Via Mark Grant, author of Out of the Box,
“For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across--which happened to be the Earth -- where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidently swallowed by a small dog.”
-Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Still here. We are still here. It is true that we have many hours to go before today crosses across all of the time zones and becomes tomorrow and, in any event, the Chateau Petrus will not have been in vain. I am holding classes in deduction now in Nassau on my boat. Other boat owners have dropped by and are all inquiring about the fiscal cliff. “The plunge is at hand,” I tell them as Congress adjourns, the rank and file Republicans turn on the House Speaker and the Lords of Chaos are in charge once again. All of the stuff and nonsense about taxing the wealthy and gibberish about who and when and where to tax is like so much marshmallow spread on a peanut butter sandwich; it just doesn’t matter. The galling omission of not concentrating on what is truly important, the cost of entitlements and social programs and what the nation can and cannot afford shows the true worth of our nation’s leaders which is about equal to a wooden nickel or a three dollar bill. It is the Lost Boys living in Never-Never Land and Wendy nowhere in sight.
“In the first place God made idiots. He did this for practice. Then he made politicians. This was a mistake. Then he tried to correct His mistake by having the people elect the politicians of their own choosing. He then realized that he had made idiots twice and he pondered his miscalculation for seven days. Next he made dogs and finally being satisfied that he had done something correctly he went off on holiday. One day he may come back and finish the exercise.”
-The Wizard
So here we are on December 21 and we have no plan to deal with the financial condition of the country. The Democrats are perfectly happy that no one has to work because those people will re-elect them. Then the people that do work should hand out money to everyone else because my money should now be everyone’s money and everyone needs to share in the sandbox and Karl Marx has left the London library and is now residing in Washington D.C. The fall back position of the Democrats is that if this is not enough money then the Fed can print zillions of pieces of paper saying, “In God We Trust” which may be the only thing to trust in because no one will trust the little pieces of paper after some time. One day someone will wake up and announce that these green bills are not money and that they are just paper and the Munchkins will say, “Oh My God” and head down the yellow brick road to find the Wizard and he will be on my boat in the Bahamas and the Wicked Witch of the West will hand out the bad news. All quite simple. Very similar to Dorothy falling from the sky. The wind begins to twitch, the house falls and Oz realizes that they have encountered a “horse of a different color.”
Now what has happened this morning is that someone has woken up the Lullaby League. These market participants have been sleeping and whiling away their hours thinking everything was fine and that Good Witch Glinda was going to wave her magic wand and make everything all hunky and dory. They have been dreaming that the Sorcerer Bernanke could change green paper into money and at will and forever just like Sorcerer Draghi who lives but a continent away. Alchemy has returned to the world and the stuff of magic has discovered the Middle Earth where the elves and the goblins play. This morning no one is happy that they have been awakened. The dwarves are about and Grumpy is leading the protest.
So the Munchkins have been awakened and I predict the Wicked With is right. The people of Oz have left the poppy fields where they slept in a flower induced dream and will soon be headed into the Emerald City to demand answers. The melting has begun.
“Going so soon? I wouldn't hear of it. Why my little party's just beginning.”
-The Wicked Witch of the West