Good bye, Saab, good bye.

A Classic 1993 900-T Convertible

Permit me to fulminate. I loved the Swedish Saabs. I was a "Saab guy." For years. I had a 1984 900, a 1988 900-S, at 1990 900-T convertible, and a 2000 9-3. The 9-3, in comparison with the others, was a plastic coated joke show. It was a constant problem. It had electrical issues. It had temperament issues. It had intermittent wiring. It wasn't a real, Swedish Saab. And it didn't act like one. It didn't maintain Saab's legendary quality, the quality that kept me alive in a serious accident I had in the 1984 Saab. The 9-3 replaced steel with plastic, and every year, the more plastic added, the higher the price. It replaced design with copying American road hogs. There was no way the GM Saab could ever compete with BMW, with Audi, with Volvo, with Infiniti, with Lexus.

And now, to no one's particular surprise, General Motors has finally killed Saab dead:

GM has been looking for a buyer for Saab, and said on Wednesday "given the urgency of stemming sizeable cash demands associated with Saab operations" it would need support from the Swedish government prior to any sale.

But the country's Enterprise and Energy Minister Maud Olofsson told Swedish public radio that "voters picked me because they wanted nursery schools, police and nurses, and not to buy loss-making car factories".

So there will be no support from Sweden. And the geniuses at General Motors will have finally succeeded in killing the brand. Saab is the new Rambler, the new Fraser, the new Nash, the new Oldsmobile, the new Edsel. First they devalued the brand, then their stupidity killed it dead.

In practical terms, the news probably means that Saab, which rapacious General Motors gobbled only to devalue and undermine, is going unceremoniously to go bankrupt or die along with the other GM dinosaurs, Saturn and Hummer, two of General Motors' other brilliant ideas.

I know that the US automobile industry needs to be bailed out for macroeconomic reasons. I accept that. But if there were such a thing as free market capitalism, which there obviously isn't, I can't think of a company more deserving than GM to die an ignominious, debt ridden death, one in which its shareholders' stock is worth absolutely nothing. In a just world, there'd be an independent Swedish Saab, and GM would be shredded into tiny shards of the glossy plastic they used to make imitation wood.

What Are They Doing About All This?

The answer is Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. Zero. They haven't got a clue. They are going to let it all come down, however it comes.

Permit me some extreme grouchiness. And anger. And despair.

People I know were evicted today from their home in the wake of not being able to pay their mortgage. A long legal battle ended. They lost. The Sheriffs were there. There was the cliche, the spectacle of having the young children sit on the curb while the furniture was deposited on the lawn. I don't have $30,000+ to loan them to stop it. Nor do their friends or family. And I don't see Congress or anybody else stepping in to do anything about this. Maybe later on, when they've moved out and lost their home and are living somewhere else. Maybe then there will be some "relief." For somebody else. I wish they lived in Chicago, but they don't.

And then there's this:


The Dow, which indicates (gross generalization ahead) what's happening to money my retired father has saved throughout his long career as a teacher and principal, is now at a new, extremely low level, and my father has lost, by all accounts, more than $200,000. He stands to lose even more. A whole lot more. Maybe everything. So the money he worked his entire life to save is disappearing in thin air. It's not his fault in any way. To the contrary, he did what people are supposed to do: save your money, invest your money responsibly, don't live on credit, don't borrow.

Nobody has any real idea how to stop the fall of the market. I don't see Congress or anybody else stepping in to do anything about this. Maybe later on, when my dad's lost an insurmountable amount, there will be some "relief." For somebody else.

The candidates say they have "plans." Right. McSame says, my friends, he knows how to fix this problem. That, of course, is total nonsense. If he knew how to fix anything, and putting the Country First, where the f*ck has he been, where's his fantastic plan, and why isn't the problem fixed right now? If he could fix the problem, he wouldn't have to run the negative, horsesh*t campaign he's engaged in.

And Barack Obama, who says he's really, really, really concerned about my friends who were just evicted and my father who's losing money more rapidly than he could ever make it, hasn't really got anything that can solve the problem either. If he did, we'd have it in hand right now. We'd know what he says to do. It's not about short term versus long term. He doesn't know how to fix the problem. Or how to stop it in its tracks. Does anybody? He's got nothing that can help. I don't see him stepping in to do anything about this.

It seems hopeless. It makes me despaire. And it can make you crazy. So you have my nomination for "Song of the 2008 Crash":



At least we can still rock out, while we try to find out what, if anything, can be done.

Is there anything that can be done in the short run? I have only two ideas.

First, like Russia or Indonesia, the Government could suspend trading on the stock exchanges across America. Give the exchanges a holiday until Tuesday. They're closed Saturday, Sunday, and Monday anyway. That would at least stop the precipitous fall for now. Until something could be worked out, maybe this weekend in Washington.

