SAR #9185/Weekender

Is it too late to be honest with ourselves?

The Great Divide: Acknowledge unemployment is near 10%, U-6 nearly 17%, foreclosures are mounting, Wall Street is beating back attempts to protect their customers, and bonuses at Goldman Sachs will set new records this year. Enjoy your hamburger and the bottle rocket. Buy the kid another sparkler.

Not the News: Commodities futures trading is 98.5% speculative gambling. Gambling is heavily taxed everwhere but at the tip of Manhattan Island. It would bee a Good Idea to tax it there, too.

Market Movers: The blogsphere is bemoaning the fact that 25% are bright enough to walk away when their house is more than 15% underwater. It's one of the rare places where the economists conceit of the rational investor actually exists. Would we be better off if everyone walked at the -15% mark?

A Little Warming: Sheep on a Scottish island have responded to global climate change by shrinking.

Compass Heading: We down 8 million jobs and dropping like a rock. The work week is down so that even those who have jobs are making less. State cuts are reducing the social safety net. If we're not headed to the Twilight Zone, why does it smell like the 1930's?

Rolling Stoned: The organic label in the supermarket veggie department has been ajoke since Congress got involved, but did you know that 'organic' baby food contains synthetic additives? Thanks to Bush's FDA, you don't always get whaty you pay for.

Away, Far, Far Away: Turns out there is a placae called 'Away' where you can dispose of stuff like coal ash. It's in Alabama.

Another Quote: "What if they gave a Great Depression but systematically rigged the statistics, manipulated the markets, inflated the currency, and were able to convince the majority that it was not all that bad? Would it still be a Grat Depression? Or a Great Delusion?"

Silly Question: "Why Are Employment Numbers So Bad?" Start with the nail, work you way up to losing the battle.

Boy Scouting: Russia and the Ukraine are not playing well together; European countries are well advised to be prepared and stockup now on gas - before winter and shortages and higher prices return.

Open Book Test: Why should a trader sitting in a carrel someplace be able to gable on commodities? Why do we allow speculators - folks with no interest in or connection to the actual items - manipulate the price the rest of us pay? Points will be deducted for reliance on the myth of efficient markets.

Porn O'Graph: Bad housing market. Down, boy, down.

SAR #9184

Anger can become a form of entertainment.

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Silly Queston: "What is the point of jailing Bernie Madoff? He is no direct threat to anyone." (a) He's a theif. (b) Punishment for 'a'. (c) To discourage the others. and (d) revenge.

Headline Only: "Seven More Banks Fail."

Moving Target: Less than a week after Denmark reported the first known case of swine flu resistant to treatment by Tamiflu, Japan confirms a similar mutation.

Quoted: "We are on the record in the opinion that the Obama economic team is ineffective, backward-thinking, compromised, and possibly corrupt. They are serving the corporate banks and not the people. They should be replaced, starting with Larry Summers who is a Greenspan and Rubin crony and the core failure of the team. Tim Geithner should follow to find beter employment for his talents, possibly as a salesman of men's suits."

The Other Numbers: Thursday's employment data showed June's "total unempoyment" as 16.5% - that's 35 million un- and underemployed. U-6 is now over 20%.

Pimping: For $25,000 to $250,000, the Washington Post will get you access to "the powerful few" - from members of the Administration or Congress or - at the low end - WaPo's own reporters. Two beers and a handful of chips would be plenty for me, since I'm not one of those bloggers who needs jailing.

Anecdote: Banks can borrow overnight funds from the Fed's discount window for about 0.5%. Why would a bank pay 7% for overnight money from the Fed Trading Systtem unless it had no decent collateral? Oh.

It's the Odds: When there are 5 applicants for every job, wages go down. Except on Wall Street.

English, Perversion of: Microsoft says it will be 'enhancing' the experince of those playing its games by embedding ads as 'an organic part' of them. A new form of organic farming.

Simple Math: California's partial government shutdown is forcing employees to take three days a month off without pay. That's a 14% pay cut. Did the banks take this into consideration when they wrote the loan for the car, the house? Did the legislature take the car or the house into consideration?

Time Out: Personal bankruptcies are up 40% y/y, as over 100,000 American families slipped beneath the waves of the economic storm.

Taking Sides: Congress was going to require an energy audit as part of every house sale. But that would, the realtors claimed, put shoddily built energy inefficient houses at a disadvantage. So that was dropped from the legislation, for the good of the people ... the ones trying to unload shoddy, energy inefficient houses.

Summer Vacation: Britain's helath minister predicts that by the end of August, 100,000 Brits will come down with swine flu every day. London? No, I'm going river rafting.

Feedback Loop: New data shows that the Arctic permafrost contains twice as much carbon as previously thought. If only 10% of it bubbles into the atmosphere, it will increase global temperatures 0.7C (1.25F). If only 10% of it bubbles into the atmosphere we'll be very lucky.

Porn O'Graph: The employment picture, pictured.