Reckoning

As I write this, the DJIA has lost nearly 600 points and is below 10,000. This is less than a week after the market suffered its largest daily point loss. And it's only 10:50 in the morning.

It's an understatement to say that we're in for some rocky economic times. We're right in the middle of an economic 9/11, and who knows how much worse it's going to get, or if the economic version is going to culminate with WMD. Anything is possible.

Much like 9/11, the world will be changed when this immediate crisis is past. Hopefully, we will embrace the lessons we're being taught right now and move forward with more unanimity than we did seven years ago. A better president will be critical to this.

Our economy has been coasting along on the momentum of the Greatest Generation, while the fundamental underpinnings have been getting yanked away piece by piece. We used to be a nation of builders, thinkers, and doers, but that's changing. The collapse of our education system has contributed to the erosion of the greatest capital we could have- our unparalleled workforce- and while for a time it seemed like our biggest companies were doing just fine, it seems like many of them were engaged in little more than a shell game that not even congress can figure out how to unravel.

These times are the ultimate condemnation of trickle-down economics. Sure, successful companies and corporate growth were good for everyone when that growth actually lifted everyone up. But with CEOs and executives raking in unprecedented percentages of earnings compared to the rank and file- and with more and more of the rank and file work being performed overseas- very little trickles down anymore.

This is one reason why we can have an economy where almost everyone feels a severe pinch, but the growth numbers tell us we're still not officially in a recession.

Our economy has simply stopped working for the majority of Americans.

Okay, back to work.