Second, the Government could right now enact a freeze on foreclosures and/or foreclosure evictions for a while, while it gets in place something real, an actual safety net, to help people who are losing or have lost their homes. McSame's plan, which bails out lenders who made crappy loans, is not even a partial answer. But a freeze, a stop gap, at least stops the bleeding while something gets figured out, while legislation is enacted.

Doubtless you, dear reader, might have other, productive ideas. Please share them in the comments. I wish I had better ideas. I wish our leaders did. I wish, I wish, I wish.

I'm painfully aware of how much suffering there is in America tonight. I'm aware of the gigantic number of people who are losing their homes. I'm aware of the huge number of people who don't have work. I'm aware of all of the sick people who cannot get health care for acute problems. I'm aware of a vast ocean of suffering in America. Call me crazy, but I'm looking for the same thing as the Buddha looked for, the cessation of suffering. But I just don't know what can be done. I don't have a clue.

Is this what it feels like when you're heart's going to break?

Better Friends

Recently, I needed some money so I could complete a project I was working on. So I called up my friend, Tom, and I asked him if I could have $10,000. He said he'd have to discuss it with his spouse, but then called by later and said, "Sure. Happy to do it. When can you pay it back?"

It's the last sentence that's the issue here. Can you imagine my outrage that he wanted to be paid back, that he wasn't just going to give me the cash? I need a better set of friends. I need friends who will just give me money when I say I need it. I need friends who make gifts and don't appear to expect anything in return.

Maybe I should have responded to his request for repayment by telling him that very, very bad things would happen not just to him, but also to his family, and that they would all be afflicted for the next seven generations if he didn't just pony up the cash and drop the repayment talk. I wouldn't explain how this would happen, or provide details. I'd just emphasize how very, very bad things would be for him, etc etc. It'd just be a strong threat of very bad things. If I had said that, I think he probably would have thought I was committing a crime, trying to extort funds from him by threatening him and his family.

Maybe if I had been making many big monetary gifts contributions to Tom for the past decade, he would have considered my request for payment a "pay back" of some sort. But I don't have any relationships like that, where it's about me buying a potential, future favor. I just try to be generous when friends ask for something. And I always ask when they will pay it back. And I hope my friends will be generous when I ask for something. And I don't ask if I think that there's any chance that I cannot pay it back.

If I lent my friends money for a business venture, I'd expect them to give me some stock in the company, or a promissory note that paid interest. I'd expect to be protected and to be paid back. Silly me.

So evidently, Wall Street has far better friends in Congress than I have in my life. I hope that's not true, but if the bailout bill passes, it will prove the point.

Maybe I could have the right kind of friends if I started befriending a new class of people, people I presently disdain for being fools and suckers. Who else will make a gigantic gift to people who apparently don't need it and expect nothing in return?

Please tell your Congressperson to vote no. Not one centavo. Not one cent. Not one penny. Please email and FAX and telephone them.

A Letter To The Secretary Of The Treasury

Dear Sir:
This evening while I was reading the proposed "bailout bill," I realized that there was a terrible omission in the document. Specifically, you forgot to try to collect any funds for the bail out from the very people responsible for the mess. I'm not talking about the firms they've looted. I'm talking about the people who have taken money from the firms and made those funds their personal property. And, I see, you are going to require me and my family, who didn't participate at all in the financial feeding frenzy that led to the crash depression problem, to pick up the tab. And that the tab is a whopper.

If you look at my 1040's for the past decade, you'll see that I haven't participated at all in "investment banking" or derivatives or bundled mortgages or other shaky but previously, highly profitable, unregulated transactions. Unfortunately for me, it's obvious that the people you are bailing out did very, very well for themselves with their "investments" before the "crash", making huge, personal profits, buying themselves beach houses, and Rolexes, and Escalades, and having champagne and caviar dinners and traveling around the world and staying in 5-star hotels. Not to mention their off shore slush funds. But you don't even try to get these people to chip in and buy these worthless assets with their own money, with their own money from the profits they made selling and manipulating these very assets.

The legislation you've proposed allows these "investors" to keep all their ill gotten assets, the Grand Cayman bank accounts, the jewelry, the private airplanes. All of it. I don't see anything in the legislation that requires those who benefited to disgorge any of their assets or to pay any portion of their income, income it should be pointed out that was generated from manipulation of these worthless investments. I don't see anything in the legislation that requires them in the first instance personally to do anything to set matters right. No. What I see in the legislation is that instead of these rapacious looters, I and my family are supposed to pay for these paper assets while the Wall Street Masters of the Universe keep their houses, their cars, their second homes, and their wine cellars. You've got a lot of nerve to think that's acceptable to me and my family.

