The New York police have decided not to allow Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit the site of the September 11 attacks. (Read it here).
Presidential candidates have climbed aboard the Outrage Express, calling the request “shockingly audacious” the State Department has called it “appalling,” and U.S. Jewish groups are apoplectic (the Iranian President has called for the destruction of Israel).
The shrillness of the outrage is easy to understand, but it seems too many of the most vocal are using the 9/11 tragedy to further their own agenda. There is something of a false note in the screaming. Nowhere have I read that Iran was involved in the 9/11 attacks. (Nor was Saddam Hussein, right everyone?)
Iran is of course developing a nuclear bomb and using client groups to create anguish around the world (we taught them well). Is Iran a state sponsor of terror? Probably.
But there might be some benefit if the world’s Muslims could see a Muslim leader laying wreathes at a site where Muslim extremists killed innocent U.S. citizens. What is the downside? A dubious moral imperative? The satisfaction of name calling?
Frankly, to deny the visit seems a bit petulant. We should accept another's acknowledgment of our grief. We might have been able to forge a propaganda tool out of the visit. As it is, the world’s Muslims will see once again that we scorn them.
As far as I know, belligerence has yet to prove effective in furthering national interest over the long term. It has not served us so well in the last 50 years, it does not seem to be serving Israel (though it is hard to know what would ameliorate that region’s toxic anger). Did it help in Northern Ireland? Depends on which Irishman you ask, but peace may have broken out.
Self-righteous indignation is powerful drink. Belligerence is the glass. The hangover is often quite brutal.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Fall announces
The laughter of girls lightens the trailer. I roll out at 5:30 still tired, the twins come in from the tipi at 6 a.m. It was cold last night, it was supposed to get down to 28 degrees. I wrapped the well pressure switch pipe in foam just before sundown.
Eggs and sausage and we’re a half-hour from leaving for school. Leave at 7:30, and we get there too early at 7:40. Leave 8 minutes later, and the trip takes 20 additional minutes, traffic snarled around the middle school, lattés and cell phones battling with kids in crosswalks for driver’s attention.
I prefer the early run.
Today Mike and I will lay down a foam/foil/foam sandwich on the top floor of the barn. Tomorrow tubes for radiant heat will go down, concrete comes on Monday. Insulation. Drywall. Three weeks for drywall, I have been told. We finally have a plan to get the corrugated steel siding on before the snow flies.
The trailer, after four months, is getting small. I don’t know how it will fare when temperatures drop to 10 degrees, five degrees, below zero degrees for a week or so, and don’t really want to find out what it’s like draining sewage and gray water tanks when ice forms in seconds, thawing the hose to refill the freshwater tank.
The race is on.
Eggs and sausage and we’re a half-hour from leaving for school. Leave at 7:30, and we get there too early at 7:40. Leave 8 minutes later, and the trip takes 20 additional minutes, traffic snarled around the middle school, lattés and cell phones battling with kids in crosswalks for driver’s attention.
I prefer the early run.
Today Mike and I will lay down a foam/foil/foam sandwich on the top floor of the barn. Tomorrow tubes for radiant heat will go down, concrete comes on Monday. Insulation. Drywall. Three weeks for drywall, I have been told. We finally have a plan to get the corrugated steel siding on before the snow flies.
The trailer, after four months, is getting small. I don’t know how it will fare when temperatures drop to 10 degrees, five degrees, below zero degrees for a week or so, and don’t really want to find out what it’s like draining sewage and gray water tanks when ice forms in seconds, thawing the hose to refill the freshwater tank.
The race is on.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Gunslingers
The problem I have always had with “private security contractors” in Iraq is that it’s hard to really know what they are. Actually, that’s wrong. What they are is obvious: they are mercenaries.
There is nothing wrong with that, now. Those of the “Have Gun, Will Travel” profession, Knights Errant, Ronin, have been around for thousands of years. It’s an honorable living. In fact, it’s a damn good living, and it should be, it’s a dangerous occupation. That does not dismiss the question of whether we should be buying their services.
The most recent (not the first) incident involving Blackwater USA (read it here) occurred when a “convoy of U.S. personnel protected by Blackwater security contractors came under small arms fire...” according to Time Magazine.
Apparently our State Department is the primary employer of this private army. It us unclear why our State Department is being protected by hired guns. Why isn’t our army the “gun” of first choice?
