Bush will not escape the karmic consequences of his actions. The die is cast.

The winds are howling and an economic Katrina is headed this way.

As the Fed drops dollars from helicopters to rescue Wall Street, the American empire - engulfed in greed, debt, war, racism and energy dependency - will crash and burn!

Bush has "Enroned" the USA.

Enron came apart in August and September and by December was done. Look for the same timetable and the same results except on a massive, empire-ending scale.

George Bush has a date with karma. His disgrace and our pain will be profound.

In the spring, both Paulson and Bernake said sub-prime was "contained".

Two things wrong with this. First, the problem is not just sub-prime. There is a whole other category called Alt-A,where the loans required no job, asset or income verification and the wave of froclosures on those will start in earnest in 2008.

Second, the problem was never "contained" and anyone with access to a computer and some blogs on housing knew it was not contained. In fact some of the blogs had been warning for over two years what was happening including the rampant fraud and speculation feeding the bubble.

So how could the two top economic policy makers in our country be so wrong?

There is another big problem. Both men estimated the problem was in the $50 to $100 billion range. This based on the assumption that about 2 million loans would default at a loss of about $20K per loan after the banks sold the houses and covered all the expenses assocaited with the foreclosures.

No one considered falling home prices and the totally unrealistic price increases over the last four years in some areas. The real cost of defaults will be closer to $100 - $200K per loan and the number of defaults will be 4 to 5 million.

This is a $500 Billion to $1 Trillion problem.

The horse is out of the barn and nothing the clueless economic and political leadership in this country tries will stop the Enronning of America.

Iraq doesn't seem to matter, but a deep recession (maybe depression) followed by a worthless dollar will finally shake the American people out of their seven year stuppor as the full realization and reality impacts the only thing that really matters - financial security.

Got Gold!

I agree that gold is not a good investment most of the time, but now, and for a while to come, one would do well to consider gold as a hedge against financial crisis and financial crisis is certain.

In spite of all the "workout" ideas and schemes by Wall Street, the housing bubble has exploded and along with it the credit market is frozen. On the ground, people are defaulting, housing prices are falling and loans are hard to find.

Just like Iraq, where people seem to pay more attention to the rhetoric than what happens on the ground, the options available to Professor Bernanke are limited. Cut rates and kill the dollar or raise rates and kill the economy.

In either case, the "Enroning" of America continues and the economic pain will be profound.

Gold will help preserve some of your assets until the time comes that it too becomes a bubble.

I started running Marathons in 1975. Ran 15 until 1987 including breaking 3 hours and qualifying and running Boston.

My life got busy and I didn't start running races again until last year when I turned 60. I did notice the change in the crowds especially the number and ability of women. When I completed the Houston Marathon in 1975 there were a couple of hundred finishers and maybe 4 women. Now more men than women finish and I think that is great. They have no impact on my performance, only my training and program impacts my performance.

For me, it has always been about me vs. me and how I do in my gender/age group. I think anyone who finishes a Marathon deserves admiration - even if they walk. Twenty-six point two is a long distance no matter how you cover it - even in a car.

So as a 62 year old who has run all my life, my take is to live and let live and celebrate your own successes and determination, which really has no impact on anyone else just as they have no impact on you.

How does an $80 per share book value translate to a $2 sale price? The FBI should look at Bear's books.

Sarah Palin is no energy expert and certainly not the world's foremost expert. Energy is a complex subject involving geology, infrastrucutre and geopolitics - most especially geopolitics.

The United States will NEVER be energy independent. This is a canard and I really hate to hear Obama saying it. It is just not practical. No amount of wind, solar, bio, drilling offshore, tar sands production, shale etc. etc. can replace the rougly 4 billion barrels of oil we import to keep the country moving.

Most of the alternatives touted are about electricity not liquid fuel and this is a liquid fuels problem. The fossil fuel solutions - drilling, tar sands, shale, coal-to-liquid - all face significant problems and limitations.

So the only short term answers are conservation and getting along with the rest of the world especially the Arab world.

Sarah and her drill baby drill cohorts are not inclined toward either and while she may know what a drill bit is (which does not qualify one as the world's foremeost energy expert), she is clueless about the real issues and doesn't have the temperment or intelligence to deal with them.

Watched Laffer on Bill Marr on Friday. He was nervous and obviously trying to rewrite history. He looks like he had some plastic surgery and hair transplants from when I watched him wrongly pontificating on Kudlow's show.

Bill jumped him early and he never recovered. He really looked pathetic.

The makeover business for these failures will be one of the few growth industries in our "Enroned" country.