Sliding Into The Rabbit Hole - The Impending Great Depression, Part 2

President Bush just gave a special commentary this morning. Wall Street must hate him. He might as well have told them Welcome to Wonderland.


He spent a few minutes talking about how Congressional action is needed to address our housing and financial crisis, but complained on and on how Congress needs to drill in Alaska for oil.

This is crazy. In a round about way, he admitted it would take seven years to be ready but fussing how we should have started this seven years ago. However, he didn't admit that all this drilling will make his oil buddies rich but gain us only 300 to 400 days worth of oil.

WTF Reality Check: Mr. Bush, your best idea is to spend billions or trillions in tearing up Alaska wildlife for seven years to get a year's worth of oil? Give us a break.

Afterwards a reporter asked him about the safety of our banks. He answered the question as though it's only a problem for ordinary citizens with less a hundred grand in the bank, not mentioning the problem to the businesses who pay our wages.

Bush said private enterprises should not be bailed out or saved. I'll tell you what he didn't: When they go under, so will we, 'cause they pay our salaries. Duh!

His best short-term economic and energy plan: we can unplug our air conditioners and drive less. Next he'll be telling us to make candles or use natural lighting. My favorite writer James Kunstler swears it's coming to this, and he's been saying it for years.

Later today, the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke let on that the economy is worse than he thought yesterday, and he was worried then.

It's been such a weird day. Obama and McCain gave a speeches following Bush's - about the war, not the economy. I see this as an intentional, planned distraction from the financial implosion here at home.

On a positive note, Obama gave a bangin' speech and a concrete plan to end the war in Iraq and why it was wrong for us to invade it in the first damn place. He looked and sounded very Presidential.

Make no mistake though, his plan will involve a shift of our forces from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan where Al-Qaida have been hiding out since pre-9/11.

By the way, here's an odd fact: the 2nd largest CIA facility is located in Pakistan! Should make that job a breeze, eh? If not, what the hell have been doing there all this time?

Anyway, Barack wants a ban on nuclear proliferation and does not want to see Iran advance its nuclear program. He'll begin with aggressive diplomacy (good), but if they don't budge, well, he didn't say it, but we can expect war with them as a last ditch effort.

Then McCain gave his speech. He consistently has that old-fashioned town mayor style. He was neither Presidential nor had any concrete solutions for the war, and also didn't mention the issue of our flaming economy. He's trying to delude us (or is himself deluded) that we've "turned around the war in Iraq." He's stuck on the Bush Administration's stupid and plans to keep spinning our wheels in endless wars for the rest of this century.

Be glad I'm not President. Here's my random fantasy of what Bush should have done.

First, he should have left the Iraqis the fuck alone.

Since he couldn't resist, he should have blown up Saddam's palace on February 24, 2003, when Dan Rather went there to do a 60 Minutes interview of Saddam. This was three weeks before we shocked and awed Baghdad and the world, and you can't tell me that Bush didn't already know he was gonna do it. One could sense that even Rather knew it was the last time.


It would have been a Kodak moment as our troops stuck the US flag of victory in their soil and declared Iraq as our 51st State.

Iraqis were dying to get rid of Saddam. We'd have won them over the same way rampant consumerism, materialism and greed won us over, because my Step 2 would have been to flood the Iraqis with lots of stuff - tv's, cellphones, video games, clothes, and anything you'd find at a mall or Wal-Mart in every conceivable color and size. They're cheaper than bombs and more fun.

I honestly sometimes think the Iraqis would have gone for being "Iraqi-Americans". They'd have all the protections of the US Constitution and laws, plus we could have taxed them with those annoying 1040 IRS forms and still had the oil.

Yeah, shocking words, but I think like a warrior at times. War is war. Either fight to win or stay the fuck home, and winner takes all and without apologies.

What's with the bullshit of spending our resources to help another nation have 'democracy'? Fuck that. By pretending we weren't trying to colonize them, install a puppet government, and steal the oil, the Bush Administration was cruel and destroyed an entire society. Hell, under my alternative scenario, Iraqi's would be as fat as us and 1,200,000 would still be alive, along with our 4,100 + soldiers.

I'm really a peace-nik, but if you're gonna be an asshole, be a smart one. Don't dick the public and blow up everyone and everything in sight. It's bad for us all and the economy.

So much for my own mad hatter random thoughts....

WWII helped pull the country out of the last Great Depression. This resulted in an economic boom. Things are different this time, yet the morons are setting the stage for expanded wars and all options are on the table. This is their way of hinting about future Hiroshima's. If I were an Israeli or Iranian, I think I'd be studying maps to figure out where to move.

Operation Iraqi Liberation was an early phrase in 2003 that the Bush folk changed because critics laughed when they realized the acronym for this is OIL. I've always viewed it an unconscious slip of the truth.

Cheap gas is the heart that pumps everything American and made it possible to ship California oranges 3500 miles Florida and Florida oranges 3500 miles to California. Until recently, the planet had plenty of oil. Unless they're lying, now we don't. Living phat will never be easy or cheap again. All our bubbles and balloons have burst.


And that's the rabbit hole.