McCain to be invisible soon…again

Prediction: The economic crisis will overshadow the McCain campaign.

John just cannot get a break. First, Hillary and Obama struggled for supremacy for months and that struggle kept McCain off the pages. McCain’s trip to the Mideast, the Vatican, and to the UK went unnoticed. Then Obama’s trip to the same places was covered by all the major networks. Then the  Democrat Convention kept McCain off the air and off the front pages again.

McCain strikes publicity gold with his selection of Sarah Palin and gets two weeks of attention. Then the media plays Where’s Waldo? with Sarah and her inaccessibility to interviews. Not forthcoming, Sarah’s comet begins to sputter and go dark. Then the VEEP debate takes place and Sarah and John receive about four days of attention during the beginning of the financial crisis. As the comet fades again, McCain’s campaign gets all bold and he vaults over to Washington to block the House bill. He gets a lot of press for this but his struggle to assume leadership of the Republican Party fails when he chooses the wrong crisis to leverage Bush out of Republican authority. The crisis cannot wait for McCain’s lobbying of his solution to Congress so President Bush steps in and maneuvers the Senate Republicans into approving some special earmarks to get the Senate bill passed. McCain leaves defeated but this is overlooked by the media as Palin debates Biden. The attention to the McCain-Palin campaign survived two days after the Bailout Bill was passed and will now fall flat.

Oh, I guess Palin could do something outrageous like accuse Obama of being friends with a terrorist (*cough*) but then everyone knows this is a lie and they will defend Obama. So her sparkle fades once again.

This week, if President Bush does not attack Iran, McCain’s campaign will go dark once more as the press focuses on whether the Bail Out Bill will fix the economy ( it won’t) and the press will focus on the upcoming banking hearings in the House on how the credit debacle was created.

John just cannot get a break to get his campaign moving. But he has a debate scheduled this week with Obama, so some attention may shift towards him but it will likely be short-lived ( unless he can think of something to bring attention to himself). Someone should make up words to the song ‘Unforgettable’ but call it ‘Undetectable’ and spoof the McCain campaign. 

I am feeling sorry for John McCain. Like I once felt bad for Dukakis.

If you don’t believe me…

….then believe Nouriel Roubini.

Via Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings…

“It is now clear that the US financial system — and now even the system of financing of the corporate sector — is now in cardiac arrest and at a risk of a systemic financial meltdown. I don’t use these words lightly but at this point we have reached the final 12th step of my February paper on “The Risk of a Systemic Financial Meltdown: 12 Steps to a Financial Disaster” (…)-Nouriel Roubini

When my children were young, at times they would say  “I’m scared” when they were confronted with something unfamiliar. I always told them “Don’t be scared. Be careful.” If a person is scared , they will do the wrong things and make everything worse for themselves.

Be careful, please. Your job is sound and your money is safe in the banks. The issue is that some banks need loans to operate. The Federal Reserve and the Federal Government have you covered.  But the banks may be taken over by the Feds, if necessary. As long as banks are willing to loan money to other banks, you have time to get your own financial house in order. As a matter of fact, the smaller your bank is then the more safe your money is. Why? Because all the real estate loans that your bank issued were sold to the big banks in the secondary market. It is the big banks that may, and I stress may, be the ones in trouble.

A credit shrinkage in the economy will not have immediate effects for you and me. Do as I said and start putting cash aside by lowering your cost of living through paying attention to food , shelter, clothing, and debt.

I suspect that the owners of stocks and bonds will have a roller coaster ride for a few months.

Is the gov’t BS about the economy over?

Good question, but knowing government, I don’t think so.

The economy has been losing jobs for the past nine months and all we have heard is “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”. Apparently, when banks don’t loan money to other banks  money is not a fundamental part of our economy.*cough*

I also point out that volatitlity in the market with 2- 3 %  daily swings is a sure sign of trouble ahead.  

You might as well admit that even if our government and economists say we are NOT IN A RECESSION and certainly NOT IN A DEPRESSION,  we are headed for the cliff and we, personally, have not yet fallen over. But the banks have fallen off the cliff… and you know it.

Who will fall off the cliff next? Retail stores. They sell product on thin margins. Expect to see specialty retail stores begin to fail. And after them will be pricey restaurant chains. People will still choose to eat out but they will choose salt-of-earth restaurants and not bistros.

Construction has already slowed. Real estate sales and associated work industries has been abysmally slow for the past year. There is more trouble ahead. Banks were bailed out but the economy wasn’t.

Face it, friends. We are in the recession/depression that nobody wants to talk about.

The most important thing to consider right now is ”Will your current job survive a recession or depression?”  You are lucky if your job is in healthcare, government, or defense-military related. You are fortunate if your work cannot be done by others because of how long it takes to train a replacement. You are in trouble if it only takes a bright person to do your work and they can be trained quickly. You are in trouble if there are 10 people who do your job where you work and you are not well-liked.

 If you are an average person or family, you will want to look at your life in four areas and see what you can do to downsize: food, shelter, clothing, and debt. Now is not the time to buy new things on credit. Make do with your old car. It is cheaper to fix it than to buy new. If you must buy, and you are an average person, buy used vehicles less than three years old. You save on price and benefit from a long life expectancy. Quality clothing is cheap in America and will get cheaper as the manufacturers feel the pinch but do not spend your money on clothes that will not keep you warm, dry, and help you to look good at work. This would be the time to rid yourself of raggedy jeans and buy new ones that will last you 2-3 years. When it comes to appliances, buy one only if the old one is broken or you can pay cash. Pay off debt and do not add more.

 Cash will become king again. What will happen is that people who have too much credit card debt, and lose their jobs, will default. That will raise costs to banks who will charge more for credit cards. If you already have bad credit, you may find it impossible to get any type of loan. Start your savings account now and create a goal to have three months of cash in the bank (or at home) that you do not use to pay your bills. If you lose your job, you will have a short term cushion and much less stress about how to feed yourself and your family. Begin thinking about who  you will live with (if you have to) and how you will need to adjust to that. This is not a new concept. Multi-generational living and room mates once were quite common in America until cheap credit caused a housing boom. Once cheap credit is gone, and more job losses occur, you can expect that to come back.

How to save money you do not currently have? Stop spending money on things that are not food, shelter, and clothing related. Stop spending money on drugs, music, video games, new dvd’s, new cell phones, etc. Keep your current ones or do without. Enjoy what you have already purchased instead of buying new.

I know, I know. The economy runs on people buying things. Consumerism,they call it. Without it things get worse. I say that you need to make a hard choice right now. Plan for your own future under a recession economy or sleep in the streets. You may choose to keep your self-respect, and the respect of others, or else lose your dignity, your pride, and your sense of self-worth. Choose for yourself. Choose soon though. There is not much time until job shrinkage grows exponentially. If you know that your company is looking at how to re-organize itself, then you should know that they are looking to cut personnel costs and that means you are at risk.

If you think that I am wrong about this caution (this warning) then I ask you ’what will it take to convince you that a bad economy is ahead?’. Will you wait until you lose your job? Will you wait until your brother, sister, daughter, cousin, or uncle lose theirs? If that is what it will take, then I suggest you start saving cash now. You will need it soon.

This is not a normal recession that is coming. Get yourself prepared. I am.

Ron Paul and Ralph Nader on CNN

Chuck Baldwin agrees with me, too

Wall Street Goes Back to Work