THE LAST AMERICAN CHRISTMAS

Stock Market run-ups of recent seem suspiciously certain to garner much coveted year-end bonuses for the desperate soldiers of financial fraudulence as the Federal Reserve stands poised to ante-up a rate cut dispelling any real concern for Uncle Sam's greenback as the mangled credit-driven Last American Christmas waits with the ghost of Norman Rockwell in the darkness on the edge of town-- The dollar continues to lead with its chin absorbing the multiple punches world-wide disrespect delivers in such harshly unsentimental combinations while the unfeasible canards of the White House Plan to rescue the downtrodden victims of sub-prime mortgage finance-fraud give off the Clintonesque stench of just another artless photo-op--

Suspect numbers from government agencies, economic houses and statistical organizations paint a truly astounding picture of an economy firing on all cylinders except for the multiple millions of homeowners caught in the crossfire of home foreclosure and seriously ramped up costs of necessities like oil and food-- The multiple hundreds of thousands of construction workers no longer needed to over-build unwanted and unneeded houses-- Obviously minor glitches in the economic utopia Nafta was going to bestow upon the average american worker once the steel mills and textile mills were all outsourced-- Once the unions were devolved into the smoking ruins of an anachronistic labor movement-- Once Glass-Steagall was repealed by the good Clinton folks who after once being endorsed by the likes of Pete Seeger, sold out his own friends and family, his own party,the american worker, and the entire republic to international financiers with abhorrent criminal intent--

As the dollar staggers under the weight of unflinching insolvency and import costs rise for the lowly wage-earner, the numbers fantasia out of DC and Wall Street point to US exports as the new fictive engine that will drive us out of the potential grips of depression, recession, or retread stagflation-- Hollywood DVDs, dreamwork CD's and computer software will save the day and, voila!!, the US will regain its manufacturing and economic supremacy and the respect that engenders overnight-- The price of oil will fall of its own generosity and the discovery of mega-new supplies will segue into Ray Charles' version of 'Oh beautiful.....'-- Yeah, that'll work-- The collaborative media will make it work-- Build it with cyber-dollars and they will come--

BOMBSHELLs

Whoa!!! The National Intelligence Estimate now claims Iran stopped working on atomic weapons programs in 2003-- Pardon me, but its almost 2008-- Did it actually take that long to discover??-- The UN today claims the US report actually vindicated Iran and Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs and everyone else with any skin in this game save Israel which, seemingly craving its addiction to the formation of extant existential enemies everywhere, denounced the estimate as somewhere between fraudulence and science fiction-- The Neocons, hyperbole aside, are aghast with the suddenness of the report's release and what the ramifications will do to the PNAC delusion of reclaiming the moral high ground by bombing Iran--

Is this actually Mr. Bush caving into the demoralization of obvious defeat in Iraq and signaling to the world that bombing Iran is no longer a non-criminal pre-emptive option??-- Last week the administration quietly acknowledged that passage of the much-delayed oil bill shrewdly quagmired in the intransigent Iraqi parliament by, unlike our astute and mega-competent legislators, inept and unskilled political rubes who could not see the private personal benefits to the abject selling out of its own people, would no longer be official US strategery nor would re-re-unification of the country and its seriously war weary denizens-- No new strategery was announced in the DC environs to take the place of these cast-off primary objectives--

What seems to be the latest US rationale for continuing its dynamically losing propositions there??-- Turkey continues to rattle its sabers at the increasingly independent and defiant Kurds who still claim squatters' rights to the oil reserves below its territorial imperatives-- Is Kurdistan a de facto state now that Iraqi unification merits such newly emblazoned disrespect of suddenly admissible real politik??-- Calming the Turks military probes of Kurdish PKK positions in order to prevent world oil prices from ratcheting further skyward appears to have been a very taxing effort on the part of the Bush administration-- Has it drained so much wind from the US foreign policy sails that the Neocon boys are absolutely bereft of any inventive rationale for remaining in Iraq??-- What is the primary objective......now!!???-- What is the raison detre????--

Another body blow-- OPEC just announced that it would NOT increase oil production thereby not allowing oil prices to fall further as the original rumor must have intended-- Most idiots could see that increasing production (if, and it is a big IF, OPEC is physically capable of increasing oil production at all) would only serve to devalue a commodity already suffering from the diminished dollar-- Oil prices dropped over the last two weeks anticipating the production increase which now won't happen-- Was it ever going to happen??-- Not much chagrin across the oil blogosphere at the OPEC announcement suggests few if any took the rumor seriously except for its manipulative value which quite obviously carries a heavy-sour magnitude-- Shorts made their profit and now its the longs turn-- T Boone Pickens' prediction of $100/barrel before year's end may still be validated--

