Not Enough Lifeboats....

Friends Not Enough Lifeboats….

“The Horseleach hath two daughters, crying Give, Give…”
Proverbs 30:15

The Meltdown…No, not the heat meltdown, as bad as it is, but the long-overdue liquidity bubble…it’s finally happening. You expected it, didn’t you? After all, it was predicted in abstruse terms a couple years ago, “Irrational Exuberance.” We couldn’t all go on finding money just lying in the streets…somebody had to get up from behind that computer screen and actually do some work. But surely it can’t be… couldn’t the creators of the new Economic Paradigm that eliminated the dot com fortunes foresee that housing would do likewise? Oh, the arrogance of the new generation who, incidentally, have never seen a recession and rely on such esoteric concepts as “derivatives” to make them wealthy (which goes to show you they are not to be trusted with our retirement accounts!). Well, get used to it for awhile…risk is coming home to roost.

These things happen from time to time, and if you believe holy scrolls, you might have known a woman was involved…read it closely! (Sorry, girls, but you can find some damaging information in that Book that applies to men, too!) My wife pointed out to me the other day in the NY Times an item of interest: On page 2 there was an article about how one-third of the population in India lives on $1.00 per day…and next to that article was a Bergdorf advertisement of ladies’ handbags: cost, $1,400.00. Somewhere along the recent time line things have gone array, wouldn’t you say?

Now I’m no predictor of Doom and Gloom,…hey, I’m in the real estate business, and let the good times keep rolling. But the system is broken, and panic and confusion is being sown throughout the villages and hamlets of this country by CNBC, Cramer, Fox, etc etc. Big-time bankers and lawyers, unnatural brutes, are licking their chops over the reshuffling of the card deck, and thousands of body bags are being shipped to accommodate the Horseleeches of Wall Street in anticipation of the results of this utter confusion.

It all reminds me of the movie Titanic, where only the rich women were allowed to escape in the lifeboats, and there were not enough of them to go around. Oh Yes, men dressed like women to get in these boats, and some made it…but not most. Bravery and Honor ruled the night. Men flung themselves overboard like rats leaving the sinking ship, preferring to take their chances in the water. And I think I see some folks lining up on East Beach now, waiting for the high tide!

Back in my Frat days at UGA, many youthful gamblers who thought they had a “system,” preferred card games of chance to classes. They sat in dark, smoky rooms and played cards all day, all night, and near dawn you could hear the frantic screams of the losers of the night: “Hurry up, hurry up, Deal the cards, Deal the cards…” The winners just had another beer, lit up another smoke and told jokes. I can see it coming, friends…

But hey, I could be wrong. The Titanic did sink, and the cost of purses has gone up in price….and maybe our stock portfolio isn’t what it used to be. But we still live in the Greatest country in the world, and while deck reshuffling may be painful for now, it’s necessary and remedial.


Bud
August 16. 2007