Why we would pay these soldiers of fortune hundreds of thousands of dollars per man per year when a sergeant in our military has to support his family with food stamps is unclear. I can only think of three obvious reasons: (1) Mercenaries are not bound by the same rules of war as our troops; (2) Someone is getting very rich; (3) Somebody doesn't want the rest of us to know what's going on.
The State Department is itself without much information, apparently. "(State Department spokesman Sean McCormack) had no information about any Iraqi laws Blackwater or its employees might be subject to, the chain of command its employees answer to, or details of the company's contract with the State Department..." according to the Associated Press (read it here).
The cluelessness extends to the Senate. "Having visited now 10 times in Iraq, most recently just two or three weeks ago, I know full well the dependence of that nation upon contractors — contractors who are trying to refurbish their seriously deteriorated oil production facilities, their power lines, their fresh water," said Sen. John Warner, R-Va. in the same article.
What an absurd statement. It indicates that Sen. Warner doesn't understand the difference between rebuilding power lines and protecting convoys with guns.
We used Afghanis as a surrogate force to defeat the Soviets, then left the country awash in guns and fighting know-how, until the Taliban used those guns and that knowledge to protect bin Laden. Saddam was “our guy” until he decided that we had given him permission to take down Kuwait.
We can’t institute a “rule of law” in Iraq when we enforce it with mercenaries from South Carolina with tribal loyalty to each other first and their corporation second. How do we tell the Mehdi army to put down their guns and pledge allegiance to Iraq when private corporations from the U.S. speed through their neighborhoods in Suburbans with blacked out windows and shoot their civilians in the street?
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq spoke of the courage and capability of Blackwater personnel. Of course. They were trained as SEALS and Green Berets and Airborne. They are the best fighters (retired) we could train and develop. No one doubts their courage or capability.
The doubt is whether the United States should out source our shooting.
There is nothing wrong with that, now. Those of the “Have Gun, Will Travel” profession, Knights Errant, Ronin, have been around for thousands of years. It’s an honorable living. In fact, it’s a damn good living, and it should be, it’s a dangerous occupation. That does not dismiss the question of whether we should be buying their services.
The most recent (not the first) incident involving Blackwater USA (read it here) occurred when a “convoy of U.S. personnel protected by Blackwater security contractors came under small arms fire...” according to Time Magazine.
Apparently our State Department is the primary employer of this private army. It us unclear why our State Department is being protected by hired guns. Why isn’t our army the “gun” of first choice?
Why we would pay these soldiers of fortune hundreds of thousands of dollars per man per year when a sergeant in our military has to support his family with food stamps is unclear. I can only think of three obvious reasons: (1) Mercenaries are not bound by the same rules of war as our troops; (2) Someone is getting very rich; (3) Somebody doesn't want the rest of us to know what's going on.
The State Department is itself without much information, apparently. "(State Department spokesman Sean McCormack) had no information about any Iraqi laws Blackwater or its employees might be subject to, the chain of command its employees answer to, or details of the company's contract with the State Department..." according to the Associated Press (read it here).
The cluelessness extends to the Senate. "Having visited now 10 times in Iraq, most recently just two or three weeks ago, I know full well the dependence of that nation upon contractors — contractors who are trying to refurbish their seriously deteriorated oil production facilities, their power lines, their fresh water," said Sen. John Warner, R-Va. in the same article.
What an absurd statement. It indicates that Sen. Warner doesn't understand the difference between rebuilding power lines and protecting convoys with guns.
We used Afghanis as a surrogate force to defeat the Soviets, then left the country awash in guns and fighting know-how, until the Taliban used those guns and that knowledge to protect bin Laden. Saddam was “our guy” until he decided that we had given him permission to take down Kuwait.
We can’t institute a “rule of law” in Iraq when we enforce it with mercenaries from South Carolina with tribal loyalty to each other first and their corporation second. How do we tell the Mehdi army to put down their guns and pledge allegiance to Iraq when private corporations from the U.S. speed through their neighborhoods in Suburbans with blacked out windows and shoot their civilians in the street?
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq spoke of the courage and capability of Blackwater personnel. Of course. They were trained as SEALS and Green Berets and Airborne. They are the best fighters (retired) we could train and develop. No one doubts their courage or capability.
The doubt is whether the United States should out source our shooting.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Time machine
“The Razor’s Edge,” made in 1984 with Bill Murray, was an instant favorite when I first saw it. It caught, in a coarse net, my own hopes as a young man, what I sought in India, aspirations I thought were universal.
