[Tannehill]

The Great Depression was worse. We recovered. Just because we experience a profound market correction/recession/depression doesn't invalidate the concept of a free market economy. Australia, the U.S., Europe, etc are more alike than different, compared to the former Soviet Union, the old China, Somalia, and Asscrackistan, etc.

There is no doubt that the highly leveraged high-risk financial strategies of the past 20-30 years caused this collapse. The biggest lie in finance used to justify reckless behavior using the argument that, as Mark Twain i think joked "but these times are different." It's not, it's the same forces at work. We accept that.

Every American has a choice about where their retirement, their mortgage, etc gets funded. Or to forego retirement contributions. I had no choice working there in Melbourne, the employer said participation in the super was mandatory. That was so wierd to me. It's my earnings, but Big Brother has decided that I WILL save for retirement, because Big Brother has concluded it is in my best interest. Big Brother is RIGHT, it is in my best interests, but the issue is whether Big Brother should have THE RIGHT to impose upon me what happens to BE RIGHT just because it IS RIGHT.

But....as for Americans, most choose NOT to educate themselves on the issue. On retirement, their choice is to stick it in safe but modest returns bonds, or go with the flow of the 90s era investors (who have no cultural memory of a true auger-in collapse) and ride the higher risk market. But the ultimate decision and responsibility lay with the individual. I know retired folks who followed the conservative recommendations and are gloating now as their bond portfolios - bought years ago when everyone was screaming for stocks - gather in 7-8% consistently.

Ours is a country of extremes. Extreme wealth, extreme poverty. In health care, extremely good care for those with resources, and extremely...absent..care for the impoverished. Accordingly, extreme opportunities are matched by extreme financial devastation. Extremes of personal freedoms; a man with worn and dirty clothes and flip-flops in line at the convenience mart last week was wearing a holstered Glock at his hip as he bought his slurpie; I bought gas...petrol...for $0.89 per liter in USD even now, after Ike. (Funny thing is, I kinda hate guns, and yet I recognized it as a Glock. What's that all about, anyway? )And extreme tragedies consequential to such personal freedomes (school shootings). We have the most odd religious extremists in our country, even as we do battle with other religious extremists abroad.

Our television is total crap. I have 350 channels of it so I should know. And yet I could not escape American TV or American movies or American restaurant chains, etc, while living in Australia. I tried. Hell, that's one reason why I moved to Australia for a year, to escape the homogeneity of American culture. I'll call it culture, okay, so just humor me. That odd kind of life parodied in that Edward Scissorhands movie.

It seems that many Western countries are slowly regressing to the mean. No real rich people, but no real poor people either. Higher taxes, more government regulation of free enterprise, more subsidies for the poor, for having kids, all paid for by higher taxes. Fine, that's their choice. Democracy. Good on them.

But the reasonable people here in the U.S. (the ones you can't see on our TV shows) actually DO realize that they ARE the government. The bail-out (the attempt yesterday) failed because thousands of voters called their legistlators and DEMANDED that they vote NO to the bailout. Most of us WANT these businesses to fail. That's the American way. Make totally selfish and stupid decision. Fine, your choice. IT was a mistake? Then...burn, baby, burn. We'll buckle down and keep working, rebuild ourselves. And, yes, probably install some financial market safeguards to forestall this kind of thing, but don't bet too much that it'll be really that much different afterwards.

What about the poor simple working man who 'was led' to invest in stocks, rather than safe bonds. Who 'was lured' into taking a 0% mortgage for more than his house was worth, just before losing his job working for the sub-prime lending industry? Well, that is unfortunate, but there was no conspiracy or secret cabal of robber-barons spiking his morning coffee before he signed, or forcing him to buy that house that was above his means.

I've read folks abroad blaming the U.S for their country's financial meltdowns. Well, I guess we can't have it both ways, can we? If they were so smart and considerd us so nuts, why didn't they disentangle themselves from us economically long ago? Perhaps they 'were lured' into investing with us by conspiring robber barons who spiked their latte?

Actually I think much of the world likes watching us. Like it's fun to be around that complety nuts school mate who does totaly crazy things and you enjoy being around to watch and enjoy them vicariously, while being very happy it isn't you doing those stupid dangerous things.

America-bashing is the new world sport. Hell, the French have been perfecting this skill since WWII, I think. Others like watching our TV, our news, our politicians, and America's Funniest Home Videos, and the redneck who witnessed the UFO abduct his bloodhound, and Hugh Hefner, and Donald Trump and Brangelina's exploits and Britney's knicker-less drives to the convenience mart. They like being able to shake their heads in disgusted but fascinated awe at those uncultured, ego-ethno-centric Americans and their wierd Brownian motions of policies, values and behaviors.

It's reckless, unpredictable, psychotic, selfish, ugly, beautiful, fun, frequently scatalogical, and utterly and completely American.

So, if you don't like it, rebalance your super, surgically excise everything American you can from your lifestyle, don't buy anything linked to the American culture, say and do what you want, tell the government to kiss your butt if they don't like it, and no one will bother you so long as you don't bother anyone else in the process. Be utterly 100% anti-American if you like. That's your right.

Because that's the American way. I think we more or less invented that concept in 1776 by telling a certain autocrat to shove it where the sun don't shine when he started telling us what to do. Yes, we did borrow some from the Greeks, the Magna Carta, and a few Enlightened philosphers..but that's the American way, too, to borrow and perhaps improve upon on good idea or alternatively to completely muck it up and look like an ass and be the turd in the party punchbowl.

My regards and continued respect for all my Aussie friends on IIS...if I have any friends left after this nationalistic tirade, spawned after working late trying to rebuild my bruised and bleeding retirement fund....whilst dreaming of drinking a flat white on the beach in Sandringham under the Southern Cross.

Hasta la vista, hombres!



Scott in Tucson