I'll be at Home for the End of the World

You know how we Democrats are always accusing the Republicans of using inane ploys like Bill Ayers and lipstick on pigs to distract voters from the "really important issues?" Well, here's a newsflash, guys: the Masters of the Universe are using the 2008 presidential election as a distraction, to deflect the U.S. population from the realization that life as we know it is about to come crashing to a stupendous end. Think the Twin Towers every day for the next ten years.

And the cause? The economy, stupid.

When you wake up on November 5th, prepare yourself for a very short celebration. I know Barack Obama is. That brave man with his warm, confident smile is painfully aware that he is fighting for the right to preside over the greatest man-made disaster the world has ever faced.

I live out in the rural high desert -- a place where a majority of the intelligentsia are proud to say they don't own a TV. They get their news from NPR or the web. Friends and relatives around the country are still addicted to some form of boob-tube-ism. But nearly everyone of them is fixated on the election. Admittedly, it's been the most thrilling, outrageous and entertaining presidential race in our lifetime.

That's why it's been so easy to fly this particular catastrophe -- a stealth bomber armed with a gigantic nuclear payload -- under the radar. Of course, as my favorite modern philosopher, the late Terrance McKenna, used to say, "For some, the Apocalypse has already come." The millions of Americans who have lost their jobs with no hope of future employment. The multitudes of homeowners who have faced the horror of home foreclosure and are scrambling to find shelter for their families. The small business owners who've had to close up shop. The iconic chains that have either drastically cut the number of their stores, or shut their doors entirely. Empty malls that look like something out of Night of the Living Dead.

But this is the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

You really need to turn on your plasma TVs to CNBC this week. Watch the world-wide China Syndrome taking place before your eyes in high definition living color. See the panic on the faces of the normally sanguine, smirking commentators, pundits and policy-makers who suddenly find themselves out to sea, dripping blood, swimming with a school of great whites.

You'll see the likes of ex-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan looking like a whipped puppy, apologizing for wrecking the world economy. You'll learn that Bush appointee, now "King Henry" Paulson, has handed over the keys to the U.S. Treasury to a thirty-five-year-old fellow Goldman Sachs alumnus. You'll see whole countries -- Iceland -- going bankrupt. The American auto industry going bust. CEOs still jumping from their private jets with platinum parachutes. Nations like Germany, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan and Russia who have had to shut down their stock markets for days at a time or risk total panic and collapse. Banks and insurance companies that have been infused with tens of billions of our tax dollars hoarding the money (instead of putting it back into the economy) to protect against their own future losses. And really terrifying: money set aside for the "Green Revolution" and our attempts to halt global warming going down the tubes.

It's amazing to watch on Morning Cal, Fast Money and Closing Bell those considered the best and brightest in the field sitting shell-shocked and gape-mouthed as the Dow plunges 777 points in one session, gold surges $80 in a few hours one day, only to plummet nearly $300 the following week, or the price of a barrel of crude oil halved in the twinkling of an eye. I can't count the number of times I've heard them saying "I just don't know. I've never seen anything like this before. The conventional wisdom no longer holds. All bets are off."

Most alarming are the predictions. The mind-numbing figures on jobs still to be lost. The massive foreclosures still to come. More businesses going bust. Thousands of bank failures. No bottom in sight for the housing market. Major countries tanking. The Dow dropping another 1,000-1,500 points this week alone. Food shortages. Martial law. A State of Emergency declared by you-know-who... and the election called off!

It's been a popular thing during the appalling eight years of W to occasionally go on a "news fast" in order to keep our brains from exploding. But those times are over. Some have called America "a nation of sheep." I call it "a nation of ostriches." We cannot afford to live in this boneheaded state of denial anymore. We need to pull our collective heads out of the sand and educate ourselves about what's really happening in the world, because sooner than later this economic behemoth we've allowed to grow unchecked for the last twenty years is about to rear up and take a big bite out of our collective asses. None of us will be exempt.

