Like any market, buyers come into the market, while sellers wholesale out a supply of paper investments. The need for these things is fairly constant; retirement funds, insurance companies, institutions have to put money to work, The supply of money is critical to share price appreciation, and growing the economy. When the money supply shrinks there is a problem.

The warnings sign were all around. Companies buying back their own stock? Warning sign. Borrowing money for share buyback programs. Double warning sign.

The Presidents Working Group, and the PPT, buying stocks, and index futures. Triple Alarm warning sign. Then Bernanke issued a statement about the lack of wage pressures, and that was the fourth horsemen of the economic apocalypse. No new wages, no new money.

Remember Greenspan speaking about the wealth effect, that the stock market provided? No longer did investors buy and hold, they traded stocks. The rules on registration were abolished, you could buy stocks on margin, brokerage houses ran pooled assets. They were doing the same things banks had done for years, take your deposit, and pay you interest, and then loan your money to business and homeowners, and charge interest. They just kicked it up a notch.

Brokerage houses were taking bond money, from little old ladies, and fixed income investments, and they pooled that money, trading the market through proprietary trading desks.

To cover their positions they bought huge derivative positions, usually selling the options. It is mostly suckers, and punters who buy options, the real pro's sell them for the premium. The margin requirement to sell an option naked is huge, but these brokerage houses have that kind of backup, thanks to these pooled assets, and they use it in ways that often run counter to your position, and the advice their analyst has given.

If the puts they sold are losing value, and the stock is going down, they can buy a few million shares to boost the value. All done right about expiration time. All done to inflict the greatest amount of pain on the option buyer. That is an axiom among options players.

Make no mistake having the Feds hold a net under them at crucial moments, like options expirations, has been a blessing for Wall Street.

Their company value increased faster than the value of the investment portfolio they helped you build. The MBS gambit was part of the hunt for assets, (which as they started to slow became more precious. Wall Street had bled the investors dry, and they needed fresh blood, and they figured out a way to get more of your money) which can be leveraged. The game was to buy shaky loans, repackage them in tranches, putting the most toxic to one side, and then submitting the package for a favorable bond rating, which is what determines how much leverage they could gain. Since these firms owned the rating agencies it wasn't a difficult problem.

Stuff happens, and the market took a serious dive, below 8000, as the recession and 9/11 converged. It was barely a bear market when Greenspan lowered interest rates, which enhanced the supply of money. Then Bush put some fiscal spending in place, the war in Iraq, and we were off to the races.

Once more the supply of money, personal savings if you will, was tapped. There was no inflation, but if your house needed a new roof it was 15 thousand, not 15 hundred, and you had to take a refi. (The myth of spending the money on lavish living is a variation on the Reagan line about welfare queens who drive cadillacs).. Healtcare costs, and home repairs are what undid most people.

Now they have all our hard cash, and they want a promise of all of the money we might have saved for the next several generations. They are trying the rush to judgement to fool us into falling into a panic, and certainly a lot of people feel they have nothing to lose. Ask the residents of tent city, (Ontario, CA) if they care how much tax money the government spends? The governor of CA wants to sell bonds on future lottery earnings. The insanity will stop but only when the American people demand that it stop, and they have made their demands clear.

Any solution to the problem requires deleveraging of positions. Whether the government buys those positions, (foolish) of they force the unwinding, (painful) in the end there will be less money for Wall Street, but note carefully, that money will be worth more. It will buy you more of everything. Do you want what money you have to be worth more?

My serious question is what happens to football teams when their home stadium is damaged, their town town, their fan base, their practise schedule. Does Houston have to a chance this year? I'm just going on what happened to the Saints, and it seems to be happening again. Where's FEMA (Football Emergency Management Agency)

My less serious question is who do you think will score more TD's this week, Cromartie or LT?

Obviously Obama is too smart to let McCain rope-a-dope him the way Bush laid back on Gore in those debates. I am not going to vote for either man, but I know who won. McCain is a foreign policy hothead, who would start an unnecessary war if he follows his own advice. (That was a cute thing Obama did about the song)

Did McCain win, only if you live on Planet Bush, which is at the 25% percentile of inhabitable planets in the galaxy. If Obama does this well on foreign relations think how the other debates will go.