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So, it’s been quiet around these parts because I’ve just been too busy, too stressed and not really inclined to write for awhile.

So, what I’m going to do is start going through the drafts queue of the blog and emptying everything out. Getting all those unfinished thoughts and bits out and into the interwebs because you know I just shit jewels baby! JEWELS! Anyway, this is from early August

Talk about a comeuppance.

Stocks posted a severe drop today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 4.3% and the Nasdaq crumbling over 5%.

By the end of the day there were few places left to hide. Gold, silver, crude and yields on Treasuries all fell sharply as traders looked for safety and were met by nothing but falling prices. Over the last 10 trading days stocks have lost more than 10%, the traditional definition of a market correction.

Today’s selling started in Europe and picked up steam as American investors, already twitchy in the wake of the debt ceiling debacle, suddenly preferred cash over all other assets. The selling began overseas, but we have more than our share of problems in the U.S. as well.

There’s a growing realization among even the most optimistic investors that the United States is entering a new recession—a dreaded “double-dip.” Adding to the pain is the sense that the government and Federal Reserve are out of both ideas and ways to stimulate the economy.

 You know, there are people in this world who are just plain crazy. These are people you can’t even remotely reason with and there is no shortage of them on either the right or the left.

When Bush was President all the fringe people on the left were running around up in arms about everything and now we have people on the right in the form of these Tea Party idiots.

And using the term idiot in this case is appropriate because the Tea Party people believe
it’s so important to make a point about the size of government and government spending that they are more than happy to drive the bus right off a cliff to drive that point home.

Consequently, just when the economy starts to get better, just when consumer confidence is starting to return... well let’s put the brakes on all of that by making sure we can politicize and draw out the debate on government spending to the point where it looks like a very real possibility that the federal government will default on its obligations.

And that’s just what they did.

So, you know what the upshot on all of it was, do you know what the end result of their proving a point was, they cost the US taxpayer (that‘s you and I brother) so much more money as the cost of government borrowing went up because the credit rating of government debt was downgraded.

Thank the fools in the Tea Party for that.

I’ve spoken with a couple of people over the last few weeks, people whose opinion I respect but also people who are all too ready to buy into the propaganda that is being spewed forth under the guise of facts. It’s the kind of thing that would make Josef Goebbels proud. This thing about the government spending being greater than at any other time in history or of any other president combined...

D’uh!

Let’s measure things in 1776 dollars morons.

Anyway, I’ve been accused of a lot of things over the last few weeks. Today, I was accused of being a Democrat even though I’m a registered Republican. The fact that I am more moderate, the fact that I believe in compromise and working together as the only way to move the country forward simply doesn’t sit well with the ‘True Believers.’

You know the other thing that is worrying to me? What worries me is underlying all of this rhetoric, there is this veiled racism. I don’t think I’m the only one that senses it but I get this sense that it is there. Like some kind of Great White Hope the Tea Party people hold out for salvation against the President.

It’s sad.

It’s sad because there are times I can readily see some of these morons donning white sheets (and it’s not all of them but there are a couple who are really out on the fringe). And me, I’m creeped out by it. I’m creeped out by it and I’m embarrassed too – you would think better of us.

I keep thinking to myself about all the things the President has done that have gone well. He wasn’t handed a good situation by his predecessor but he managed to steer the ship of state in the right direction and the economy had begun to recover. He got the first part of health care reform pushed through Congress (which reminds me of all the people who derisively call it ObamaCare without ever having read the actual bill). They even managed to finally get Osama.

I was talking to a friend the other day and he made a good observation. He noted how there were a few detractors who wanted to try the President for treason but the interesting thing is that you have members of Congress on the extreme right who knew they were doing harm to the country but stood fast rather than compromise to prove their point.

And my friend said, ‘Shouldn’t they be the ones who are tried for treason.’

And I’ll be damned if I didn’t agree with him.