They all went to Wall Street and stung the traders in retaliation for agribusiness's promotion of genetically modified crops that may kill insects. Why do I have a vision of a fat, poorly shaven, man in a bee costume?

Okay, seriously... Isn't this just a reaction to China's meltdown? Which is a reaction to our housing lending meltdown? Traditionally, we are used to being the leaders. The rest of the world could pretty much go to hell and we'd stand strong. I don't think that attitude will work now that we are so heavily indebted to the rest of the world. My gut tells me that at some point there will be a reckoning for living high on borrowed money. Maybe that's just my puritan streak... but it doesn't make sense that a nation can just borrow more and more money and never set up a payment plan to get itself out of debt.

I speculate that the problem is the vast amount of money washing in and out of markets, including the stock market, that is being used to speculate and not for actual purposeful investment. The rise of hedge funds and buy-out funds is based on the incredible amount of money hiding there. The NYT says maybe a couple of trillion just looking for a huge return.

Oh, please.

A bomb goes off in a place where bombs go off regularly and mayhem is a daily way of life.

Dick Cheney happens to be 'in the area.'

Hardly an 'assasination attempt,' and does anyone really think this relative non-event has any bearing on the market?

A good friend explained it to me as such:

The Market reacted to Shanghai and Europe Exchanges - but that was only part of it. Actually the Shanghai Market Closed Limit Down so the bleeding is not yet finished.

One month ago,the two most overvalued markets were Vietnam - 35% and Shanghai - Hong Kong H shares some 25% over valued. There was a run on stocks in China so the China Markets actually were overvalued by 35%.

Prior to Chinese New Year, there were two very important Policy Announcements by the China Central Bankers.

1) They would allow up to $60,000 for each China investor to be invested abroad. This was to have China Money out of the Stock Market and to help resolve the Open Currency Accounts be mitigated, and allow the currency to correct and follow the migration of funds.

2) The Central bank Scolded Speculation and warned against blind speculation and the market went up 5%.

So typical - as the investor population refused to listen - the Central Bank mandated an increase on the reserves banks must have against money borrowed for investment. This caused massive selling in Shanghai - It will continue on and off as people close positions.

In the US it was more about the Cost of Risk - SubPrime Lenders, etc and Wall Street wanted to pull back money from those that would get left holding the bag with bad loans. The Financial Sector is the largest sector of the S&P and therefore the baby got thrown out with the bathwater.

But massive debt, SubPrime sector, price of oil, housing slump, delirious foreign policy, don't sound like winning Wall Street formulas but per recent history, usually it's the blind leading the blind...and so it goes.

Stock market plunges. Alan Greenspan speaking the "R" word. Sinking home numbers. Decreasing durable goods orders. A halting of the Chinese economic speed-train. Enough to make one want to run for their mountain retreat with a shotgun and foodstuffs, right?

Except for the fact that the Chinese government is wanting to halt lending because the economy has been crashing the gates of nearly 10% growth per year. And that this is the same Greenspan who in the same breath talked about the strain that the federal deficit is having on the economy, the same one that he helped enable which is retrospect has greatly diminished his once stellar reputation. Home prices may be stagnant in some parts of the country, but so what? They rose horrendously for years thanks to low interest rates. And it's not as if the market has tanked- it's just not rising as fast as it has. And finally, how about overall economic growth numbers? The most recent GDP growth rate listed for the 4th quarter of 2006 listed growth at 2.7 percent, which is generally accepted as being indicative of a "Goldie Locks" situation- not too hot, nor too cold, but just right.

I know that the media, and especially economists, love to bitch and complain. And that's OK when talking about celebrity news. But falsely reporting bad economic news is not cool. We have low inflation, relatively low interest rates, rising productivity numbers, a global economic boom rippling through much of the world, and an unemployment rate that's at 4.8 percent. You WANT a Chinese growth rate below 10 percent (and a Chinese banking system not acting like drunken sailors when it lends money), just as you want a housing market to nor reach overvalued bubble proportions. You also want a GDP growth rate to be 2.7 and not 4.7, because that's an Open House for inflation. We're in a good situation right now, and we'll stay that way unless hype decides to play a role, which it's threatening to do.

Structural problems.

We don't spend our investment on purposeful things, everyone knows this, so when there's a sign that the jig is almost up (and Chinese market corrections are one such sign), people are panicky.

I'm having a schadenfreude orgasm right now. I would love to see North America blow up in a blaze of radioactive glory once the market has a meltdown too. That would be absolutely delightful.