On April 28, 2000, General Motors closed at a price of $93.63 per share. It was up almost 36% from its lowest point in the past year. While most of the focus of economic boom at the time was being placed on the technology sector, the auto makers were living their own high life. Incredibly cheap fuel allowed demand to exist for highly inefficient, large, bulky vehicles known as SUVs. In addition to making nature cry every time they were turned on, they also flipped huge profits back toward the car makers, and were by far and away the highest margin-selling vehicles in their respective fleets. Demand was fed by factories, and those factories provided employment for many, and nice wages to boot. Those earners would turn around and instead of save their money, buy anything and everything in site - fueling the economy and topping out the last good years of the good decade, the 1990's.

( image source )

Where did the good times go?

Read more »

Iceland is by no means a third-world nation, but recent events have left it on a trajectory toward poorer days as it becomes the first national casualty of the current world economic crisis - all along serving as an example to the world why no matter how much teeth must be gritted, short-term unpopular policy (bailouts) must be adopted to stave off the "worst case scenario" - known as Ireland today.

Iceland is the current, and probably soon-to-be former, holder of the #1 spot in the UN's Human Development Index. Among the factors included in the ranking's calculation, GDP per capita, is what will more than anything else move Iceland down the rankings. Since it's arrival to the #1 spot, the Icelandic economy has in no over-stretching sense of the word, collapsed. The country's broadest stock exchange traded at a valuation of ~8,200 points as recently as the middle of July, 2007. Since then the market has lost 89.15% of its value, trading as low as the 890 level within the past week - including a remarkable trading session (October 14, 2008) that saw the stock market lose over 2/3 of its entire value at once. The country's currency, the krona, exchanged at a rate of 58 to the U.S. dollar as recently as a year ago, but now in violent and thinly-traded sessions finds itself at a rate of 130 to the U.S. dollar and still rising.

The Icelandic public is left, not surprisingly, dazed and confused over this entire turn of events.

Read more »

Link: http://secondpagemedia.com/confundo/index.php/topic,3837.0.html

(lifted from Confundo)

Dear America

A couple of days ago, you got together and made a choice. You chose to elect one Barack Obama as your President. I congratulate you on what I feel was the right choice. I am not writing to praise Barack Obama. Nor am I writing to condemn John McCain, a man who I respect. I'm not writing to debate on the campaign at all. I'm writing to say that on November 4, 2008 you proved you aren't beyond hope. Watching you from here in Canada, I often feel like I get to see the worst of your country and not the best. Let's face it, you're not all that high on the popularity chart worldwide at the moment. But when you chose Barack Obama as your President, you gave us a look at some of the best. However, now that you have our attention, you need to follow through.

Your 44th President is also your first African American President. I can appreciate what a historic moment it was when that announcement was heard. I was watching CNN that night and one man, though I can't remember who, said, "Bradley Effect? Come on America's grown up." I don't think truer words have been spoken in the entire campaign than those. However, this doesn't prove race is no longer an issue. It only proves there is no reason for race to be an issue for any of us, American or not. This is by no means the end. The onus is on everyone to change their thinking about race.

Barack Obama is not inheriting a country in an ideal situation. No government can fix the problems you face, but a Nation can. I have complete faith that America has the ability to rise above the hardships before you. It's not going to be easy. It will probably even get worse before it gets better. But with each and every American, from the lowest beggar to the President himself, with every American working together, I have no doubt you can and will be a great nation in the spirit of your founding fathers. But you need everyone on that same track for it to work.

I think, for the first time in a long time, you've elected a person instead of a party as your President. Barack Obama may be a Democrat, but I don't think anyone voted for him for this reason. I think that you believe this man can lead you through a very tough time. With that said, there are going to be people unhappy with the outcome of the recent election. To them I say, please don't let this stand in your way. Don't allow disappointment to bring down the pride you take in your country. As I stated before, it's going to take everyone to overcome the challenges you face as a nation. I know the idea of bipartisanship has been batted around a lot by everyone in this last election and I hope everyone in America, from the government itself, to the regular folks in the cities and towns, lives by it. I would love to see what your nation can achieve through co-operation, awareness and compassion.

Make no mistake, I love your country. I love the ideals it was founded on. I love its ability to realize when something is wrong and change. That is what is needed now, change. Electing Barack Obama as President was not the goal, but the first step in a long journey for America. A journey that can take you to greatness if everyone works together. You've got my attention, America. Now make me proud to say we're friends.

Sincerely,
A Canadian

What's all this then?

Read more »

From the "oh now what!?" files, via the BBC...

US helicopter-borne troops have carried out a raid inside Syria along the Iraqi border, killing eight people including a woman, Syrian authorities say.

The official Syrian news agency Sana said the raid took place in the Abu Kamal border area, in eastern Syria.

It said that American soldiers on four helicopters had stormed a building under construction on Sunday night.

Read more »

Monday was the 350th trading session since the peak of the financial sector, as measured by the XLF exchange traded fund. Seemingly endless billions of dollars of pledges and actions have been pumped into the world financial system. The result?

Trading Session 350
Nasdaq 2001: -59.85%
XLF 2007: -57.63%
Dow Jones 1929: -56.23%

What exactly is being paid for, again?

Read more »

I think the spirit of one Joseph McCarthy has been found, and it comes wrapped in just as much us-against-them spirit that rolling yourself tightly in Red, White, and Blue can come to offer.

Michelle Bachman, Republican representative of Minnesota's 6th district, welcome to the national stage!

Read more »

...but all kidding aside, Register. To. Vote. - whether it be for Obama, McCain, Ron Paul, Bob Barr, or Jon Stewart. Just vote.

Penn Jillette knocks one out of the park in NPR's essay contest called This I Believe. You can listen to it here. Some of my favorite excerpts...

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

In a move that Naomi Klein (see: The Shock Doctrine) would probably appreciate, the economic crisis that has been written about here and many other places over the past couple of years has resulted in what is about to be the largest scale change of the financial landscape in America since the Great Depression - and is potentially moving in the ultimate opposite direction than the reforms of the New Deal moved.

Scooped by the excellent financial blog, Calculated Risk, it would appear (as far as the government is concerned) that the end result of the financial crisis we are in is the creation of a $700 billion superfund that is designed to do... well... whatever the treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, wants to do with it. The thin air that this money is supposed to appear out of will come either from the taxpayer now, the taxpayer later, borrowing from the Chinese, or just printing the money ourselves. Its supposed object is to snatch up all the bad debt from all the financial institutions so those companies can have clean balance sheets and move on. Tremendous stock market rallies occurred on Friday as the thought that the government was going to step in caused fears to be alleviated on Wall Street.

Read more »