Hair On Fire

The NYT reports today that the President says privately it is a darn good thing he is the decider during this economic crisis.  This from a man who ran his own oil business into the ground and I don't mean he drilled with success, just the opposite.  According to the story today, Bush had to be told that he needs to reassure people that everything is going to be o.k.  Imagine the POTUS needing to be told he needs to be a LEADER.   In a truly bizarre twist, the fact that he hasn't may be a sign that he actually KNOWS that everything is not going to be o.k.  

All the people we have been told were the great financial gurus are spinning like dervishes. Everyone's hair is on fire and no one knows where it will all end.  So why should the Decider? 

We were in California last week.  Boy, do I miss my home state, even after 33 years of living in the east.  My daughter-in-law said there is a German word for the place where your heart is...Heimat.  That place is definitely the Bay Area. If the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, I think the best place to be would be there.  You can actually sit with the windows open this time of year, no air-co, no heating.  Sunshine, sunshine, sunshine...did I mention sunshine?

Anyway, back to financial inferno.  On the plane back home the movie was "Kit Kittredge".  A kid's movie set in the Depression.  It is all about home foreclosures.  Have we gone back to the future?  Are we going to have to start taking in roomers (we do have three empty of people bedrooms)?  I have low-grade fear.  You know that thing that is always there, even when you aren't thinking about it.   I have always said that if we go down, everyone will be going down with us.  We got out of the market and moved to cash just before the first crash.  Not because I'm brilliant, but because my husband is.  He also cashed in so we could purchase our first new car in more than 10 years (we drive cars until they drop and I have bought junkers to drive in the snow) literally a month before the crash.  If he hadn't done that, we wouldn't be driving that Highlander Hybrid that's in the driveway.  We are very, very, very lucky.  I fear for us, but not as much as for those living on the edge.  When the "Decider" made his first calming speech a couple of weeks or so ago, who did he blame for the troubles?  Here are his words:

"Easy credit - combined with the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise - led to excesses and bad decisions...Many borrowers took out loans larger than they could afford assuming that they could sell or refinance their homes at a higher price later on."

I don't deny that this is part of the problem, but I don't think the collapse is because of people trying to buy homes or flip houses. I'm still trying to figure out how the banks can give you only 2% interest on savings, charge 24% interest on your credit cards and lose money.  Somebody has some splainin to do. 

My last comment is about an interview with a broker on NPR.  In essence he said he wished Paulson would just shut up because everytime he made a comment the market went down.  I'm not waiting for any comments from the Decider.  The election can't come too soon...VOTE OBAMA-BIDEN.