If Washington could refrain from causing the worst it would be a good start.

Four really, really bad scenarios - Eamon Javers - Politico.com

His lecture comes as part of an annual “Rethinking Seminar” produced by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Rickards argues that government is not doing nearly enough to prepare for the worst. “Here’s the policy problem for the United States,” he said in an interview. “We have experts in defense and intelligence, and huge depth in capital markets experience at the Fed and at Treasury. But they’re separated by the Potomac River. And they’re not talking to each other.”

Next we'll find out that Jamie Gorelick -- who put "the wall" between Justice and the National Security agencies before 9/11 -- put the Potomac River between the Pentagon and the Fed and then stoked the subprime mortgage mess over at Fannie and Freddie.

But there are work-arounds to get around the "Potomac problem" which actually go across it. Get two tin cans and a long string. Put one tin can in the Pentagon and the other in the Fed and connect them with the string. But remember, you got to keep the string taut or it won't work. Then experts at the Pentagon could talk into one can and the experts at the Fed could listen out of the other. It works the other way around, too. We'll call it the can/can system. Or The Canned "Can" system. Or the "yes we can, can-can" system. This set up will work when the cell phones go down, the Internet goes down, even when there is no more electric power. In lieu of fax machines, they can use pneumatic tubes and carbon paper. Congress "can" provide the air -- but only when it is in session.

Also, I'd like to point out the hidden resource our nation has in overly fertilized and watered suburban lawns. These lawns could provide at least four bumper crops of carrots, sweet potatoes and corn, with no need of additional fertilizer. The three car garages could hold a milk cow, several pigs and a pony -- useful beasts that will provide sufficient manure for the fifth and sixth years. Basements can easily become root cellars. In addition, household chemicals can be turned into pipe bombs and nerve gas.

I hope this has been of help.

This is the end, again.

This explains a lot.

Who Is at Fault for the Decline of the Big Three? - Michael Barone (usnews.com)

The UAW also created a constituency within itself of retirees who have voting rights in union elections just as actual workers do, and there are now something like three times as many GM retirees as GM employees as voting members of the UAW. Retiree benefits account for the lion's share of the difference between GM's labor costs and the labor costs of foreign automakers in the United States.

Meet the New Revolution. Same as the Old Revolution.

SPIEGEL sets the scene:

The violent unrest that followed the shooting of a 15-year-old boy has driven Greece to the brink of a political crisis. The rioting marks an explosion of rage by the country's young people who have few prospects of carving out a place in a society where all initiative is stifled.

The mood in the jam-packed auditorium was reminiscent of the student protest movements of 1968. Hundreds of young people thronged their way into the dark room, sat on the steps or stood on tables. They shouted "murderers" and "pigs" -- and thunderously applauded calls for revenge. Cigarette smoke and the smell of sweat hung heavily in the air.

I see the Speaker and his throng and I think, "Greek Throngs still smoke cigarettes? And smell of sweat? No wonder the world thinks they're revolting." I watch. I listen.

He's a thirty-five year old student leader wearing Trotsky glasses. He told the reporters he's twenty-nine which is OK because they think he's ageless. He claims to know and like computers -- and some people as well. His friends call him "The Brute" despite his slight stature. He is confident his enemies will some day become refugees -- if they survive to flee the country. The same applies to those "friends" who call him Brute.

BRUTE: We have to hold out until the government steps down!

THRONG: (Cheers. Applause.)

BRUTE: We have to transform the protests into a political movement.

THRONG:(Cheers. Applause. Howls. The Throng is in Thrall -- that's a suburb of Athens.)

BRUTE: We have to formulate political objectives!

THRONG:(Cheers. Applause. Howls. Foot Stomping in Thunderous Ovation--that's the rented hall in Thrall.)

I want to encourage the young mob and almost shout "Kill the pigs!" and "Keep the Cycle of Violence going!" But the better angles of my nature intercede. I decide to move the throng towards peace.

ME: Oh, Throng! I say, Throng! Calm down Throng and please listen to reason. What you need to do is think this thing through.

THRONG: (Irritably) Who is this guy? (Malevolently) Capitalist tool. (Creatively) Let's play "get the Fascist." (Delightedly) Cut out his entrails!

I run to the Bastille for safety. Throng storms it! I run to the winter Palace. Throng burns it! I fly to Guantanamo Bay. Throng closes it!

Desperate, I swim to Florida and ask for Asylum. The border agents are Mexican illegals doing a job Americans will no longer do. They don't believe I'm a Cuban entering illegally and refuse me permission to stay (I speak halting Spanish with a heavy Ohio accent). I tell them I will not show them my identity papers because they are all wet. I'm thrown into jail, but only for the customary two hours. Then I am given a court date and a bus ticket to Akron (they said they'd send me wherever I wanted to go but I didn't believe them and said Akron).

The moral: don't try to reason people out of a revolution they were not reasoned into. And if anyone asks you where you want to go, don't say Akron.