College in the late 60s was full of adventure. Alan Watts turned me from an engineer to a student of Zen, though I knew even then the contradiction in rigorous study, a tight fistful of water. When I got back from India the first time, it was 1974. All my friends were in medical school or studying polymeric memory at Cal Tech. I became a waiter.
This month, I ran across the movie again. I rented it. And then the original film version, made in 1946 with Tyrone Power. And then read the book, written by W. Somerset Maugham in 1944.
The movies are very different, abstractions of a tale about the ineffable, about society, about the church and about faith, about personal values, social values, religious values, about a search for enduring truth in an age when the trappings of success were as temporary as the weather. In their abstraction it is clear the movies try not to let authenticity obscure the veracity of the tale. Very different, the essence is the same.
The book was one of the best selling in the 20th century. I don’t remember if I had read the book before my trips to India, if it is buried in my library.
The title comes from the Katha-Upanishad: “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.”
Maugham offers gems of his own:
“Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.”
“I have come too late into a world too old.”
“The self ... is not part of the absolute, for the absolute, being infinite, can have no parts, but the absolute itself.”
There is no wisdom offered in this post. But young seekers should know that the path has been tread by countless sandals; returning seekers can remember with a smile: “In the present” can have its own memories.
College in the late 60s was full of adventure. Alan Watts turned me from an engineer to a student of Zen, though I knew even then the contradiction in rigorous study, a tight fistful of water. When I got back from India the first time, it was 1974. All my friends were in medical school or studying polymeric memory at Cal Tech. I became a waiter.
This month, I ran across the movie again. I rented it. And then the original film version, made in 1946 with Tyrone Power. And then read the book, written by W. Somerset Maugham in 1944.
The movies are very different, abstractions of a tale about the ineffable, about society, about the church and about faith, about personal values, social values, religious values, about a search for enduring truth in an age when the trappings of success were as temporary as the weather. In their abstraction it is clear the movies try not to let authenticity obscure the veracity of the tale. Very different, the essence is the same.
The book was one of the best selling in the 20th century. I don’t remember if I had read the book before my trips to India, if it is buried in my library.
The title comes from the Katha-Upanishad: “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.”
Maugham offers gems of his own:
“Art is triumphant when it can use convention as an instrument of its own purpose.”
“I have come too late into a world too old.”
“The self ... is not part of the absolute, for the absolute, being infinite, can have no parts, but the absolute itself.”
There is no wisdom offered in this post. But young seekers should know that the path has been tread by countless sandals; returning seekers can remember with a smile: “In the present” can have its own memories.
Monad
It’s nearly 7 a.m. now when the sun throws itself above the eastern horizon, an hour later than when I first started paying attention in June. It rises 15 degrees or so further south, too.
The geese are gone. Which started me off on a long, fruitless meander: Is a large flock of geese one being, or the summation of 1,000 beings, neither or both? How can something that large alter course so quickly; on the other, perhaps only as one organism can the flock so quickly change path.
Because we cannot see a physical connection, we assume separateness; perhaps the connections of communication, of information, are as binding as those of chemistry and physics.
Of what being are we? A point of isolation, an observer, a slightly self-aware exchangeable part of a larger being, a temporary and disposable cell point of family or of church or of community or of a business or of a society or of a culture.
Are we but a transitory nexus of different sets, of different languages that overlap in infinitely many ways, a vibratory micropoint set atwang by interconnections far away and unseen? I could be good with that, too.
The sun breaks over the horizon further to the south today and far later than in June. Fall is here, the geese are gone, there is work to do and here I sit pondering vacuous philosophies, Leibniz and Whitehead, Goedell, Escher and Bach.
The geese are gone. Which started me off on a long, fruitless meander: Is a large flock of geese one being, or the summation of 1,000 beings, neither or both? How can something that large alter course so quickly; on the other, perhaps only as one organism can the flock so quickly change path.
Because we cannot see a physical connection, we assume separateness; perhaps the connections of communication, of information, are as binding as those of chemistry and physics.
Of what being are we? A point of isolation, an observer, a slightly self-aware exchangeable part of a larger being, a temporary and disposable cell point of family or of church or of community or of a business or of a society or of a culture.
Are we but a transitory nexus of different sets, of different languages that overlap in infinitely many ways, a vibratory micropoint set atwang by interconnections far away and unseen? I could be good with that, too.
The sun breaks over the horizon further to the south today and far later than in June. Fall is here, the geese are gone, there is work to do and here I sit pondering vacuous philosophies, Leibniz and Whitehead, Goedell, Escher and Bach.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Bush and Vietnam
The irony is bitter and painful, just like the memories still haunting the Vietnam veterans who George Bush used to get reelected.
