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[Stock Lobster]

I know, and I hear it too. Many people have been doing what they could for many years now...however just because they weren't complaining didn't mean that things weren't a stretch, even during the 'boom' times.

The truth however, from my conversations and observations, is that many did not participate in the recent, fake housing-boom period of 'prosperity'. Instead they were struggling with higher health care, education and housing costs...which already were more than enough to keep them from having any savings. (something which I hear people blamed for, as if many had much of a choice. One study I read said that real incomes have been trailing real living costs by about $10,000 a year for close to a decade, and that I can believe. Perhaps that is one of the reasons many latched onto the liferaft of home equity loans to help tide them over. Ever the optimists, most americans just assumed somehow it would all work out, even though no one could really see how. Never would most have thought it was a trap, especially not when 'experts' on CNBC were encouraging people to make use of that dormantequity, and authority figures like Alan Greenspan himself were actually encouraging people to take out ARM mortages!)

It is precisely because most americans are not whinners, are not complainers that the looters could keep on squeezing wages. Just like the farmer's horse living on air, ivory tower theorists assumed the experiment of zero wage inflation was a huge success. Of course, they themselves couldn't raise a family on $60K a year if their life depended on it, but somehow they figured that we-all have some magic beans we can use to take care of expenses in those low rent areas we all must occupy..and somehow we must also have access to $5,000 cars and free food too.

Sometimes it's downright reminiscent of the last days before the French Revolution...let them drink Pellegrino if they can't afford water. Even Ben Stein, a conservative columnist has noticed this: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/business/yourmoney/29every.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The part that worries me is that the housing 'boom' was in many ways the final looting of the final piggy bank: home equity. Wall Street's survival since the 1980s has depended on breaking open a succession of piggy banks, always access to someone else's money, in order to make their deals and pay themselves enormous salaries at the same time. But there are no more piggy banks left in the US, so what to do now? Is this the part where Wall Street and their banks seize up, like an engine run too hot without oil for too long? That is, I believe, what we are witnessing in some ways.

I guess perhaps that explains why Asia is really the only place where 'the business' is still strong. The thought of all those savings sitting idle in Chinese, Korean and Indian accounts must be killing them, and they are no-doubt concoting schemes even as we speak to loot those as well. Interesting that the spigot of credit is locked down here in the U.S., while it's growing in availability in Brazil, India and China...sometimes by the foreign arm of the same corporations and banks we hear are hoarding cash. I guess they know their clients here are broke-ass (perhaps due to their own policies, but never mind) and hardly a good risk any more. Better for us to just service the loan shark 25-35% interest on our revolving debt, with no hope of ever being able to pay it all off. After all, with the exception of annoying collection fees, that's a nice guaranteed monthly income which helps fill out the profit margins on a more than a few spreadsheets, I'm sure.

The same way that the goal of modern medicine is not to cure illness, but rather to 'manage' it at a rate of $300-$700 a month, I reckon modern banking doesn't really want us to eliminate our debts (despite lip service to the contrary). We are much more valuable as a perpetual monthly source of revenue, especially if we are paying just the compounded interest on the original borrowed sum. (as an aside, a man I once met who owned a car dearlership in South Carolina one said that the entire credit ratings/blacklisting system is a class action lawsuit waiting to happen. Interesting observation, especially surprising given the source. I wonder if we'll see that in our life time.)

Meanwhile, to lure out the savings of thrifty foreigners, we see the high speed pushing of consumer culture, easy access to credit cards, and all sorts of 'investments' to lure wary money out of hiding in places relatively new to capitalism

What a waste to leave that all lovely money sitting idle, merely waiting to fund some Chinese person's retirement someday. Much better that it should be put to use now, helping investment bankers break apart companies and do LBOs at a $200MM/year salary..lol.

I find it extremely sad that there is a 4 year waiting list to build 300' and longer mega-yachts, and that the owners of those yachts are encoutering a shortage of atttractive, white, unemcumbered young things willing to be maids and butlers on those ships. Alas, good help is so hard to find.

Fwiw, those jobs offer health care and generous vacation plans. Interesting what kind of perks show up when there is a shortage of labor.

What a world. Someone tell me how it ends...I'm going to bed.