As I write this the DOW is up a little from its 700 point loss. My stocks are down around 5% and I expect they’ll keep sliding about 20%, 40% or more. I wanted to sell, but we didn’t see the edge of the precipice until it was too late. I still want to sell. I had a few thousand dollars worth of an insurance company stock that I sold a few months ago, thank goodness.

The price of oil and the lack of oversight in the financial industry has resulted in synchronicity that will force things down and down. Banks all over the world are failing and I just read that congress has voted against the bail out. I have no doubt the bailout would have not have done anything but line the pockets of financial executives, though.

My own losses might be about $300k in stock and $300k in the value of my house, before this is over. I would say that I would get off easy except that the county government is going to have to do some cost cutting and that usually means getting rid of contractors. One way or the other, I may be retired in the coming year.

But, in spite of the bad news, I am a little happy that the economic policies of the Republicans has failed so dramatically. Bush will be remembered as the president, like Coolidge and Hoover 80 years ago, who presided over the conditions that led to this crash. The republicans were kept out of the white house for 20 years as a result of the 1929 crash. The fault was not entirely with the republicans, but the blame certainly fell on them, as it will this time. I once said that the only good thing about Bush was that after he left office few would vote for a republican president for a long time. It looks like this may be true.

The republican policies of regulation and less government oversight have resulted in their logical conclusion. We are in for a world wide monetary collapse. I expect to stand in line to get free bread as my grandfather would have done. I imagine that soon my neighbors and I will not be able to pay our property taxes and local governments will go bankrupt.

If it gets too much worse, I may have to cut back on cats. If Ollie throws up on the rug one more time… Watch out cats!