That's your plan. Really, I'm honored to be one of the philanthropists suckers you've selected to pick up the tab for such a lavish, such an extravagant party, one to which I was not invited, by the way, really I am. But I have to decline. No thanks. I don't think I or my family should have to contribute a single cent until you've re-couped as much as you can from the personal assets and income of those who are responsible for the current situation. I'm sure with your background, you know exactly who I'm talking about.

In a fair world (there's a laugh) the first thing that should happen is that the assets and income of those who screwed up would be seized so that they could make good on their debts. What was left after that might be a "bad debt" and would have to be carried by whoever was owed the money (which is not me). It's only in crazy world, the one we're in now, where they get to keep the Rolex and the Escalade and the beach house, and I have to pay the tab as if it were mine, as if they bounced a rubber check to me that they don't have to have funds to cover, so I get stuck with the loss.

I really must to decline your request that I pay for this party. I heard it was a lovely party while it lasted. I think those who partied should be first to pay the tab. It would be best if they did it with the funds they looted from the "banks" as their bonuses, pay, commissions, stock options, and salaries, if they had to sell their toys to pay back. After you try to collect that money, you can try me again about taking up the slack. I don't think I'll be any more interested then than I am now, but you never know.

Your most humble servant,

The End Of The World As We Know It

Or at the least that first effects of The Recession have finally arrived on privileged corners of Manhattan.

This from the The New York Times, which as you will recall, contains all the news that's fit to print, and chronicles events in the world from its lofty perspective. The headline: "In weak economy, forgoing $4 lattes for home brews."

The ''latte effect'' of the go-go years had consumers spending $4 a day on coffee. Now the downturn is forcing them to rethink the wisdom of such habits.

As inflation squeezes budgets, middle-class Americans are taking fresh stock of their spending in search of ways to save a nickel or a dime. The result: People are giving up a variety of small financial vices. ..snip

While the idea that little costs add up is nothing new, it comes with added sticker shock as food and gas prices sprint along at a record pace. The result is that people are finally putting the breaks on vices once considered necessary -- like frappuccinos. ..snip

The result is fewer latte runs. Literally.

Last month, Starbucks Corp. blamed rising food and gas prices when it reported a 28 percent drop in second-quarter earnings, and said sales at U.S. stores open at least a year had dropped -- indicating some may finally be summoning their inner Scrooges.

This cute article is a sign that even the New York Times, which usually lives in an opulent world, recognizes that the economy is crashing and that even greater discomfort is coming. Being The Times, it says it's no big deal. Ha ha ha. People are just tightening their belts a little bit. It's not a big deal, really. We're all doing fine, right?? Well, aren't we?

When a large coffee at the local coffee emporium reached $2.25 about 3 months ago, I stopped this "vice[ I] once considered necessary." I found that I could buy organic, fair trade, Peruvian French roast for about $11/pound and my own half and half. And that I liked my brew better. I did that initially because $2.25 felt like too much. Later I was scandalized by the arithmetic: 5 x $2.25 =$11.25 x 50 weeks = $562.50/year.

That kind of outrage has been happening with more frequency lately. Regular gas at $4.269/gallon means that a 15 gallon fill up costs $64.04. A 250 gallon tank of fuel oil at $4.699/gallon is $1,174.50. And a trip to the local health food and vegetable emporium is eye opening. I thank Goddess that my own vegetable garden is so very abundant this year, though it would be far, far better if there were more bees to pollinate the peas.

The signs of economic pressure are everywhere if you're paying attention.

I am not poor. I am self employed. I have a high income. My income has not measurably decreased because of the economic condition of the country. But I'm nevertheless deeply offended by what is happening to my neighbors as prices for necessities rise and they struggle to make ends meet and they do without and their wealth is gradually redistributed from them to the wealthiest Americans.

And now even the New York Times has noticed that fewer people, the people in its affluent audience, are buying $4 lattes. In other words, the decay, the rot is growing and has now begun to arrive even at the Times's door.

Have our insulated and oblivious politicians noticed this trend too? Are they sleeping? Are they waiting until there are numerous little Bushvilles, people living in refrigerator crates under highway overpasses, homeless people begging on sidewalks, families camping out in their cars before they recognize that there's a big problem in the economy? Are they waiting until fuel drive offs, thefts of gas cans, and siphoning reach record levels?

Do they have a solution for this? Are they discussing this? I mean, there's nothing to be concerned about, right? Do they really think talking about offshore drilling and drilling in ANWAR and suspending the federal gas tax and regulating kinds of futures trading speculation and investing in future green energy projects is addressing the economy? Do they think we're better off than we were last year? Or 8 years ago? Or have they decided that the market will miraculously solve this problem and that people should just suffer until it does?