DOOM: I fall to pieces

It looks like the gentle hippie "occupiers" in Oakland got a little out of hand last night. So now a major port is shut down because of these idiots, causing who knows how much more economic damage to the country. And to what end? Not even the idiots who are protesting can really explain themselves.

More US citizens oppose the "occupy" retards than support them, and I don't think that's a new development. It's always been the case, but the media worked really hard to sanctify these idiots in the eyes of the public. But in light of the rapes, the drug-use, the general lawlessness, and the utter incoherence of the movement's aims and goals, it's hard to cast these people as anything other than a dangerous mob.

I sometimes think that maybe I am too DOOM-y, that maybe I’m letting my innate cynicism get the better of me. Then I read stuff like this and think that I’m not DOOM-y enough.

"The Big Ugly" -- the Fed massively cuts its economic outlook. I don't think Bammer can count on a surge in the economy to carry him to victory in 2012.

Greece: Papandreou may be stepping down. Or not? This seems like some kind of power-play on Papandreou's part, and it may be a strategem to head off an internal vote of no-confidence (or even a coup). It's clear that things in Greece are moving quickly to some kind of crisis, though.

Eurozone to Greece: S**t or get off the pot. Nothing but ruin and hardship await the Greeks, whichever path they choose: default and reversion back to the drachma means an abrupt return to third-world nation status for about a decade, while staying inside the Euro means...a decade of grinding austerity, hardship, and financial ruin. And the most bitter pill for the Greeks to swallow is that they brought much of this ruin upon themselves.

If the Eurozone is gonna kick Greece to the curb, maybe they ought to just completely clean house and get rid of Portugal, Spain, and Italy while they’re at it. Or, you know, maybe just admit that this whole Euro project is just a catastrophe all around and let everyone go back to their national currencies.

Jeremy Warner of The Telegraph: The euro tragedy is reaching its bloody end. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

The trade that killed Jon Corzine's MF Global. This is why I keep talking about the European sovereign debt crisis: what happens over there has a big impact on what happens here. Everything is connected.

Rick Perry's flat tax plan: intergenerational warfare?

Teh Bernank fears that the US faces the same stagnation as Japan. Which is odd, because he's making the same damned Keynesian mistakes Japan has made, and with the same results.

Politically-correct employment.

I think that this is a good time to raise some challenging questions about college education as we know it.

Would students be better off delaying college and instead trying to work for a year or two first?

Should young people be allowed to pursue professional training without going to college? (In other countries, someone going to law school, for example, might skip college.)

The New York Post advises Mayor Bloomberg to throw the bums out. I hope he leaves them right where they are. This Fellini-esque display of squalor, incoherence, and lawlessness only helps the conservative cause. The longer it goes on, the better our chances are of an electoral landslide in 2012. (Plus the thought of a bunch of blue, shivering hippies trying to survive a Manhattan winter warms my cold black cinder of a heart.)

China's millionaires: "Get me outta here!" A person in China is "rich" only at the forbearance of their own government -- an authoritarian, Communist regime. That wealth could disappear in a moment if the government decides it should, and China's entrepreneurs and business-owners know that.

posted by Monty at 08:59 AM

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