The End

More of that Spengler style commentary.

Financial crises, like epidemics, kill the unhealthy first. The present crisis is painful for most of the world but deadly for many Muslim countries, and especially so for the most populous ones. Policy makers have not begun to assess the damage...

Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad controls Iran through a kleptocracy of Central African proportions, dissipating the country's oil windfall into payoffs to an "entire class of hangers-on of the Islamic revolution"...

Pakistan has one of the world's youngest populations and an enormous capital requirement. Young people borrow from old people, and countries with young populations should import capital from countries with aging populations. That is out of the question, for the world markets have turned Pakistan into a pariah. The cost of credit protection on Pakistani sovereign debt is now more than 3,000 points (or 30%) above the benchmark London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), reflecting a complete shutout from capital markets...

Turkey has been able to keep afloat through the crisis, but barely so. The Turkish currency has fallen by a third, its stock market has fallen by nearly 80% in dollar terms, and the central bank must keep interest rates at a punishing 20% to prevent money from fleeing the country. Turkey has a real economy with a few first-rate manufacturing companies, unlike Iran and Pakistan, so the comparison is not quite fair. Nonetheless, Turkey relied heavily on short-term interbank borrowings to finance its balance of trade deficit, and the crisis has pulled the carpet out from under its economy. In August, before the crisis erupted in force, Turkey had 10% unemployment. It will get much worse.

---

Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs

Those who objected to America's role as world policeman will get what they wanted, but they won't like it: a religious war reaching from Lebanon to Pakistan, and Colombian-style narco-war spreading to Mexico and Brazil...

The financial crisis will push Pakistan further towards radical Islam. Now this proclamation will be preached from every mosque from Tyre to Lahore: "The corrupt West tried to seduce you with consumerism. Now the poisoned gifts of the West are shown to be an illusion, and those of you who lusted after them are left only with your humiliation..."

Mexico in some ways is the most worrying place in the Western hemisphere. A low-level civil war between the drug cartels and the federal government has been fought over the past two years, and the cartels are winning. Senior Mexican officials charged with suppression of the cartels have been moving their families quietly out of the country. The collapse of the oil price and the likely collapse of remittances from Mexicans in the United States threaten the stability of the financial system, and the Mexican peso has lost nearly 40% of its value during the past several weeks. With the collapse of the American construction industry, a major source of employment for illegal Mexican immigrants to the US, the economic safety valve has broken, and the cartels have in inexhaustible supply of young men willing to risk their lives for a living.

---

Global Analysis - J. R. Nyquist "Hitting Bottom" 10/31/2008

But sometimes, even the insanity of war carries a cold logic of its own. This column has previously discussed the statements of Chinese Gen. Chi Haotian, known to Chinese dissidents. In recent years China’s leaders have been quietly talking to party cadres about a future war with America. It is true that Chinese dissidents see this as a political tactic for derailing the democracy movement. It is more than a tactic, however, to tell the political elite of a country that war is coming. The Chinese leadership has not been blind to the financial problem inherent in the U.S. economy and, therefore, the related problem of the Chinese economy. It is time to revisit Gen. Chi’s speech titled “War is not far from us and is the midwife of the Chinese century.”

Do we have time to consider the problems facing the Congo? Oh hell, let's just revisit Vietnam.

Intro Apocalypse Now

They see. They just don't inform.

Will 'feditis' spread to Obama and Daley? -- chicagotribune.com

After stubbornly refusing to see Chicago politics as it really is, the national media are finally paying attention. That's great news for most everybody, except for our politicians.

The election's over so I guess it is not too early. As for those politicians, something tells me they will be alright.

Investor f-off

Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud hits other investors - Yahoo! Finance

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors scrambled to assess potential losses from an alleged $50 billion fraud by Bernard Madoff, a day after the arrest of the prominent Wall Street trader.

Prosecutors and regulators accused the 70-year-old, who was chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market in the early 1990s, of masterminding a fraud of epic proportions through his investment advisory business, which managed at least one hedge fund.

Hundreds of people, investing with him through the firm's clients, entrusted Madoff with billions of dollars, industry experts said.

They should put this guy in charge of Carbon Credits: such talent should not be allowed to languish the Federal Pen. Make him the "Federal Car Tar" too. Combine the positions. There. Progress being made.

If they can show "The Valley of Elah" in the Middle East, why not?

Instapundit:

IS THIS A GOOD IDEA? The makers of the new movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” have arranged for it to be beamed into space on Friday.

Hollywood is constantly making movies that are basically anti-American to sell on foreign shores. Having made an anti-humanity movie, why not make sure Space Aliens get to see it? In fact, if the Space Invaders in the remake had been watching I Love Lucy it would be an interesting plot twist. Lucy gets them coming here. But on the way here they watch All in the Family and Married with Children. Then when they get here they watch CNN. No wonder they send in the exterminator.

Maybe if we had all said “Klaatu barada nikto” to the Producers the movie would not have opened.