now. It is up to
him to seize the moment. (At least, they appear to understand the urgency)

There it is in a nutshell-- The weak knee-ed military advisors have failed the President-- The cut and runners have failed the President-- The concerned reliable American citizenry has failed the President-- The underarmored underequipped and underappreciated troops have failed the President-- The neocon warriors esconced in their mahogany think-tanks are in danger of being failed by the President--The same President who lent his susceptible tin-ear to their deluded pipedream in the first place-- Here is more

That means the
president will have to be, much more than he has been, his own general and
strategist. He will have to decide on his own that incremental measures, such as
stepping up the pace of Iraqi training, will not make enough of a difference in a
short enough time to prevent a collapse of American policy and of Iraq itself.He
will have to decide, contrary to the advice of many of his top advisers,
that many more American troops need to be sent to Iraq, and as quickly as
possible.

George Bush is the only man who can save himself, America, Iraq and then render history's verdict a positive one for the Neocon Project of a New American Century-- George Bush must do this on his own????-- There is no one left for the Kristol/kagan tandem to trust-- He's the only non-defeatist still standing in the mahogany dream--The man who quit the Air National Guard before his duty was finished now must do his duty as well as everybody else's and pronto!!!-- He must become his 'own general'????... Pardon please Messers. Kristol/Kagan, but what kind of unadulterated (pardon the expression) horseshit is that??-- Will he turn on a dim dime and, say, emulate who....Grant?... Sherman?.... Patton?.... Rommel?.... Montgomery?..... Dare I mention Lee?... How about general Cheney???-- Bush must become his 'own strategerist'???-- Yeah, like that's a possible reality!!!-- What Bush must really save are Kristol/ Kagan et. al.-- He must save them from the truth...... with a capital 'T'--

Surge Time!!!.... ETA: Early 2007--All, Aboard!!!!!!

POWERDOWN

My sixth day without electrical power and another guster on the way-- The storm that ravaged Seattle and the greater Puget Sound with gusts of 75mph produced a record windgust along the Rocky Mountain Front in Montana of 164mph-- Great Falls settled for 85 mph blast-- But in the Puget Sound area no rhyme or reason puzzles folks whose power hasn't come back on while some nextdoor neighborhoods are up and running-- When I lived in Montana my power went down due to my landlady losing her job not making her mortgage payments or paying her electrical bill-- My apartment was upstairs from her main house so my power rode hers down as well-- It wound up being shut-off in early February and stayed down 21 days-- Cooking a chuckroast in the middle of my driveway in the middle of a blizzard on a little barbecue during the first three days of outage was somewhat fun and challenging like winter camping but after the fourth day any notion of civilization and its accrued softness simply disappeared-- Gallows humor saved the situation on many days replete with long hikes and serious soul searching but one thing that didn't improve the condition whatsoever was whining which I hear all too often today in the Puget Sound area-- Those who ran to motels that hadn't lost power now talk like they braved an Arctic adventure and their suffering is far above and beyond those who still don't have power-- Wake Up!!-- This could be a precursor to the future--

Nationwide electrical grids have been allowed to deteriorate to such a degree that several short years ago a tree felled a line in Ohio and the whole East Coast grid went down-- Sinking $2 billion per week into Iraq to degrade their already powered-down infrastructure while ours continues its decrepitude is truly perverse beyond surreal-- At least those suffering without power in the Puget Sound can walk down their city's street without having to dodge raw sewage-- People in what used to be called Iraq have been doing that for several years now-- The grubby mega-commerce that has bastardized Christmas doesn't seem quite so artificial this week as it did last-- Who cares what the hot doll or the top electronic whizzo is this year your friend might need a flashlight or an oil lamp or maybe a manual on how to build a fire or a new age seminar on how to sit in a cold and dark house for two or three hours at night without going crazy-- Prepare for the next shutdown now because next time it might be an earthquake not just a big wind and the roads may not be passible and the grocery stores may be cut off-- Or it may not be Mother Nature in an angry fury, there's enough economic gloom in and of itself to trigger a financial tempest-- Be of good cheer even if the headlines aren't.....

