Meltdown

Ever wonder what it was like to be alive in 1931? You're about to find out.

"STOCKS PLUNGE AFTER LEHMAN FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY," screams the banner "breaking news" headline at the Yahoo! finance page this morning. "MERRILL LYNCH IS SOLD AND AIG SEEKS CAPITAL."

One big investor says that he thinks 1000 banks will fail over the next few months, and ghoulishly adds that this will "create opportunities for investors."

So do garage sales, asshole, and America has now become, as Jim Kunstler points out, "Garage Sale Nation."

"Everything is for sale and nobody has any money," he adds, not mentioning that credit is also just about impossible to find these days.

Those of us who are not high rollers and investment bankers don't know what comes next. Will it be hyperinflation, or will the bottom drop out of prices and rapid deflation be the order of the day?

One thing is for certain, however, and Kunstler is adamant about this: the Democrats and Barack Obama have now found their campaign slogan, if they're smart enough to use it and hammer on it:

"At least one thing ought to be clear," Kunstler says; "this has happened due to the negligence and misfeasance of the regulating authorities, namely the Republican Party, and that now all the hoopla surrounding Sarah Palin can be swept away revealing that group to be what they actually are: the party that wrecked America. I hope one or two Barack Obama campaign officials are reading this blog. You must commence the re-branding of the opposition right now. The Republicans must be clearly identified as, the party that wrecked America."

We're in for hard times for sure, but as the last Great Depression before this one showed, hard times energize people to act in their own best self-interest, and if the war machine, the Empire of the Pentagon, and the predatory banking-and-credit system that have ruined this country are casualties of the wreck, it will turn out to be a good thing in the long run.