But seriously folks...

Welcome to March. I started out hot here - 20 posts in January, 13 in February - but the last one was almost 2 weeks ago. Personally I have just had too much work to deal with, and the economic news has been so bad that just trying to read it all was taking up most of my free time. But I digress.

What I want to mention seriously is this - I don't think most people, including economists and financial professionals, are really grasping what is potentially happening to the US and global economy. The word subprime got out there in the media and was latched on to by the general public. It seemed plausible, a bunch of people who shouldn't have bought houses did, and now they are in trouble. Oh, and the mortgages that they were supposed to be paying were actually securitized and sold off around the world as SAFE investments. Problem contained. Maybe 40 billion in losses. Okay 200 billion. Well, maybe 400 billion. Okay, shit, let's say a trillion - whatever. And really - I mean whatever. Because whatever paper losses the real estate crash produces in America and then ripple around the globe, that is only one part of the problem.

We have insolvent banks. We have soaring inflation. We have a huge national debt and trade imbalance. We have growing unemployment and falling wages. Folks - what we have is a mess. Recession? Hell yes. It is just the beginning.