i just love these online tests

.

pretty much nails me, don't you think?

really, ben?

Mr. Bernanke has used the analogy of a golfer with a new putter: Unsure how it will work, he finds the best strategy is to tap lightly at first and keep tapping until the golfer figures out how best to use the putter.

jon hilsenrath of the wall street journal,
describing federal reserve chairman
ben bernanke's intended approach to
the next round of money-printing
(you know--the one he promised
wouldn't be necessary)

for any of you out there who still harbor illusions that the experts in washington steering us through this crisis are firmly in control and know what they're doing: if this bit of brilliance doesn't once and for all open your eyes, then i fuckin' give up.

seriously--god help us all.

postcards from the boom

.

came across the following email exchange tonight while looking for something else from that year, and it instantly took me back to those lazy, hazy, crazy days of what turned out to be the height of the california real-estate insanity:

From: [noblesavage]

To: [mkf]

Date:  Sat, 13 Aug 2005 13:28:52 -0700

Subject: Got the mail today...

...and there was a postcard from a realtor offering an 850 square foot house on Betty Way for $825,000.  I was shocked.  I went online and here it is for only $799K.  Here it is:

[link to listing]

Then I saw this 1 Bedroom 1 Bath condo on Kings Road across from Gelson's for $419K:

[link to listing]

I'm just wondering when the bubble is going to burst and just how ugly it is going to get. 

Happy Saturday.

Rob

----------------

my reply:

i've been clinching my sphincter in anticipation of the coming crash for so long that i've got the asshole of a 12-year-old again, rob. hell, the little house on portola that i (thought i) sold at the top of the market has appreciated at least $150,000 since we closed. 

i've given up prognosticating. our entire economy is a house of cards waiting to collapse; the idiot masses simply don't know it yet. america is, metaphorically, wile e. coyote pedaling madly in mid-air, right before he realizes that he's just run off the cliff.....

*     *     *     *     *

what's the point of this post, you ask?  the point is, if even way back in 2005 a couple shmoes like noblesavage and myself knew where that runaway train was headed, is it really possible that all the geniuses in new york and washington completely missed what we saw so clearly?

way i've always figured it, there are two possibilities, and only two: either some or all of them were (a) so collectively and individually stupid, greedy and short-sighted that yeah, they did miss it; and/or (b) so irredeemably, recklessly evil that they totally saw the inevitable outcome of their machinations and simply didn't care, because they knew they'd get theirs.

either way, every day that anybody who was in a position of fiscal or elective power in america on the august day on which the above email exchange occurred and didn't sound the alarm (i.e., almost all of 'em) is one day too many for this country boy.

which means, among other things, that i literally can't wait to watch batshit-crazy sharron angle mop the nevada desert with the dried-out husk of harry reid come election day.

i'll be in the booth on tuesday, and i don't plan to vote for a single incumbent.  how about you?