The Blood is not yet running in the streets, so, for the time being, there will be no end to the black cloud that has settled over the financial condition of the United States and most of the rest of the developed world. The storm clouds continue to hover overhead, and the Federal Reserve Chief, Ben Bernanke continues to do a reverse rain dance.
He will not be able to chase the clouds away on his own. He needs our help. He needs Rose's help. More later on Rose.
We have collectively made our beds, and now we have to lie in it.
It's been a swell party, one that started in 1984, and has lasted, with just a few small hangovers, since then.
This time it might be a perfect storm, one that has all the elements of making that bed we lie in one of nails.
Somewhere over the reality rainbow is the undenyible force and laws of the markets. Because we -- and I do mean "me" -- want to believe in Oz, we choose to ignore that the big picture has small scared men running things behind the curtain.
Ben Bernanke is trembling behind the curtain now. He needs to find courage, but I can't blame him if he is cowardly in the face of the gale force winds that are heading his way. One man cannot stop a storm that has been building for decades.
This weekend, when I was happily amusing myself to death, and enjoying every minute of it with my company and surroundings, the storm gathered up another front.
Friday, Ben Bernanke and JP Morgan came to the aid of Bear Stearns, a investment banking business. Bear Stearns was suffering a "bank run". Some bad investments had left Bear Stearns in dire straights. The Federal Reserve loaned money to Bear Sterans, and this morning JP Morgan purchased the remains, for pennies of what the business was worth just 11 months ago. Thousands will lose their jobs with Bear Stearns, no doubt. Little Ben is trying his best behind that curtain, as the Federal Reserve has not leant money to an investment bank since the Great Depression, since 1932. Normally, the Fed only loans money for 28 days to commercial banks. This morning, some of those late to the show, some residents of Oz, are saying that JP Morgan has "stolen" Bear Stearns, that it got the remains in a fire sale. Well, yes. Bear Stearns is worthless, except for its building in Manhattan. JP Morgan has a long history of bailing the United States out. JP Morgan himself had to underwrite the credit and and good standing of the United States Federal Government in the panic of 1907. So you might say we the people owed JP Morgan. We owe them again. JP Morgan will not find much to salvage in the wreck of what was once the 5th largest investment bank in the United States.
I've been reading a book lately. It's called "No Bed of Her Own", by Val Lewton. He's better known for noir films, but he wrote a hell of a book about a down and out typist, Rose Mahoney, who lived in Manhattan in the 1930s, and who was coping with the effects of the Great Depression. She was on a downward spiral, and was getting really close to joining the working girls on Second Avenue. I haven't finished the book yet, but I think she's going to find a personal rainbow and take a long break from the depression.
The rain is starting to fall from Wall Street to Main Street.
People are getting their 401k statements. They are some trying to sell their houses that are worth less each month.
The Three Little Piggies I wrote about last, Obama, Hillary and McCain are preaching that government will rush to our rescue, that if we hold steady to the way things have been for the last 70 years we will have another 70 years just like it.
I hope so. The alternative will be worse than Rose Mahoney faced.
Let's hope that the central bankers of the world and, more important, the people of the world who hold stock and investments, get up on the right side of the bed and take a walk down the sunny side of the street. Otherwise we will have a bloody hard rain and it will run through all the streets in the country before it is over.