Eggs, bacon, toast, and a nice hot cup of DOOM!

Just some quick hits today:

Victorville, CA: Boned!

Dingy Harry: Don't sweat Social Security! All is well! We've got two decades before we have to worry! By the way, and on a completely unrelated note, I'll probably be dead by then so what do I care if it collapses or not?" (Translation: LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA.)

Speaking of Social Security: Means-testing won't do shit to solve the problem because you'd have to define "rich" so far down that someone barely making $50K per year would have to be shoehorned into the "rich" basket to make means-testing have much impact. (The problem isn't that too many rich people get SS; the problem is that too many poor and middle-class people get it.) It would also expose the program for being the wealth-transfer welfare program it's been all along. (There is some good news hidden in the Social Security bad news, though: Americans are living longer. I'll be able to slave away in the salt-mines until I'm ninety, at this rate! Yay me!)

Teh Krugman finally notices something that has been obvious to most of us for a long time now: The Obama Administration really doesn't give a damn about the unemployed. We can infer this by the fact that nothing Obama has done so far is intended to grow the economy -- every action Obama has taken is intended to expand the reach of the government and the welfare-state. (Of course to Krugman this means MORE GOVERNMENT SPENDING!!!!!, but this also is something we all knew without having to read a word he wrote.)

The sovereign-debt crisis has moved to the back pages in the wake of the natural disaster in Japan and the unrest in the Middle East, but it didn't just go away: Portugal is next in line on the ECB's bailout train. It's becoming a rule of thumb in the Eurozone that a bailout becomes inevitable a couple of days after the leader of the country gives an interview assuring everyone that they definitely won't need a bailout. Spain is next in line, and that's the end of the whole farce, really: there isn't enough money in the whole Eurozone to bail out Spain.

And in other DOOM!-related news: Japan has conceded that the last resort to solving the nuclear-meltdown threat at their crippled Fukushima nuclear plant will be to adopt the "Chernobyl Solution": bury the site under many tons of sand and concrete, and then build a lead-lined crypt over it. The massive need for Yen liquidity on the part of the Japanese government has caused a spike in USD-JPY spreads, but the Yen is sinking back down as the liquidity move completes.

[UPDATE]

More good news: New York Fed confirms intervention in currency markets. Everybody on the money train, baby! (h/t MarkC in the comments.)

[UPDATE 2]

Cost of living in the US is the highest in history. Combine that with high unemployment and record-low labor participation, and what do you have? Obamanomics, baby! Break out your boogie shoes and dance the night away! (Via Instapundit.)

Homeless cat ain't gonna lie. Homeless cat has had some problems in his life. Homeless cat has made some bad decisions. Homeless cat needs some money, and Homeless cat is probably gonna spend the money on booze. Maybe some Night Train or Mad-Dog 20/20 to chase the bad dreams away. Homeless Cat has problems, but he ain't making no excuses.

(I stole this bit from one of the commenters yesterday. If this is yours, remind me and I'll give a shout-out.)

posted by Monty at 09:06 AM

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