Florida second only to CA in foreclosures - SunSentinel (12/20/2006 9:05 AM)

Americans Visiting Europe Feel the Pain - AP (12/20/2006 9:55 AM)

The Mortgage Bust Goes On - Forbes (12/19/2006 9:09 PM)

Sharp Rise in Prices Shows Inflation Is Still a Threat - NY Times (12/20/2006

DADDY BAKER AND THE BOYS

Soon to be new Sec Def Robert Gates at the softball Senate confirmation hearings testified that the US was 'not winning' in Iraq-- He alsoooo testified the US was 'not losing' in Iraq-- Not one of the Senate committee members inquired of Gates 'Who is winning?'-- Nor was there any inquiry as to 'who was losing?' most probably because the obvious answer was beyond dispute--Everyone is losing-- Some group will will itself to power militarily and politically and it will not be the US but the coming outcome will not usher in a triumph capable of altering that basic fact-- Discouraging as the Gates waffle appeared the irrefutable answer went unchallenged-- Everyone is losing...period!!!!!

The overstretched still underarmored American voluntary military is demoralized bored and weary of a tactically dysfunctional war; a strategically delusional hubric wrought in think-tank isolation by militarily and historically combat-challenged intellectuals cut off from the real world parameters of simple common sense; the deranged and endangered defense budget decimated by huge cost over-runs, outright fraudulence and the damning imposition of dollar valuations spiralling ever downward in profound disarray, and the potentially fatal souring of relations between the military brass (those tasked with executing the mission and burying the results) and their civilian overseers (those esconced in special provinces who cavalierly embark on the commitment of our forces with such a casual swagger...--paraphrase of Lt.General Ed Neubold,ret. who stood up!!)-- a two hundred year tradition frayed at the seams-- Good though Rumsfeld will depart he does not bear singular responsibility here -- Mr. Gates, the expediently spined Senators gave you free pass but you too should be afraid!!!!--

What both sides of our single-party politcal echelon in DC have miserably failed to grasp in their craven politcal posturing is that the grim situation in Iraq is beyond the control and influence even Daddy Baker's study group-- Another ThinkTank White-Paper writ by those whose success in the world owes nostalgically to those final-exam term-papers during their pull-an-all-nighter salad days in The Ivy League-- This 79-point proposal tells us more about our own paradigm than the tactical landscape of Iraq outside the Green Zone whose confines factually very few well intentioned American visitors ever venture beyond-- Dead-ender Neocons favoring bully ultimatums for Malicki to magically perform that which the Bushies themselves have failed to accomplish truly despise the 'New Realism' suddenly ascendant in DC and will attempt sabotage at every turn-- As if Malicki even has an army or a police force not infiltrated and embedded with militia insurgents gangsters spies and outright criminals of every sectarian stripe -- As if there is a huge population group called Iraqis who aren't sectarian first and who aren't opposed to the US occupation simply waiting for BushBlair success-- If we build them a democrazy they will come-- Hollywood fantasy truly dies hard in the dust of Iraq (Bruce Willis can't save it)and will die difficult in DC-- The Neocons will now fight to undermine the ISG in part so history will not denounce them as deluded bogeyman but in their own legend will laud them as visionary patriots robbed at the threshold of ultimate victory and in the final moments by weak-kneed moderate 'realists' and wussie demicrats -- The fractionalization of DC will continue more intently and unabated amidst the proud struts before the ubiquitous cameras of narcissism and the multiple plentitude of careering chiefs ephemerally minus enough indians of true support to effect meaningful change-- Following the fracturing comes the bitter finger-pointing-- It happens to championship football teams and signals incipient and ugly decline--

Bush and Blair at the newsconference!!! the Reviews are coming in and they are not pretty-- Mr Bush looked old and grey-- Bush appeared diminished and tired-- Bush's performance was depressing, petulant, truculent and irritatingly simplistic....surreally determined...lacked confidence.....-- The magisterial NYTimes called the ISG 'political cover' for Bush's failure in Iraq but implied Bush was too ignorant to accept it as if Daddy Baker try as he might with all his slick might has the power to save the situation-- Maybe at the minimalist least the iSG will prove more cover to the duplicitous media who goosestepped into Iraq right along side the neocons(though stationed in studios and think-tanks), who shied away from telling the plain truth most of them knew about ground zero in Iraq way before uncurious George ever got the word-- There is nothing pleasant about hearing the President of the United States even in the destitute failure of his own making being knifed to death by the same clowns who jumped on the falsely intelligenced bandwagon at the first outset of fire hoping to boost their careers by championing an 'easy' war--

The hubris of the Schlock and the Odd-- Bush looked resigned rather than angry that he would so brazenly be accused by a journalist of denying what was obvious to virtually everyone-- Yeah, right!!!!-- Real Journalists told the real truth from the real ground of Iraq but the echelon in finger-to-the-wind DC simply disdained hearing it-- Now all the johnny-come-lately dog-pilers arrive carrying their slings seeking career boosts at the stoning of our pathetic president and the ignominious denial of failure in Iraq-- Oh yeah!!!! Right On!!!! "It's bad in Iraq. Does that help?" Like the Insurgency the farther this goes the more inclusive grows the shame--