If OPEC member states find hoarding their oil to be a more practical (and most certainly profitable)option, in deference to local politics, then oil prices cannot fail in their march upward-- US consumers can only lament the continued devaluation of their buying power-- A carton of 18 eggs has almost doubled in the last 6 months but that continues to be excluded from the eccentric calibrations used to conjure up phony CPI ratios thereby elevating the canard of no inflation to mythical proportions-- Reports abound of commuters putting anywhere from $30 to $60 worth of gasoline into their vehicles every other day--The housing sector sits immobilized as prices continue to drop but, hey, the administration readies a plan for a scenario it can't even comprehend much less abate-- Cheese sandwiches have devolved into Peanut Butter on day old bread-- No jam!!--

Onlyyyyyyy........20-more-water-logged-shopp..........ing days until Christmas but my wish remains unchanged-- A sunny day!!!!!

GRATITUDE

Gratitude for their service apparently does not apply to dozens if not hundreds of seriously wounded Iraq war veterans whose life-threatening and disabling wounds effectively ended their tour of duty before they could fulfill the entire time requirement stated in their enlistment contract-- Now being strictly and magnanimously enforced by pentagon desk-jockey-warriors a world away from the heat and dust and the whir of zinging lead sizzling with the intense internecine murder, robbery and assault still so rampant in Iraq, wounded veterans are now required to pony-up pro-rata portions of their enlistment bonuses because their wounds prevent them from ongoing service-- Uncle Sam wants, in an unbelievably miserly manner, our crippled soldiers to pay .........way above and beyond--

A little story below the fold of the International Herald Tribune posits that the Bush boys are scrapping major political strategeries that once formed the basis of our post invasion rationale for staying in Iraq-- Curtailing hopes for passing and enacting the egalitarian oil bill ( where disparate Iraqi groups would divide 7% of the oil left after US oil firms co-opted 93% of the country's total oil reserves) that has meandered the quicksand corridors of the Green Zone Iraq Parliament for longer than anyone cares to total-- Gone also is the forlorn and faux hope of unifying or re-unifying, as the case may be, Iraq with its people-- Certainly, proceeds from the failed plan to secure oil resources under American ownership and command will not be used now to finance the long term debt incurred by this Neocon rush to the cakewalk of utter defeat nor will it honor its enlistment promises made to America's best and most idealistic, those crippled enlistees ....... it's heart and soul--

Megalomaniacal but inestimably shrewd Pakistani Prez Musharrif appears to be tamping down the more incendiary ramifications of his dictatorial emergency but the further potential for mega-unravelling in this most recalcitrant of regions stands as a paramount antidote to the more jaundiced but no less delusional piffle with which American punditry finds no lack of misplaced hubris or supine willingness to impregnate our faltering foreign policy-- Yeah, like we are in control of the world,.....dude!!-- One of our staunchest allies in the War on terror turns out to be an overt enemy of Freedom and Democracy but will feign support for the Neocon misadventure if the price is right-- Another deleterious side-effect of the falling dollar means various precariously empowered dictators can't be as readily nor as inexpensively purchased-- The world just keeps getting bigger while our influence like a locomotive losing its steam diminishes greatly--

GREENBACK BLUES:THE ROAD TO HOOVERVILLE

The money is falling apart and everyone knows it-- Only the serial denial of professional optimism finds nerve enough to disavow the obvious-- Bernanke's own handwriting is on the wall-- He's expecting a serious slowdown but apparently not yet capable of seeing how seriously slow some current elements of the economy have already become-- Must be difficult for an official Fed Chairman tasked by reality into becoming point man for a incipient mega-recession-- Lowering interest rates continues to lacerate the crumbling greenback as millions of Americans expelled from their dreams by rampant foreclosure trudge this epoch's road to Hooverville-- Sub-prime credit card crises and sub-prime auto loans troublingly spectre the gloom riddled path-- Even stalwart economists of the faux positive school have begun to shed their ideological rosy scenarios-- Something is happening here and we all know what it is, don't we, Mr. Jones??--

