Getting Off the Road to Ruin

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company recently released a study of the effect of the current economy on American's finances. The study came up with some disturbing facts, such as that that about three-quarters of the population has three months or less of savings to draw on in the event of unemployment.

The most interesting thing we found in the study was the conclusion that Americans are shifting away from Consumerism toward a more balanced view of what will make them happy. We see this as a tremendously positive development. Among other benefits will be an increased savings rate and the potential to have both households and the economy as a whole on a more secure footing.

Over fifty years ago in The Affluent Society, J.K. Galbraith predicted that if the Great American Marketing Machine was unable to manufacture ever more consumer wants to keep household debt expanding, a depression would ensue. We suspect that his prediction may have finally come true.

Year of Our Depression 2009

As the calendar rolls over to 2009, we can smell the vodka on the collective breath of the nervous, the confused, and the despondent. The faux conviviality of eggnog additive long dispensed with, only straight shots will suffice for those who still have money. Only the deluded, the broke, and the swindlers can party with a clear consciousness: they have nothing to worry about. "What, me worry?" they seem to say, in a horrifying parody of Alfred E. Newman prose.

We worry, since we see nothing getting better, and a storm cloud of uncertain destructive qualities approaching in February. Deeper into the year, there are the looming predictions of, among other things, the demise of the U.S. Dollar. We take these things seriously, as the downward pressure on economic activity becomes ever more irresistible.

We are hesitant to make any specific predictions for 2009, other than the obvious: more bailouts. If you, dear Reader, think that you've seen the most disgusting, repugnant, out-of-control 'gimmie-gimmie'... think again. People will whine for bailouts; people will whine for 'tax rebates;' people will whine for free money of any sort for any excuse whatsoever. To put it simply, 2009 will be the Year of the Whiner.

On top of vast seas of whining, whining, whining will be the continued blow-out of swindles. Remember Bernard Madoff? In the world of the swindle, he was a loser and a screw-up. Why? He went down first. As John Kenneth Galbraith once sagely noted, "the biggest and best swindlers are not discovered until last."

Madoff was not the biggest, nor the best; he was just the weakest hand. We have pretty good ideas of who the 'biggest and best' are, but we don't expect them to fail... this year. But, there will be blow-outs spectacular of presently well-regarded 'enterprises,' which will be revealed as having been the walking dead.