Warned that Iraq could become another Vietnam as they took us to war, Cheney/Bush denied it, after once admitting it. (See it here). Now that we may finally be hauling our boots out of this quagmire, Cheney/Bush says we should stay, or else this could become another Vietnam.
The president who ducked Vietnam, who brought us a replay of Vietnam, who said this was not Vietnam, now says we have to stay to keep Iraq from becoming Vietnam. After once preening under a banner that proclaimed "Mission Accomplished," after challenging religious Muslims to "Bring it ON!"
Outrageous. Amoral. Callous. The man should not be allowed to even say the word Vietnam to the people of this country. And those of you who still support this fool, you have another chance.
Oh people, the bills that have yet to be paid for this tragic mistake are not yet received. The loss of national treasure, national prestige, the coming home of the maimed and the broken and their care, the lost investments, the lost productivity: the debts will last at least another generation.
You want a war? This is a war. You want a hero? That writer, that soldier Sean, he is a hero.
Not the braying smarmy little jackass from Texas, the bantam cock Bush who failed at everything he undertook in his adult life, not this small man so indifferent that he has brought failure home by comparing his war of vengeance in Iraq to Vietnam, he has sullied the memory of those that served there then, he abuses the trust of those who serve in Iraq now.
God forgive him.
Warned that Iraq could become another Vietnam as they took us to war, Cheney/Bush denied it, after once admitting it. (See it here). Now that we may finally be hauling our boots out of this quagmire, Cheney/Bush says we should stay, or else this could become another Vietnam.
The president who ducked Vietnam, who brought us a replay of Vietnam, who said this was not Vietnam, now says we have to stay to keep Iraq from becoming Vietnam. After once preening under a banner that proclaimed "Mission Accomplished," after challenging religious Muslims to "Bring it ON!"
Outrageous. Amoral. Callous. The man should not be allowed to even say the word Vietnam to the people of this country. And those of you who still support this fool, you have another chance.
Oh people, the bills that have yet to be paid for this tragic mistake are not yet received. The loss of national treasure, national prestige, the coming home of the maimed and the broken and their care, the lost investments, the lost productivity: the debts will last at least another generation.
You want a war? This is a war. You want a hero? That writer, that soldier Sean, he is a hero.
Not the braying smarmy little jackass from Texas, the bantam cock Bush who failed at everything he undertook in his adult life, not this small man so indifferent that he has brought failure home by comparing his war of vengeance in Iraq to Vietnam, he has sullied the memory of those that served there then, he abuses the trust of those who serve in Iraq now.
God forgive him.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
bin Laden in Chitral
The other day I was giving a speech on context and chaos and was asked if I knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding. Since I didn’t have any facts, I just said yes, he is living in the town of Chitral in Northern Pakistan.
When asked how I could be so certain, I replied I had no reason to be certain, just that I had been to Chitral, and if I was bin Laden, that is where I would be.
Chitral is a small town near the border where Pakistan, Afghanistan and China meet. It sits in the shadow of Tirich Mir, a great peak in the Hindukush range of the western Himalayas. To get there by road, when passable, requires a two-day trip from Peshawar, because Pathan tribesmen will not offer safety to those who travel after sun down.
The Pathan of Pakistan’s Northern Territories are among the fiercest, most ethics-bound people anywhere on earth. Smugglers, opium growers, descendants of Ghengis Kahn, they are a people as hard as the mountains they call home. The Pathan code of hospitality is iron bound. If bin Laden is their guest, they will protect him with their lives.
It is an exquisitely beautiful valley, with a couple of inns, a river rushing over the granite boulders in deep canyons. Terraced fields bear local grain. The last leg of the trip from the lowlandsis on a jeep trail over a 10,000 foot mountain pass, easily seen by residents below. Helicopters find difficulty at the altitudes of these mountains, and the valleys are deep.
"If you know where he is, why doesn’t the government go in and get him," I was asked. Because bin Laden has more value as a bogey man than a corpse to the Bush/Cheney regime, I replied.
But now that Cheney/Bush has proven itself irrelevant when not outright catastrophic (“Bring it ON!”), that might change. The capture or killing of bin Laden may be the last hope this administration has to avert classification as the worst in U.S. history. It might even divert attention from the lending crisis. Watch the news.
When asked how I could be so certain, I replied I had no reason to be certain, just that I had been to Chitral, and if I was bin Laden, that is where I would be.