The cautiously worried Saudis have shot down an Iranian and Venezuelan proposal to consider accepting world currencies that, unlike the US dollar, maintain a stable value in exchange for their perilously precious oil commodities-- The Saudi's reaction against the proposal clearly posits how dangerous but delicate the dollar's standing in the world economy has become-- The Saudi minister ward his OPEC cabalists that even considering a currency switch, should the extant world get so much as a wisp of rumor surrounding such consideration, might be enough to topple the dollar into complete collapse-- Open microphones accidentally carried the meeting live to a group of world journalists ensconced in another room essentially making the world privy to OPEC's paranoia as well as their rather sound, from a purely business point of view, and necessary discussion--

Oil has fallen recently but can't seem to stay put-- Saudi Arabia/OPEC have unfoolishly and categorically renounced production increases even as worldwide demand may intermittently slow--Being paid for product with diminishing currency obviously devalues profits as well as cheapens a sought after commodity-- There is less incentive to increase production if prices fall as the result-- The Kurds will probably not relinquish their oil reserves without a fight while the Turks are more than capable of destabilizing oil supply issues of the entire region should they deem military adventure-ism in their immediate interests-- Oil as a paramount world interest/vital necessity is never going away while production rates in oil sectors beyond the strife torn Middle East continue to lose production and export capability-- The most bizarre aspect of the current Oil Troubles is that those contending for the Oval Office don't seem overly interested in addressing the problem while concurrently displaying a lack of depth in even being aware of the problem's extant parameters-- What can any of them do???--

More of the same today as stocks plummet, oil rises and dollars die another death by a thousand cuts while mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie admit to stunning losses in the billion dollar plural range all but throwing in the towel of despair-- The red-ink nightmare devours the greedy banker in his own game and the finance/service economy dons an undeniably threadbare stance of febrile indecision followed by a fatuously optimistic pronouncement that only leads to more gloom and a seriously downgraded confidence in the leadership of the government and that of Wall Street on the part of the American people-- Self reliance??-- The US??-- Where......??-- Who.....??-- Bail-outs, yeah......now we're talking!!--

One week the Bush crew is ready to nuke Iran and the next holds high level security discussions on how Iran might rescue the failed mission in Iraq-- Who woulda thunk it??--American influence in the world holds about as much sway as our dollar and now our military capability of taking over (yeah, right! .....and Surgically, too) and providing effective security for any Middle East oil reserves is fraught with doubt and disbelief-- Any attack of Iran whether by the US or it's client-rogue-state Israel would unleash potentially debilitating attacks against Saudi oil installations as well as shipping lanes and platforms throughout the Persian Gulf not to mention upgraded missile technology Hezbollah would not shrink from launching into downtown Tel Aviv should such a stupid occasion warrant--

Western Europe despite having the strongest currency in the world appears not too comfortable with its ascendant position in the world-- Consumer confidence in Germany has not plunged as dramatically as their American counterparts but discontent does roil the surface-- Belgium cannot decide whether or what kind of government it could, should or would like to have as the ignorance of one esteemed pundit asked the world whether Belgium was even worth saving-- American pundits absolutely glued to the edge of their existential hubris waiting for the next absolutely crucial installment(third or fourth??) of gun-shy Hillary's difficulty in deciding whether illegals should earn driver's licenses or not and how it might play in Peoria, Iowa, (yes, hold that pedantic correction, the famous Peoria is not in Iowa, but it may as well be given the over micro management of calculatingly nuanced and vapidly chimerical real political stances have become these days) managed to miss Belgium's existential question altogether-- France is another case enmeshed in wanton self-destruction -- Sarkosy was obviously brought to power to destroy French unions, socialized agriculture, and liberal education but transportation workers struck the heart of France's industrial and economic output and have now been joined by several other unions--Into the valley of financial despair rode the French future with the ideologue Sarkosy shouting corporate defiance at his own people-- Rumors have it he might have told French workers to 'Bring it on!!!!--

Tomorrow a litany of more foreclosure, economic worry, football and obesity-- Let's be thankful to the credit card companies that enabled the gluttony for so long and now drives us up to the sign that reads--The Road To Hooverville-- From here though it is anyone's guess but most of us will be walking that old ribbon of highway-- Give thanks, indeed--

