Afternoon economy rant.

Damn, I am feeling swamped this week, and it’s a good thing I wasn’t actually sick yesterday because I’ve got a ton of stuff I both want and need to do before leaving town on Friday. I did manage to both get up and write this morning and go to the gym at lunch, but now all I feel like doing is curling up into a ball under my desk until this economic crisis has ended.

Lucky me, I have no stocks (I’m not a believer in market investment) but I do own a house on which the mortgage has to be renegotiated this spring. If interest rates go up significantly, I won’t be able to keep it – and it’s not like the housing market will be doing well if that’s the case. To top off that worry, my tenant called me today to let me know that there is a serious problem with the tiling in the bathroom and mould growing behind it because of shoddy construction. That’ll be about $1000 please. But it’s not like selling it in that condition is even a remote possibility what with everyone’s fears about mould these days – so I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and have the work done.

I’m having a hard time swallowing the fact that the Republicans are pointing fingers at the Democrats for the failure of the bailout, when the Dems voted overwhelmingly for it. I mean, I’m not exactly for the bailout or anything (personally I believe the gov should be using this crisis to nationalize aspects of the banking system) – but still. If the Republicans didn’t look like hypocritical morons before this, they sure do now. Not to mention that their members’ own failure to back both Bush and McCain (who also endorsed the package) really indicates how badly fractured the GOP is at the moment.

And speaking of all that nasty business down south – did you catch the candidates debate on Friday night? Can’t say McCain came off as anything other than a mean old man, while Obama was perhaps a little too over-eager to call his opponent by his first name continually. I was particularly impressed when Obama essentially pulled the “New Deal” out of his back pocket as a way to restore the nation’s economy – since that’s what I’ve been saying all along the US should do. More public spending! But it’s funny, you know, because I haven’t heard a single commentator make the comparison to Roosevelt’s solution to the great depression. Can’t let on for a second that Keynes might have had an answer. Must give corporations fistfuls of money because that will surely help. And you know that’s what they are going to do in the next few days (note the market recovery today as a sign something better is coming as a result of an embarrassed GOP).

Bailout or no, things are far from over, which is why the hide-under-my-desk strategy isn’t going to work this time around. As for my house, well I’ve just got no choice but to afford it – repairs, rising interest rate, and all. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the apocalypse, and as the system always does it it will once again rise, brush itself off and continue to lumber along Too bad really, as if this isn’t evidence that the time has come to try something fundamentally different.