Mad World

And Shiva is a total tease: all hands, no action.

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out phrases, make up faces
Bright and early for election races
Running nowhere, running nowhere
And anger is filling up their glasses
No compassion, no companssion
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which Repubs are flopping
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cos I find it hard to take
When people talk in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad World

God has decided to destroy the world economy, economic armegeddon. Here’s a part of a Bloomberg story today, with encouraging news:

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) — Hundreds of hedge funds will fail and policy makers may need to shut financial markets for a week or more as the crisis forces investors to dump assets, New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini said.

“We’ve reached a situation of sheer panic,” Roubini, who predicted the financial crisis in 2006, told a conference of hedge-fund managers in London today. “There will be massive dumping of assets” and “hundreds of hedge funds are going to go bust,” he said.

And here is some information that I gathered my own self on one little sector of the economy that concerns me, auto sales. I know the people what processes automobile title transactions in this State, you see, and I just got off the phone with one. And in this populous state, there is an average of around 4,000 motor vehicle title transactions each and every day, thats 4,000 care sales. This last week, the average: 1,000.

A 75% DROP IN BUSINESS! Excuse me while I run outside, tear off my clothes, and run around in circles shrieking for a while. (any excuse to tear off my clothes).

@Prommie:
Nope. Not good at all.

“We’ve reached a situation of sheer panic,” Roubini, who predicted the financial crisis in 2006, told a conference of hedge-fund managers in London today. “There will be massive dumping of assets” and “hundreds of hedge funds are going to go bust,” he said.

If many folks pension plans weren’t tied in with the hedges then I wouldn’t be shedding a tear. Lots of great fortunes are going to be lost and well deserved I might add.

@Prommie: Here in NM, some poor bastard was holding the grand opening of a new car dealership last Saturday, according to the live radio remote I heard. He could not have chosen a worse time, except for the weekend after the announcement of a replacement or substitute for gasoline.

@redmanlaw:
Sort of a live broadcast at Del’s Stereo and Sound minus Dr Johnny Fever?

Step-by-step instructions on how to become a hobo: http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Hobo

Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!

As foreclosures in California skyrocket, Greenspan admits he made a mistake in trusting the invisible hand of the free market to regulate itself.

No shit, Sherlock.

@ManchuCandidate: Sometimes I’ll go so obscure that I’ll be happy if one person gets it.

@nojo: “Donnie Darko” obscure? Must be a generational thing. I can’t think of anyone my age who escaped high school without seeing it.

@mellbell: I know it — love it, own it — by recommendation from Silent Creative Partner, who’s 31 and keeps me from slipping into Gilligan’s Island references. Left to my own devices, the world ends with Blade Runner.

@mellbell: Nojo’s Rule of Obscurity:

Once you hit 40, you realize that there’s an entire generation behind you that grew up with completely different pop-culture references. That’s when you need spies among the kids, or short of that, a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. (People also accepted, SFL.)

If you’re not careful, you end up like Russell Baker — still an astute observer, mind you — who the other day let slip that a common sitcom trope is Dad not letting Son have the keys to the jalopy on Saturday night. Maybe Fred MacMurry, maybe even Tom Bosley, but sitcom rules changed on or about the evening All in the Family premiered.

@SanFranLefty: All that invisible free hand was doing was invisibly masturbating for all those years.

@Ewalda:
I can live the invisible hand masturbating, but I suspect that this market “correction” is more a full scale fisting with an iron glove.

@ManchuCandidate: So, you suspect it’s all just boredom with the same old same old, leading to some adventure on the dark side? Damn you, invisible hand!

@nojo: Wonder if Baker saw this one?

@nojo: You’re right about Archie Bunker, but Al Bundy and Homer Simpson have been the models of hopeless TV dads for what, decades?

By the way, did everybody see that Barry Goldwater’s grandchildren endorsed Obama. In Arizona.

@nojo: The only new pop culture reeference I know is “One time, at band camp.” And I think thats getting old. Sad.

@Dave H: It’s not their grandfather’s republican party, which was quite bad enough.
@nojo: I feel myself turning into cranky old librarian day by day.