Chitral is a small town near the border where Pakistan, Afghanistan and China meet. It sits in the shadow of Tirich Mir, a great peak in the Hindukush range of the western Himalayas. To get there by road, when passable, requires a two-day trip from Peshawar, because Pathan tribesmen will not offer safety to those who travel after sun down.
The Pathan of Pakistan’s Northern Territories are among the fiercest, most ethics-bound people anywhere on earth. Smugglers, opium growers, descendants of Ghengis Kahn, they are a people as hard as the mountains they call home. The Pathan code of hospitality is iron bound. If bin Laden is their guest, they will protect him with their lives.
It is an exquisitely beautiful valley, with a couple of inns, a river rushing over the granite boulders in deep canyons. Terraced fields bear local grain. The last leg of the trip from the lowlandsis on a jeep trail over a 10,000 foot mountain pass, easily seen by residents below. Helicopters find difficulty at the altitudes of these mountains, and the valleys are deep.
"If you know where he is, why doesn’t the government go in and get him," I was asked. Because bin Laden has more value as a bogey man than a corpse to the Bush/Cheney regime, I replied.
But now that Cheney/Bush has proven itself irrelevant when not outright catastrophic (“Bring it ON!”), that might change. The capture or killing of bin Laden may be the last hope this administration has to avert classification as the worst in U.S. history. It might even divert attention from the lending crisis. Watch the news.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Heisenburg's geese
The pheasant has disappeared. At least from the brush pile past my bedroom window. I miss the hollow hooting call as he sought company.
He has been replaced by geese, hundreds and hundreds of geese. They fly over twice a day, in the rose gold of sky just before dawn and just after sundown. Formations of 10 or 20 or 50 just clear the short juniper and taller pines of my hilltop, I can tell whether it will be a large or small gaggle by the number of voices I hear before they even come into view, I hear the whistle of individual wings as they just clear my second story deck, I see even their eyes.
I don’t know where they go or where they come from. They sleep somewhere at night, they feed somewhere else during the day. They are quite regular, and for all that, quite mysterious.
Are the formations made up of the same birds day after day, or is there a randomness in the grouping? Is that group of four the same I saw, or is there a new mix wing to wing? The group that flies around that giant pine, is it the same group that did so yesterday, or are some of these birds the ones that yesterday flew just over the pheasant’s brush pile?
The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle applied to water fowl. I know that the geese will spill over my hilltop, but I don’t know where an individual bird will be in the flight. If I stop that bird, it will no longer be part of the flock. The wave in which it exists is a numerical prediction of position, not the description of a goose.
He has been replaced by geese, hundreds and hundreds of geese. They fly over twice a day, in the rose gold of sky just before dawn and just after sundown. Formations of 10 or 20 or 50 just clear the short juniper and taller pines of my hilltop, I can tell whether it will be a large or small gaggle by the number of voices I hear before they even come into view, I hear the whistle of individual wings as they just clear my second story deck, I see even their eyes.
I don’t know where they go or where they come from. They sleep somewhere at night, they feed somewhere else during the day. They are quite regular, and for all that, quite mysterious.
Are the formations made up of the same birds day after day, or is there a randomness in the grouping? Is that group of four the same I saw, or is there a new mix wing to wing? The group that flies around that giant pine, is it the same group that did so yesterday, or are some of these birds the ones that yesterday flew just over the pheasant’s brush pile?
The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle applied to water fowl. I know that the geese will spill over my hilltop, but I don’t know where an individual bird will be in the flight. If I stop that bird, it will no longer be part of the flock. The wave in which it exists is a numerical prediction of position, not the description of a goose.
Financial turbulance
Quite a week inn the international financial markets. And perhaps another interesting week to come.
It is quite extraordinary that the Fed pumped $62 billion into the financial system in two days: $24 billion on Thursday, and when that did not work, another $19 billion Friday morning, $16 billion a few hours later and then another $3 billion Friday afternoon. The Fed bolstered their action with words: They are ready to do what it takes to preserve the markets.
Not since the September 11 attacks on New York have we seen this kind of action. Think about the situation then, how we were feeling, and compare it to now. Do you hear strain in the voices?
Your writer is a dilettante when it comes to economics and finance. But I believe that the pros were glad this crisis came late in the week and there was weekend, a “time-out,” for everyone to to catch their breath. Now the focus is on next week, when a slew of financial data will be revealed.