The organ grinder's monkey just as far removed from reality as Bushmusic Mr Blair was more conciliatory in accepting that things in Iraq were dire but quite enthusiastic as only he can be in his reading of the ISG paper, which he said contained a "strong way forward"-- like Mr Bush, incapable of admitting failure he outlined a necessity however unattainable for success in Iraq. "I think it is important now we concentrate on the elements that are necessary to make sure that we succeed because the consequences of failure are severe." A failure like the doomed duo's victory.....completely undefined-- Like judges at a figure skating event Blair scored press points on style--


The London Times' take on the IsG from its mahogany foxholes favored the robust over the real " War weariness presents a greater threat to America, and to its friends and allies, than do the hitmen of Baghdad’s blazing suburbs." Wow, then why are we there in the first place?-- If the hitmen aren't a threat???-- Baghdad's blazing 'burbs weren't even blazing before the George and Tony show arrived-- Various sects actually mingled without slaughter--"But a domestic political truce would do untold damage if it were bought at the cost of eroding international confidence in American steadfastness and, thus, in the reach of American power." Pardon me, but your verb tense is incorrect, 'international confidence in American steadfastness' has already eroded and it has done so at the great cost you beware-- The coalition of the willing is and has voted with its feet-- The American dollar has taken a drubbing in the results of this robust fiasco partly because Euro-steadfastness never made an appearance militarily or financially-- The proportionate price the Brits offered was far more bark than bite-- Mister Blair's blaring ranting incantations about the robust(there's that word of the blowhards again) contributions on the part of the Royal British Empire and the hallowed references to Churchillian nostalgia failed to instigate noticeable flinching on the part of the Fedayeen--

The Times of London worries 'the US political establishment is more interested in damage limitation than in a durably stable Iraq' rightfully dismissing the inane bureau-speak of the ISG-- The Times as nearly every media outlet refers to the people in Iraq as Iraqis first but contrary to popular delusion the great majority of the people refer to themselves first as Sunni, Shiite or Kurd first and Iraqi second third or fourth depending on tribal affiliation-- A durably stable Iraq currently is an oxymoron-- There is no 'Iraq'-- Even 'failed state' is stretching the term-- Combatively contested territory is way more accurate and could almost qualify tonally as DC-speak-- The inability of western power to understand this simple semantic clarification is one reason for it's ongoing failure-- Self adoration in the canard that bigger bloodlust and major panic would occur, as the Times sarcastically puts it, if "the merest hint that the US might take its toys home" exposes another logical flaw-- The Iraqi people are actually now at this very moment experiencing the rabid chaos we believe will happen without our 'essential'presence there and while it obviously isn't child's play they are the ones miraculously coping-- With or without our presence the indigenous people of the region will decide, they are the deciders not the contrived government now faking it in the Green Zone-- The Times' delusion that the west is in control enough to offer ultimatums to this hollow Iraqi Government or even to the shriekingly savage insurgency makes its criticism of the current political divide in DC moot--No one in the 'Iraqi" security forces will risk the certain death reserved for collaborators acting against their own sect/tribe/community--The benchmarks can't be met no matter how many ludicrous ultimatums they employ--This paradigm itself is not real-- Wake Up!!!!--The map is not the terrain and never has been-- Events are already beyond control even for the Daddy Baker group

TROUBLED DOLLARS

The Dollar has big valuation problems that aren't going away anytime soon but the twenty four hour news channels haven't much noticed gagging us and themselves over the latest chapter in OJ's sick saga-- These breathlessly smarmy gossip clowns haven't noticed the recent news pertaining to the banks either-- Europe's biggest bank, HSBC Holdings isn't just the largest bank in Euroville but the number three behemoth in the entire world tentacling business through an eighty-one country wide span and things are not going well--Business has slowed dramatically and guess who the instigator/culprit of this unwholesome backslide is??-- Or at least one of the main culprits??-- You guessed it the collapsing US Housing market-- The bank's investment arm has been hobbled by personal insolvency of a significantly high order of magnitude that is expected to continue sending the banks lending strategy to the sidelines for some serious cautionary R&R--Certainly the precarious US Housing position is not offering any resuscitative confidence-building to any financial institutions worldwide--