I'm not a religious person, but these days I'm praying there will be an election and that Barack Obama wins on November 4th. He can't save us from what's ahead, but I like to think it'll be him steering the Ship of State through the thousand foot waves of the coming Perfect Storm.

So hold onto your underpants, kids. It's going to be a wild ride.

If you want to get the skinny on the truly nefarious manipulation of the global markets from on high, go online to GATA, Le Metropole Cafe and Angry Bear. These folks used to be considered conspiracy theorists. Now they're the Oracles at Delphi. Or for the opinions of a scarily prescient, hardened realist who had this crisis pegged two years ago, see David Hirst here.

Comments

[6bd]

The people who need Obama the most, have been hoodwinked into supporting McCain. I am really frightened about a potential McCain/Palin win. !8 drones have hit targets in Pakistan already, we have invaded Syria and innocents in Afganistan. People in South Ossetia have lost their lives senselessly because of George and Dick. This is all merciless. Our quality of life has been altered just by the McCain camp's rhetoric and lies. This doesn't feel like a democracy to me.

[Dunelm]

Ever since George Bush was elected TWICE, I have been predicting catastrophe. Everything this man touched has turned sour. Yet, there is still a band of believers marching to the beat of a woman who is every bit as banal and mediocre as W. What will it take for these people to wake up?

[GOP4MoreTears]

We, the People are taking our beloved Country back, and moving forward into the 21st century. YES WE CAN !

[rscott4079]

Robin, I'm guessing you're a glass-is-half-empty kinda gal.

I don't trust short term fluctuations in the market. Even when they're bigguns. Given all the money the Fed and other central banks have been pouring into the markets, I think things will start to stabilize soon.

Of course, in the greater scheme of things, I think as long as we're still employed, have roofs over our heads, food on our tables and family around us, we'll all be okay.

[zanzig]

"as long as we're still employed, have roofs over our heads, food on our tables and family around us, we'll all be okay."

Sadly, that seems to be just Robin's point; that we don't have jobs, or houses or food. As for family, that is the subject of another rant for another day. There really are people already in this position now.

[GrainneKathleen]

I listen to NPR, I scout the web, but I can't seem to find anyone willing to make big predictions about this crisis. I know we are fixated on the election, but as Joe Biden likes to say, the silence is deafening. All I can say is I'm glad my husband and I already live low key and have good survival skills. But I don't believe in every man or woman for his or herself. I hope we put aside these divisions widened by the election and face this together without finger-pointing (ok, some pointing and at W and the big proponents of deregulation and Americans living beyond their means.) I have never agreed with Americans living high off the hog in general. I have lived in other parts of the world as an outsider looking in and I see what unbelieveable waste many Americans ignorantly produce and defend as their right - why?, because we are Americans! Perhaps enforced frugality will get us moving towards using less energy - I am trying to find a bright side to this crisis.

[gerontion72]

Yes, but they promised not to do it again.

[Mixpixlix]

Greed, corruption, "me first" and the belief that anything you got away with was good, created this mess.

Sadly, the ostrichs outnumbered the Cassandras and our attempts to warn of the coming storm were ignored. Not only ignored but unless you were will to "go along to get along" you found yourself pushed out, marginalized and soon unemployed.

I do believe that Barack Obama has the best chance of steering this country through the storm that lies ahead. John McCain would set course for the reefs while proclaiming that all we need is a higher ground.

I like others who played by the rules only to have the game change are suffering, too. My only hope is that we'll come out of this crisis a stronger nation, one that understands that those at the top got there on the backs of those in the middle and below. It's a concept that gots lost in a society that pushes paper instead producing products.

[LeftRight]

But don't worry, they're really really sorry that they wrecked it, but there was no way to tell that it was going to happen. Unless, of course, you used a single brain cell and figured it out. I knew that we were screwed 4 years ago, and I'm not particularly close to being an economist!!!

[CubanVoice]

Wow. I'm fairly aware of the world around me and you've scared me. I think you're absolutely right! We'll sink together.