My guess is that inflation numbers will come in worse than expected, though those are part of a rigged game. At some point, high oil prices have to be reflected in transportation costs. I know how much a tea pot costs at my local hardware store.
At some point, the fact that washers and dryers are made more cheaply in Korea will not be a moderator on prices here in Oregon. The loss of American jobs will not be adequate to offset higher prices, the new balance of production will be come the benchmark.
I think consumer confidence numbers will come in worse than forecast. At some point, we are going to realize that the value of our homes can go down as well as up. That the new washer and dryer is more than I can afford and I need to find a used unit. And by the way, I need to save for retirement, because social security is not secure.
The subprime situation is being given more credit than it deserves: like blaming the trigger for the noise of a gun. If, after all this liquidity has been pumped into the markets, things are still snarky, it will be the beginning of a purge. We have been living beyond our means. Time to pay the bill. At some point, retail sales should fall.
I think the Fed will be limited in what they can do, pinned between inflation (cost driven versus demand driven, therefore less amenable to easier credit, more in the control of offshore factors) and a slowdown driven by real world experience (higher prices, fewer assets, fewer jobs). Stagflation like we had in 1980.
Gonna be an interesting week.
It is quite extraordinary that the Fed pumped $62 billion into the financial system in two days: $24 billion on Thursday, and when that did not work, another $19 billion Friday morning, $16 billion a few hours later and then another $3 billion Friday afternoon. The Fed bolstered their action with words: They are ready to do what it takes to preserve the markets.
Not since the September 11 attacks on New York have we seen this kind of action. Think about the situation then, how we were feeling, and compare it to now. Do you hear strain in the voices?
Your writer is a dilettante when it comes to economics and finance. But I believe that the pros were glad this crisis came late in the week and there was weekend, a “time-out,” for everyone to to catch their breath. Now the focus is on next week, when a slew of financial data will be revealed.
My guess is that inflation numbers will come in worse than expected, though those are part of a rigged game. At some point, high oil prices have to be reflected in transportation costs. I know how much a tea pot costs at my local hardware store.
At some point, the fact that washers and dryers are made more cheaply in Korea will not be a moderator on prices here in Oregon. The loss of American jobs will not be adequate to offset higher prices, the new balance of production will be come the benchmark.
I think consumer confidence numbers will come in worse than forecast. At some point, we are going to realize that the value of our homes can go down as well as up. That the new washer and dryer is more than I can afford and I need to find a used unit. And by the way, I need to save for retirement, because social security is not secure.
The subprime situation is being given more credit than it deserves: like blaming the trigger for the noise of a gun. If, after all this liquidity has been pumped into the markets, things are still snarky, it will be the beginning of a purge. We have been living beyond our means. Time to pay the bill. At some point, retail sales should fall.
I think the Fed will be limited in what they can do, pinned between inflation (cost driven versus demand driven, therefore less amenable to easier credit, more in the control of offshore factors) and a slowdown driven by real world experience (higher prices, fewer assets, fewer jobs). Stagflation like we had in 1980.
Gonna be an interesting week.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Tougher times
The financial news is bleak at 5 a.m. this morning (read it here). Two to three percent drops in stock markets yesterday, it might be worse today. Central banks scrambling to squirt liquidity like grease into a system seizing up with fear. The man who wanted to buy our beach lot, he withdrew his offer. It would have solved the last issue in a divorce still high-centered on the rock of assets versus income.
Times are getting tougher, and they ain’t at their toughest yet.
It is always those closest to the edge who get sandpapered first. Carpenters, plumbers, waiters and waitresses, cooks and busboys. I don’t think this beast is going to be content gobbling a few small fry, though. This one feels like it’s hungry, the stock market bubble “correction” not enough.
This one is spreading like ebola around the world’s financial markets. It feels like it wants more than a few bond traders and househusbands who thought they could “flip” three houses like a pro and why worry. This one feels not so much of a market correction but more of a market driven comeuppance, punishment for our excesses.
Interesting times.
Times are getting tougher, and they ain’t at their toughest yet.
It is always those closest to the edge who get sandpapered first. Carpenters, plumbers, waiters and waitresses, cooks and busboys. I don’t think this beast is going to be content gobbling a few small fry, though. This one feels like it’s hungry, the stock market bubble “correction” not enough.
This one is spreading like ebola around the world’s financial markets. It feels like it wants more than a few bond traders and househusbands who thought they could “flip” three houses like a pro and why worry. This one feels not so much of a market correction but more of a market driven comeuppance, punishment for our excesses.
Interesting times.
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