I Was Crisis When Crisis Wasn't Cool

You should know up front that this is not the Fun-Vee; this is the Crumb-Vee. As in crumbs will be just about all that's left when the elite finish their 'bailout,' or recovery plan, or penectomy, or whatever they were (five minutes ago) calling this preventable freakonomic scat-puddle we find ourselves squirming around in.

This is probably real last minute pie I'm baking, because tomorrow is Lehman Brothers Credit Default Swap Day, which should be just about the largest day of reckoning so far in Hank Paulson's, Ben Bernanke's and George Bush's little tea party for creative accountants. So as I write, my feeble brain stands somewhere between a Dow(n) that just crashed through the 9,000 floor a couple of hours ago, and maybe $400 or $500 billion of additional saccharine to help Lehman hide their dead bodies, that's about to go on top of the sweet and sour $840 billion from last Friday's 'rescue,' and another $48 billion for 'Can't Stop the Bender Now It's Just Gettin' Good' AIG Junketeers.

All this would be quite humorous if it weren't for the unbridled terror. I can't wait to see what the market does tomorrow, October 10, when the credit default swap reckoning is engaged. Will tomorrow's closing bell ring in a now-rare weekend of calm and even rarer optimism? Or is the endgame clock ticking down with less than 24 hours to go until the next Black Friday? Any way you slice it, my fellow Americans and I are looking at one of the most expensive payouts in the history of that market. How much will it cost next week? Another $400 billion? $500 billion? How much cash will get thrown behind it? Can there really be a smooth settlement process?? How much of the problem is due to hedge and how much is due to reckless gambling, Saudi Prince-style? The conservative estimates put derivatives at a $50 TRILLION problem. The worst?

A thousand trillion dollars. 1000 trillion is one quadrillion. One times ten to the fifteenth power. A person would have to stamp out a lot of license plates to pay back that kind of stolen scratch. I hope one of the justice department's brain trusts is working on that equation right now; that would at least be a few fewer people clinging to one another for strength in the coming weeks' bread lines.

Until next time... pant pant snarl snarl.