February 29, 2008, the Dow Jones industrials fell by more than 300 points.

Simultaneously, retailers across this nation desperately held pathetic Leap Year sales, futilely hoping to pry enough dollars from hard-pressed customers, through steep discounts, to keep their own heads above water.

Their ineffably sad strategy failed.

Consumers with spending confidence shot to pieces by ever-worsening recession stayed away in droves, particularly since an oil barrel's cost had just exceeded $100 and heavy clouds without silver linings cast dark shadows over the landscape, and into the future.

Two weeks later, as impossible contradictions generated by unfettered private greed ate away at our country's financial underpinnings like some sort of sizzling acid, the Dow experienced another dramatic decline.

Additionally, the prestigious Bear Stearns brokerage house abruptly went bust, presaging more failures to come, in a dire 1929 replay.

I felt as if I'd been an eyewitness to the death of the American economy, a sentiment accentuated during the somber walk I took through a part of my city later that day.

I saw a grim proliferation of "For Sale" signs along residential streets. Obviously, nobody was buying.

At one point I heard what sounded like muffled, distant weeping. It was probably just the wind, but I wondered if it could be sobbing coming from behind frosted windows.

Families being foreclosed make me think of pencil marks on doorjambs, marking kids' growth standings over time. Little Jenny in 2004, and a substantially taller Jenny now.

Does she know how cruelly her quality of life is about to be cut down?

And will the man sent by the bank to inspect the empty, echoing remains of what used to be a happy home notice or feel anything? Probably not. He's got a job to do. A heartless hatchet job.

Then I passed an automobile dealership brimming with unsold vehicles, mostly trucks and huge SUVs.

It was a chrome and brightly-painted validation of Karl Mark's trenchant observation that capitalists are their own gravediggers. A huge banner advertised great deals, but it could just as well have shouted: "Overproduction crisis!"

Tomorrow I'll take a bus to Duluth, sharing my ride with down-and-out souls who regularly sell their plasma to blood donors. Between that and "collecting" aluminum cans from other people's back-alley trash, starvation can be averted.

Provided one also visits a charity soup kitchen, or a food shelf experiencing unprecedented demand.

Meanwhile, unprincipled hustlers will go about their wicked business as usual, striving to profit as they've always done -- by underpaying labor and bilking the public in general.

So insensitive are they to harsh reality that they're unaware the faint "thump" they just heard, accompanied by slight discomfort in the neck, was a noose of their own selfish making pulling taut against their skin.

The fierce pain and panicky screaming is yet to come.

As is the rising of a restive populace unwilling to tolerate getting ripped off to impoverishment by rich men devoid of social responsibility or even the slightest appreciation for the Sermon on the Mount.

Systemic avarice exacts a high price.

An era of severe reckoning definitely lies not that far down the road.
_______



About author
Dennis Rahkonen, from Superior, Wisconsin, has been writing progressive commentary with a Heartland perspective for various outlets since the Sixties.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/13499

interesting

Yea, we are in for tough times thanks to the mismanagement of our leaders.

and how many more yearsdo u want to put up with it????

Americans are as much to blame for our economy as our leaders.

In the last eight years many have bought new homes at a rate unprecendented in US home buying - consequently it is going to take some time before large numbers of people are looking for new homes. The homes they bought are bigger and more expensive consequently many have more debt.

In the last eight years many have refinanced their homes and many refinanced a higher loan using market value appreciation as collateral and now that home prices have fallen.....

In the last eight years many have bought new computers and laptops - it is not uncommon for each kid in families to have laptops in middle income America.

In the last eight years everyone (including the kids) seem to have cell phones.

In the last eight years many have bought HDTV big screen TV, X-Box-360, Playstation 3, and Wii. Shoot, many have all three systems!!!

In the last eight years many have bought gas guzzling Suv's loaded with extras like Dvd players.

In the last eight years Americans have piled on their debts.

When I look around I see that many have a lot more than they did eight years ago but a lot comes from I owe I owe.

It couldn't last forever - Americans love debt until it finally crushes them!!!

And that is what is wrong with the economy.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080318/us_nm/usa_housing_consumers_dc

Crick has a point there.

I would speculate that the prime suspects have been fuel prices trippling and food prices close behind, the dollar has lost 30% of its value and wages are stagnent and if you factor in inflation people are actualy working for less real income than b4 they purchased those nice homes and SUV"s .

So what kind or reasoning enticed them to buy them and how in the world did they do it?

Your reasoning doesn't make any sense:

working for less real income than b4 they purchased those nice homes and SUV"s .

Its not diffucult cricket if you have a five year loan on a car and a 20 year loan on a home what was once afffordable is no longer. the main reasone Oil prices have risen is that the dollar is worth less on the world market so it takes more of them to buy that same barrel of oil. what 20 dollars an hour would buy for you as a worker 5 years ago will buy alot less today

Americans don't have five year car loans or 20 year home loans. They have perpetual loans because we rarely ever pay them off completely before we buy a newer car, or refinance our home taking out equity based on market value appreciation, or buying a bigger more expensive home with that market equity appreciation from our old home.

I'm not hearing about record breaking car repossessions so many are affording their gas guzzling SUVs and 3 door extravagant 4 wheel trucks.

Look around your neighborhood in middle income America and you see what people are driving, and what they have in their houses, and how they are living and you have to come to the conclusion that everbody just about is finding a way to have more!

And now it is time to pay for all that debt so people will cut back and that is what is really wrong with the economy!