And then we said to those who had the SKILLS to ‘do’ all the things that are done with those, “nothing sexy” things, “Hey, we don’t need your skills any more, you need ‘retraining’, or you can ‘retire’ as you are redundant anyhow. So, get with the program update your skills and go flip burgers.”

Golden parachutes?

No, we’ll just urge you to take the equity out of your home while we blow up a bubble.

And then, when jobs that pay decent wages are a thing of the past, and two incomes hardly cover what one used to, dear Leader sez, “They hate us for our freedom, so stick a finger in Osama’s eye! Go to the malls and celebrate, I want ya to spend, baby spend, like there is no tomorrow, that’s whut I want and that’s whut Gawd wants ya to do too.”

So, filled with pride, almost to the bursting point, the people went forth and did as they were bidden. They always do.

Its wunnerful, livin’ in ‘Murkuh, our leaders do all our thinkin’ for us, so we got nuthin’ to worry about. ‘Cuz they love us and our country and all its intitutions.

One way or another, I kinda feel sorry for everyone else, how ’bout you?

Unfortunately, the conversion to manufacturing is restrained by (among other things) the fact that much of our infrastructure has been sold of and carted away by Asian-rim and Eastern-European nations. Nothing sexy, just things like machine tools, cranes, mills, and so on.

Drove up the valley and back last weekend. Saw ONE candidate with party affiliation on their signs. All the others were name and office only. (At least one of those, Devin Nunes, is an incumbent R.) Can we say they really don’t want to be associated with their party?

Is nevah an appropriate exclamation when discussing economic ’situations’,
nor is, “dead in the water”.

Hope floats all boats.

It is permissible to remark that ‘they’ have yachts and ‘we’ have old, leaky rubber dinghys, but no mention must evah be made regarding the size of the swells.

Gee, I noticed the sky was very RED this morning.

I wonder what that means?

Happy sails to all.

We need to make the schools electronic, that is interactive, DVD’s instead of term papers. Provide quality movie making and editing equipment (which can be available to the community after hours), but teachers who purportedly learn to teach rather than learn their subject cannot be expected to share classroom teaching time with students. I’ll bet there isn’t a high school in the country where some fourteen year old doesn’t know more about computers than anyone on the faculty. Linux instead of Windows would be a good place to start and lots cheaper, but most high school teachers are not ready to teach computer programming at that level. Instead they create a variety of attention deficit disorders and drug the kids who protest the most.

Sounds like Grover Norquist’s dream of a government “small enough to drown in a bathtub” is coming to fruition

Maybe down the road, but right now it’s the possibility of a Market small enough to drown in a thimble which is terrifying.

BTW, one major problem in the stock market now is that there are no buyers of any size.

Pension funds and mutual fund managers aren’t going anywhere near stocks these days, kinda like you wouldn’t get into the water if you saw shark fins everywhere.

When they’re leveraged far beyond value and suddenly everybody wakes up and realizes the emperor has no value, then there aren’t any more ‘greater fools’.

Is this so there will not be anything available for a housing/foreclosure fix which is what is needed the most?

It’s probably to make the political point that we can’t govern ourselves and that we need the strong hand of a political system such as China (who will loan us a lot of money). If Republicans WANT China’s political system they should stick around a few decades and see how China evolves into a Liberal Western Democracy.

We have to solve our own problems and hope we have enough friends to help us. Of course, it would be better if Republicans didn’t get in the way.

Spend, baby, spend!

Therein lies our salvation.

Don’t allow these other minor, if noisy, distractions to unduly pessimize you.

Our economy is like religion. You gotta ‘believe’!

The ‘unseen hand’ needs a leg up. Do your part.

Note: The preceding SNARK is for entertainment porpoises only. All other porpoises are expected to wine and whale quite pitifully, but always with proper gravitas.