Likewise increased personal insolvencies in Euroworld won't buck up the battered homeowners in the US even if as Toll Brothers Inc., the largest U.S. builder of luxury homes, jumped into optimistic propaganda frenzy with a crescendo of waffling "We may be seeing a floor in some markets where deposits and traffic, although erratic from week to week, seem to be dancing on the bottom or slightly above." If your real estate broker layed that line on you would you believe that anything had hit the bottom of any barrel except maybe the credibility of the real estate industry's professional huckster of the week, Chief Executive Officer Robert Toll -- That Toll's net income in the three months ended Oct. 31 fell 44 percent to $173.8 million from $310.3 million, the Horsham, Pennsylvania-based builder said today in a statement. That the average home price was $710,000 in the quarter, up from $679,000 a year ago indicates it is mainly rich people buying new homes-- 2007 Forecast Fiscal 2007 earnings may drop as much as 62 percent, Toll said in the statement-- What he's really saying is a 60% drop in income has no further downward momentum in an industry occupying 25% of the nation's GDP-- It can't possibly get any worse-- Wow!!..... like that inspires confidence-- Since when is a 60% drop merely 'cooling'???-- Buckle your chinstrap and hope someone that rational didn't pack your parachute--

Planned U.S. layoffs rose 11 percent (totalling 76,773)in November from the previous month, led by a heavy round of job cuts in the automotive industry, an independent report showed on Tuesday-- Probably safe to say at least 75 thousand of those won't be looking to buy homes in the upward range of prices-- Hard hit in November, Ford sales fell 10% and the once Ford tough dropped into fourth place in the U.S. auto market--The sagging auto industry aside, employment slashing in the food, chemical, media and real estate sectors rose by more than 50 percent compared with 2005-- Haven't heard much from the recent winning-through-default demiCrats about economic issues except calls for a hike in the minimum wage which will obviously gall the bloated rich corporate titans that own both parties-- Backsliding into the 2008 primary season who wants to deal with real issues???-- Free face time on television from the mahogany perches of investigatory panels designed to increase personal name recognition nationwide and embarrass their rival fraternity-- It's beginning to look a lot like.....well certainly not Christmas in business as usual DC--

Late payments on subprime loans have surged, and the rosy scenario-ed Wall Street Journal Web site reported on Tuesday that economists don't expect major harm-- Why not???-- The 80,000 subprime borrowers (in any other era called high risk borrowers by rational creditors) who took out mortgages this year are behind on their payments. 80,000 delinquent 'homeowners' are scaring the hell out the the Euro banking community but The Wall Street journal????-- Not to worry we are too good or too big or both to fall-- ......Right!!!!

A record number of real estate foreclosures (17,782) have been filed in the Denver area in the first 11 months of 2006--Experts, there they are again, say other parts of the country that recently had hot real estate markets need only look to Denver to see what's in store for them but not to worry there either because some upscale neighborhoods are virtually untouched and those are the only folks that really matter-- Scams and fraud permeate the collapsing Housing sector countrywide with many 'uninitiated' homeowners being pilfered of their homes by foreclosure counselors who start their fraud by using the term " a not for profit institution'..... Still, today's foreclosure crisis hits a new record high in a different city/sector on a daily basis---

U.S. corporate bankruptcies are another trouble spot seeking refuge and not finding it-- Global Insight, a financial forecasting firm, predicts a 17% rise next year demolishing the good 2006 performance-- Metals, mining, and energy are sectors due the hammer and of course the entire real estate industry which endangers not just homebuilders but financial institutions and brokerages as well as regional banks whose top dogs now are practicing duck and cover exercises to escape the coming fallout-- Sort of a compounded interest-- The desks they are ducking under may be mahogany but its ability to withstand this danger is quite suspect-- Pressure from the curveballs the inverted yield curve is throwing still require the batter to stay in the batter's box-- Standard and Poor's predictions aren't exactly salutory-- Credit quality will deteriorate further and faster and the rise of the junk bond default rate will explain how and why they received such a moniker in the first place-- Currently the complacency embodied in 'It can't happen here!' insures that it will--Wake Up!!!!!

DOLLARS: DISSIPATION

The canard of indefatiguable Consumer Spending continues to make the rounds-- Praise for the resilient consumer who was once too ignorant to save money and is now too smart not to attempt to get something even Chinese schlock for his money by spending it as quickly as possible before it devalues itself like a runaway elevator cascading through once impenetrable floor supports-- Then again many wild spenders revered by the predatory credit card companies are doing just that....having used up all their accumulated home equity and cash.... breaking out the plastic-- Consumption used to be a disease-- Now its just an addiction-- Incoming!!!!...Break out the therapy--

Here is a paragraph sure to raise an eyebrow and is intended thus so please don't initiate a panic.....

