Wow!

What a week to be an observer of the financial markets. The Dow looked like a WWII dive bomber letting loose a torpedo only the torpedo seemed to go off before release. Today was downright scary. I looked at the stocks app on my iPhone about the minute that the market opened. With the number down over 600 points I figured that it was yesterday's total and the feed didn't start yet. WRONG! It was down, big. Then up, bigger. Up and mostly down all day until another rally that faded at the end.

My brother correctly pointed out that we're towards the end of all of this nonsense. First, the housing bubble went. The next domino was the credit bubble linked to housing. We're in the last phase - the hedge bubble. With all of the loses taken by hedge funds they had to liquidate or risk failing. So a few more volatile days ahead and maybe the Dow can go back to some sort of old normal - up or down a few points a day. Then maybe we'll go back to being an investor nation not a trader nation.

While the economic situation is scary it's not as scary as the political situation. Money is logical. People place bets with their money in situations where they know where they will win. If there's a chance of losing, they take their ball (cash) and go home until they can make money. That's what we're seeing now. Trades are being undone because money is not being made. When risk is not rewarded then not risking is the smart play.

The politics this past week have been far from assuring. The administration is showing no signs of leadership. Every time that President Bush talks during market hours the ticker shows up next to him in media coverage. Almost on cue, the market tanks while he's talking. Better to sit this one out in Crawford, or Dallas because I guess that's where he's going to retire to. The stooges that want to replace him have no clue either. Why people are openly for these guys is beyond me. We had a non-debate this week in which new questions were answered with old answers. If this were not bad enough neither candidate makes much sense in their responses. There is absolutely no continuity. One minute they want to cut taxes. The next they want to tax oil companies but forget that while the stock market is tanking oil is dropping like a rock too. So what are they going to tax if the oil companies can't turn a profit? Finally, they're adding programs and buying up all of our mortgages. A whole lot of programs with no coherent plan and a lot of misrepresenting how our economy works. Ayn Rand would say that we have two looters running for president because they are.

It's pretty clear that the only thing running this country is fear. The old Franklin Roosevelt line about there's nothing to fear but fear itself line of government assuring us all that things will be good if we trust them has given way to a new approach. People only fear things. We fear terrorism, financial ruin, what we eat and the weather. We fear and we vote but instead of going to the one who puts our fears to rest they go to the ones who make us fear what's going on the most.

This week we saw anger. In all honesty, I'm a bit shocked that we have not seen more if it sooner. But we're seeing it now and McCain is tapping into it. If we could run our cars and power plants on anger we'd be a bigger energy producer than 10 Saudi Arabias. So the final month of the campaign is going to be fear versus anger instead of solutions. In the past, we deserved the government we elected. This time around we can't afford it but are bound to get what we deserve anyway. If asked a right track or wrong track opinion of these choices I can't choose because they're both the wrong track. Right about now a Perot/Stockdale ticket is looking pretty good.