I was up in the wee hours last night. I had the radio tuned to the BBC World Service, and the Hang Seng Index website open in my browser--Check it out; you can watch the stocks fall and volatility rise in (sur)real time.
Though the Masters of Paradigm have been baying to the Chicken-Little skies like a flack (flock+pack) of Shar-Poos on Ritalin that reducing debt and spending is the cure for our sovereign woes, it seems that the “markets” do not like governmental austerity nearly so much they think they do, which is to say, not at all.
As soon as the debt ceiling bill (to be here and hereafter known as The Suck Heard ‘Round The World) was passed in Congress and signed into law by President Obama, everyone suddenly looked up and noticed that the actual effects of enforced austerity in countries in the Euro Zone was, like, bad. And as the illimitable Atrios has sung out many a time:
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeee…
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The WD-40 Company should consider issuing its fine product in vintage years. It’s a pure petroleum distillate, no fish oil or hog lard–fine dinosaur wine, but currently non-vintage. One could invest in a case of vintage “40″ as a hedge against inflation… Checking in at the company website, I see that it already offers a collectible series. Go to “Gunny’s Garage” and get in on the ground floor, folks…pre-peak-oil WD-40 can only accrue in value as pure petroleum lubricants become more and more rare; not to mention the nostalgia value that will also accrue as our military-technological Imperium fades, in a product promotion that “supports the troops.”
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I try to think ahead, just for fun. What is fun for me is not necessarily fun for you. To prepare for my place in the new economy, I’m taking up stone knapping. Dr. Omed’s Fine Flint and Obsidian blades, suitable for all hunter-gatherer and neo-Aztec needs, including dressing out captured bankers and stockbrokers, coming soon to a fine rock shelter near you. I also do petroglyphs.
I have seen the aboriginal future, and it involves laying your still beating heart on the altar atop the Pyramid of the Sun.