FIRE BITES

Once again the expert economists failed to gauge the depth of how far and fast existing home sales fell in September-- No small discrepancy this doubling of negative numbers-- Originally reported August numbers were revised downward in a big way-- Wait until canceled contracts get figured into the mix-- What the experts are loathe to mention is that the losses surrounding the hissing leak of the real estate balloon are much graver and more far reaching than, say, recent stock market declines-- Aside from the headliner victims of this financial fiasco, the lenders, the bankers, the mega-builders and their immigrant laborers, the American family looks to be a major loser in this Faustian bargain but unable to muster an advertising account with conglomerate media concerns, their considerable struggle to stay solvent rarely merits attention--

Predictions vary from the lowball White House numbers of 500,000 predicted foreclosures on sub-prime mortgaged houses to a whopping 2,000,000 million indicated by a bi-partisan congressional group-- Estimates predict over a $100/billion in lost wealth from these sub-primers alone-- State and local governments, including fire-bitten California, Florida, Michigan and Ohio, will see their coffers deprived of estimated $900/million in lost property taxes as a result-- Pension funds find themselves suddenly in hock to zillions of worthless sub-prime backed securities-- There is no economic news around the bend sufficiently forceful enough to stem the falling prices of homes people can no longer afford-- Currently 2 million more home loans wait for interest rates to be reset....obviously, upward-- Gasoline onto an already raging fire-- The US dollar doomed!!!-- Pray for strength because no easy life awaits--

Meanwhile Mr. Bush continues his robust mumblings of World War III-- Slip of the tongue, no doubt!!!-- As if that were a solution-- His puppet-master Cheney intoning everywhere that Iran is the impediment to peace in the Middle East is a motion even seconded by the protean Surging General Petraeus-- Israel, back from practicing air routes through Syrian air-space for a potential joint-strike against Iranian nuclear facilities turns the electrical power off in Gaza to drive the population away from its only defenders, Hamas-- Yeah, that'll work-- If the White House and its most loyal of rogue state-allies need a canard to attack Iran, whose GDP is all of 2% of the current Defense budget, why do these cretins fail to see the obvious??--

The fictive WMD's Sadam supposedly had are simply hidden in Iran with all manner of chimeric mushroom clouds-- John McCain and ever-unctious Joe Lieberman will tout this ploy far and wide on the Sunday political shows and pocketed administration frontmen like Michael Gordon, now flying solo after his tandem operative, the useful-idiot Judith Miller, fell from grace due to her scorched but missing-in-action journalistic-integrity, all oxymorons not aside, will festoon the faux discoveries front page on the magisterial NY Times and away we'll go into the wild blue.........yonder!!-- Spineless and lost, the angst-riven demies will goose-step into oblivion and take off their clothes for little bits of AIPAC chocolate-- Whitman heard America singing but the song of manifest destiny embodied by the gargantuan freeway now has one eye on the traffic and the other on the needle resting precariously on the red line of the fuel gauge-- Running on empty...........running hard!!!!--

Immediate repercussions to an attack on Iran may include $300/barrel oil prices but glossy spin can attribute conservation value to such anomalies and assert toil-worn homilies about the Castor-oil of depression making all of us, especially those still capable of oxygen intake, better-off in the long run-- The media, of course, super-bored by the criminality of the mis-adventure in Iraq, mostly ignorant of economic ramifications surrounding the housing market collapse, and fraught with the calcifugous ennui induced by the current abjectly myopic '08 presidential campaign, will be disappointed by the sudden faux war-footing being foisted upon them just as the voyeurism attendant public bathroom sex involving a closet Republican senator with the 'wide-stance' proclivity for undercover cops was getting so interesting-- Despite California aflame and Atlanta athirst, big Winter is on the way--

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THE BEN AND HENRY ACT II

Today's news ain't much better--Bernanke and Paulson, the Ben and Henry roadshow, again projected more worsening scenarios with extant woes enduring indefinitely for the problematic Housing sector-- Another building gauge, the US Architects index, pegged in at a fifteen month low adding to the surrounding gloom while Houston reported that it, indeed, did have a problem as slumping home sales continued to spread-- US housing starts plunged to a low not seen since 1993 while consumer prices took a bigger bite out of the anorexic dollars or the extended lines of credit they now bring home from the workplace in lieu of real wages--

Crude oil knocked on the door of $89/barrel before slightly backtracking but overconfidence did not greet T Boone Pickens' prediction of a 'dicey' fourth quarter with oil benchmarks topping the old $100 per....-- Basic supply running roughly 3 million barrels/day shy of perpetually rising world demand-- Home heating oil taps a record high and stunted auto production wears its slumpy coveralls-- On the way down coasters pick up speed--


