Ugh

As I said to a friend recently, I’ve been using those 3 letters way too much these days. Is it just me or does it seem like we are all in this cop's shoes with the economy slowly coming to crush us whether we like it or not. I was delusional enough to be hopeful that October would set a bottom and the repair would begin once we have our new President lined up. Not surprisingly, I was wrong.

I have had the ability to catch more than my fair share of CNBC over the past month. What began as a slow bleed, turned to a busted corroded artery, and is now back to those 5 cuts from shaving that just won’t stop. It has been the car wreck I just can’t bring myself to look away from. K2 has nothing on the Dow’s chart the past 8 weeks and even though we had a bit of a bump 2 weeks ago, we’re back down like Heath Ledger after…oh, sorry, too soon?

I’d like to go into a long analysis about how f@*%ed we are, but I don’t have the energy…CNBC has taken it from me. All I know is this.

The banks don’t have money, so they can’t lend to anyone. People don’t have money and they can’t borrow any. Businesses don’t have money and they can’t borrow any either. So the solution? Give the banks money.

Awesome, problem fixed. Only problem is, we got into this whole by giving undeserving people loans…so up go the standards. Great, so give loans only to the people who are worthy. Uh-oh, everyone is losing their job and the value of their greatest asset (their home) is shot. No one is worthy.

How about the businesses loans? Well, since the people don’t have jobs, can’t even pay their mortgages and have lost 50%+ of their investments, they kinda aren’t in the shopping spree mood. Looks like Tiny Tim’s Christmas had nothing on this year’s Christmas. Beyond that, businesses are having trouble collecting their invoices and their market cap has probably dropped 50-80% this year .

In summary...your home is under water, you lost your job and can't get a loan to buy a car from the bankrupt auto company to get to an interview. Your kid's school is closing because your state's budget is out of wack, and you can't pay for the babysitter to go to the job interview. This is alright though because no one is hiring because you also can't afford to go buy anything. Did I mention your 401k is more like a 97k right now? Boy, could we use a war...are there any more Bush's left? There are?! Awesome!!! Oh, Jeb...UGH...let's give Obama first crack at this.

The end result everyone? We’ll be fine…eventually. In the meantime, hold on because for any of you that aren’t 80+ this is new to you and it could take quite a while. Let’s just home my inspirational feelings last week weren’t misplaced.