jobs?

First a representative from Texas and now lawmakers from Louisiana, all crying to save offshore drilling. The Texas guy, John Culberson, called the oil spill a "statistical anomaly." I guess that is what you call a drive-by shooting, unless you are the victim?

In any case, all these good people are just trying to save jobs. We have to drill oil so people have jobs and the economy recovers. That is of course if other people are so kind to burn that oil, greenhouse gases be damned. Never mind the bad stuff, it is all a "statistical anomaly" anyways, so says the good man from Texas.

The real issue is not jobs of course, it is profits. It is easy enough to create other jobs, in alternative energy for example. But that would not help all the fat cats who own shares in oil companies. All that beautiful infrastructure that decorates the landscape. Doing away with it would hurt the profits of the oilmen. And what is Texas without its oilmen? Just ask George.

Happy New Year

I wish everyone a happy New Year. It probably won't be "happy" in the usual consumerist sense, but if we can transcend the quest for items, and learn to worry about things that really matter, happiness is just around the corner.

As for the housing crisis, it isn't over yet. In some areas the worst is yet to come. Many more fancy-ARM-mortgages have yet to reset and when that happens foreclosures will go up another notch. California is likely to be hit very hard since over 65% of these fancy credit schemes were written in this state. Housing prices will fall another 10-15% in the best areas.

More job losses too are to be expected, especially in the retail sector, where the numbers were especially poor this holiday season. The whole service sector, by now the most important part of our fluffy hot-air economy, will see huge declines. But manufacturing will not be safe either.

China and India are in for some really nasty surprises. They may find themselves sliding backwards faster than their recent meteoric rises. As for the rest of the world, expect some serious instability in the Middle East. The fallout of Bush's democracy experiment (which was nothing more than a scheme to make his friends very rich) is yet to come.

In short, all is set for another "interesting" year.