Desire satisfied only increases the voracity of appetite as the world continues in almost unremarkable fashion to devour its seed corn-- Quaffing the lifeblood of the 'system' as if 400 afternoon colas would not count as calories and would certainly never be missed from the company's pantry-- The Self-Reliance once embedded in the American character appears to belong to a lost order or a vanished epoch-- The automobile drives us acquiescently ever onward to a fate the parameters of which no inkling, as of yet, ignites a cogent response of collective will-- The gears begin to grind--

Certainly China and Japan have not yet lost the will to act as they pulled the plug on the most US debt in five years-- The lipstick adorned US Treasuries no longer entice Asian financiers with the fanaticism that once mirrored the frenetic lust for Cabbage Patch Dolls found in overweight moms roller-derby-ing each other over the rails in big-box toy stores for a chance at the X-mas big-time-- Debt driven Christmas Smiles aside for the time being and maybe even the entire season as sovereign wealth funds seek higher returns beyond the US Treasuries' anemic dollar-- It is as if the US isn't as major a player in the game as he once thought-- Our Go pieces are already surrounded by self-inflicted debt riddled hubris everyone else is glaringly aware of except us--Spectators are leaving through the side gates and the back door when the fourth quarter has barely begun--

Meanwhile Mr Bush, foxier than a blind fox or a lame one, invites the Dalai Lama into the Oval Office to buff his bona fides and kiss his ring which infuriates our Chinese creditors who do have way more clout than his fuming clueless demie opposition whose ineptitude invites such erratic Bush eccentricity and dereliction without the substance or power to ever hold his feet to the fire of accountability-- Tweaking our creditors at such a financially perilous moment is irresponsible at best from a spoiled frat-boy never tasked by life to clean up his own mess-- The beat goes on

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GAME UP

Treasury Secretary Paulson at the end of his tether opted not to continue his ongoing full-scale dispute with the obvious as he warned anyone still listening to his pronouncements that the housing market/industry's unchecked collapse continues to adversely impact the economy, the capital markets and, of course, those myriad millions facing the nightmare of foreclosure and job loss-- Future economic growth is directly threatened and DC, our proud but imperiled political echelon, is worried big-time despite the farcical spin of Paulson's ubiquitously 'strong economic fundamentals'-- Mr. Secretary, excuse me, but oil futures, unnerved by Turkey/Kurdish rebel dust-up, rocketed through the $88/barrel watermark overnight not exactly fortifying economic fundaments globally-- The Paulson assessment appears proverbially a day late and a weak dollar short--

The Homebuilder Index drops to a record low in October and big homebuilder DR Horton's near 40% quarterly decline in home orders does not, frankly, echo strongly any positive economic signals-- Euro central bankers, seeking to salvage easy export profits, are pleading for Paulson intervention to resuscitate the unabashedly ghostly dollar-- Shoring up the dollar to grease the palms of Euro competition (or is that collaboration) would crimp the budgets of those borderline-solvent Americans, though scarcer they become, still in absentia from the rosters of delinquency-- Fed Prez Ben also weighed in today with the solemnly sober outlook that Housing troubles create a 'significant drag' on the economy-- Another late-comer to the obvious, he has, at least and at last, ceased championing his 'containment' canard that the sub-prime morass would not spread beyond the low rent speed-bump employed to fleece the naively poor--

Neither man, however, has abandoned political reticence to inform, officially, the large swathes of the American middle class they no longer have the requisite bona fides to meet roster requirements for inclusion to the group-- Excessive commuting costs have seriously crimped the discretionary income stratas of suburbia and now the end of the month number crunch leaves the harried and the hassled with a damoclean dilemma-- Risk foreclosure for not meeting the mortgage bill or risk perpetually indentured servitude from the usurious late fees for failing to oblige their credit card blood-suckers-- Truth is that no matter how much cheap money gets funneled into the economy through the banking system, cash or credit, it is losing its power to pay the bills and succeeds only in ratcheting up the indebtedness of everyone involved-- The piper exacts his payment even of those who mis-dreamed they were so exceptional as to be above the laws of economic karma-- Capitalism's artful practitioners elsewhere have maneuvered the US, still believing that 'it can't happen here', into that proverbial spot between the rock and the hard place but did so not without our indulgent and fatuous acquiescence-- And for that, the feast of consequence is undergoing preparation-- Game up!!!

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