Last week the U.S.
dollar was carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Against the Swiss franc,
euro, British pound, and Japanese yen, the dollar lost 3%, 2.2%, 2% and 1.8% of
its value respectively. To put those declines into perspective, in terms of the
euro the Dow Jones’s 60 point plus decline this week translates into the
equivalent of a 320 point decline when measured in euros. In fact, year to date
the Dow is only up by about 3.5% when priced in euro’s, compared to its 14.5 %
advance when measured in depreciating U.S. dollars. From its high in 2000, the
euro price of the Dow is down by over 27%. In terms of gold, the world’s only
legitimate money, the picture is even worse. Priced in gold the Dow is off
better than 50% from its 2000 peak, and actually down over 7% thus far this
year. So much for Wall Street’s phony rally!

It seems to be a stretch really to think the consumers being honored for their continuing compulsion are really spending so much so quickly because they are paying close attention to the realities of the diminishing dollar-- The Materialist addiction that demands this social pathology is not rational and therefore does not lend itself to moral suasion much less pertinent information-- If the dollar does collapse 40-50% in value over the course of the next two years the acute and enforced Withdrawal from this compelled consumption will not be pretty--

“A strong dollar is clearly in our nation’s best interest,” or so says Treasury Sec Paulson frenetically pursuing a weak dollar, and he who along with Fed Chairman Bernanke and a bevy of slightly lesser economic heavyweights some of whom bear obtuse fatheads to go with their sartorial splendor and elegant resumes intend to fly to China and cajole the Beiijing Elite into what amounts to a pure and simple bailout-- China is now our Creditor-- Our Loan Shark in chief-- Remember when Chrysler and Iaccoca sought a surrogate(via the US Post Office) guaranteed loan they approached the Feds in DC not China-- What Paulson fails to acknowledge(or pretends to) is that he and the rest of us now spend a good part of our day working for that Loan Shark-- His hard earned(presumeably) dollars go to pay the usurial interest on our Chinese financed trade deficit and our governmental debt(trillions) in part so those cannabalistic consumers mudwrestling each other in those frenzied shopping aisles for the latest holiday boffo gizmo can continue such self inflicted humiliation ostensibly until the sun goes out-- Paulson and Bernanke are not going to China wielding DC power-- They will arrive with hats in their hands-- They are going as a once behemoth world economic engine reduced to beggary-- an indebted conundrum suddenly without clothes and soon to be recognizably without face both economically and diplomatically -- Sometimes reality has to reflect important facts unvarnished and only by facing those facts can we begin to dig ourselves out of the hole we have dug for ourselves-- The Chinese are not to blame-- They are playing the capital game better than we are and American middlemen have sold our country's future for a quick and now diminishing buck-- Paulson should prepare for disappointment-- Negative History is quickening--

US Manufacturing sank sharply and unexpectedly in October. The ISM factory index fell below 50 portending outright contraction in a 12% slice of the Gross Domestic Pie--Economists had been expecting a rise-- Add, too, that Construction spending that fell further in October than the last five years largely reflective of a Housing Market in freefall-- There too the experts forecasting only a 0.4% fall had their expectations buffeted--Meanwhile in the Euro region manufacturing rose for the 17th consecutive month, its index coming in at 56%-- The dollar continued its relentless downslide against the euro after the report, weakening to $1.3335 at 4:29 P.m. in New York. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell 3 basis points to about 4.43 percent. The ISM report on the index of prices paid for raw materials showed a rise to 53.5, from 47 the month before. The knowledgeable experts forecast an inflationary friendly rise to only 49.8-- Serious discrepancies on the part of the know-everythings-- Afterall an 'ex' is a has been and a 'spurt' is just a drip under pressure--

This happens so often one is compelled to ask if any of the DC/ Wall Street crunchers get any of their numbers correct-- Touting rising stocks denominated in dollars without noting to the buyers that the true stock market values are actually based on the buying power of the dollar is just that......a giant con game-- shell game-- just keep those shells moving ...........as well as the shills-- The drubbing of the dollar will continue hopefully not unabated but then again.....What this will mean is higher prices/interest rates and falling home prices-- What we earn will be lower-- What we buy will be higher-- What we own will fill the fire sales-- Step right up!!!!

Ford sales slide 10% in November - Reuters (12/1/2006 11:24 AM)
Mortgage Bonds Hurt by Delinquencies, Housing Slump - Bloomberg (12/1/2006 8:30 AM)