The Week in Review, by Chicken Little

Why is it so hot in here, and where did this handbasket come from?

The past 48 hours have been packed in with so much bad economic news that it makes me reticent to hit the New York Times link on my own blog. It is a little like waiting for a flood to arrive, isn't it? We know it's coming, we hope the old dikes won't break, but we know in our heart of hearts that they've been broken for a long time. So we sit, hoping that when the waters recede, that there is enough left to salvage, and that our neighbors and friends and family are not left homeless or so devastated that they lose the will to start again.

I am not a doom and gloom person. But when the so-many-times-over-incompetent-President of the United States, who is leaving office in a matter of months and has absolutely no vested interest in working harder than he must, tells us the sky is falling and if we don't bail the economy out -- now---it's gonna be real bad, well, it's not a good sign. Normally he would just sandbag and let McCain and Palin (God forbid) or Obama and Biden figure the way out of the mess. But he's pretty sure he hasn't got that much time. He might be handing over an America with bread lines.

Thanks once again, George.

Of course, this is a President who has pulled the Chicken Little act before. And that time, America believed him and followed him down the path to a war which mortgaged our grandchildren's future. So when Democratic and Republican legislators turned around to him and said, forget it -- we won't approve this ridiculous plan to spend our great-great grandchildren's money without some guarantees that at least some of it will come back, or at least without some of the details being made clear, or without someone other than a presidential ally backing it, Bush must have realized that any minuscule remaining amount of political clout he imagined he had bought with the 2004 election had completely and totally vaporized. Into the very thin air.

So where do we go from here? And who in the world can make the right decisions? We have been moaning about the weak dollar for years now. What's coming at us is going to make us yearn for the good ol' days when all we had to worry about was the greenback. They tell is if there is no deal to release our great-great grandchildren's money we will be in a bad recession. What is it that America has been in for the past year? A good recession? I can only suppose that the word "depression" is pretty much taboo in Washington. So we will just have a really, really, really, really bad recession. You know, the kind of really bad recession where banks hoard cash, don't lend any money and people lose their homes? Welcome to the 1920's. That was a really, really, really bad recession, too, wasn't it? Yeah, it was.

So I am pretty sure that some kind of convoluted deal will be struck next week and the sky will stay intact over our heads for awhile longer. I believe this because I believe in the art of self-preservation in Washington, DC. They will keep us safe -- by mortgaging the future. Again.

My mood this morning was not made any more bright by going from NYT to CBS Online to view Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin regarding foreign policy. It was positively, hair raisingly frightening. If that woman gets into office, ever, the sky really will fall.

Note to McCain: Watch Couric Interview. Fire Palin. PLEASE. Take on Couric as running mate. At least she knows what the questions are that need to be asked.

Have a nice weekend everyone.