Washington---we have a problem

The Markets are screaming the warning that none of the politicians want to hear; and even worse is that they don't want to hear this particular warning. They are moving to solve the last problem, one that has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation right now. I urge all of you who are interested, to read and listen to Jim Cramer over at KNBC.

I'd only say that I know the brokerage business too, and that the contempt for the customer is industry wide. We all regard investor money as ours and commissions are all we care about. He refers to the term used by management as "jam it to them." My experience was the term "fuck those assholes." Loading clients up with bad bonds, bad stock, and mediocre whatever is how we earn our daily bread. He asks where the SEC is in all this? Mediocre Bush appoints mediocre people everywhere possible and the SEC honestly has no clue as to what is happening and why their lack of oversight is partly responsible for all this. The very high risk "mortgage" packages were mislabeled as AAA by the rating agencies without so much as a shrug. Wouldn't be so bad, but everybody on the Street knew it was bullshit.

Cramer calls attention to the "insurance" all of us have for everything or we cannot live. Our bank accounts are insured, our car loans, our mortgages, our children's health, and everything else under the sun. We are seeing the hard cold fact that there isn't enough money anywhere to pay off insurance "claims" against these mortgages, the total is somewhere in the 500bln class. I even wonder if put options in the markets can be paid off.

This is serious stuff.

Spend an hour over there and you'll learn plenty. Cramer was at Goldman for ten years and has run a hedge fund for nearly that long. He really really understands most of what is going on. Oh, and follow the links and listen to some of his commentary from the networks yesterday. Is anyone listening? I doubt it. Does anyone want to hear?

There is not a politician in the universe who will take responsibility for their role in anything. Everything Congress will pass will be for the purpose of blaming somebody else. And getting re-elected. I wonder if it will work if the Dow drops 2,000 points in a couple of weeks? A move that would destroy all the 501s, retirement funds, and the wealth of the entire country.

The MSM will blame Bush, but it was they who stood by while all this was going on under their noses. The press is just one more institution that didn't do their job.