Holding my Breath

Just like everyone else... Trying to keep my mind on my work, but just wondering what the world will look like in six months.

Everything rides on the resolution of the (US-originated) financial mess in an essentially leaderless time, especially in the US. Great time for an administration with an eye on the exits, huh?

TB points out that TheOilDrum has some good articles. Here are some I'd recommend as you try to figure out this mess.

Resurgence of Risk (Nate Hagens, from '07)

The End of Growth (Richard Heinberg)

This is not a Liquidity Crisis (Herman Daly)

An Email (fictitious) from Bernanke (Mike Shedlock, from '06)

Good places to start aiming your crystal ball.

After all those years of thinking the Great Correction was imminent to find things continuing as passes for "normal" in postmodern times, I had reset my expectations a generation in the future. But it may well be that it's crunch time.

As if anyone reading here couldn't guess, I do hope the dems get quite a lot of power this cycle. They will need it. I have high hopes for the intelligence, competence, seriousness and networking skills of President-Almost-Elect Obama, but the obstacles he faces, including the vicious paranoia being drummed up against him, are formidable. That said, the Democrats are far from blameless here. That One should look up Ms. Brooksley Born. (H/T Luigi)

Steinn S. has some more eye popping bubble popping stuff.

Anyway the upshot seems to be this: people have made huge bets that they expected to win, and others made huge bets based on those bets. BY making a large number of bets they seem to be able to cover there losses, but in fact nobody bothers to actually think about what happens in a down market. This is called "deregulation". It seems to work just fine until it doesn't.