A great topic for discussion.

Many of the above "headlines" are closely related. Headlines and news reports nowadays seem to serve more as an explanation for our symptoms rather than looking at what the causes might be.

Fuel costs have risen dramatically over a very short period of time straining both business and personal budgets. Our legislators have gotten on their soapboxes and set up their dog and pony shows making believe they're taking the oil companies to task, yet knowing full well, the problem isn't the oil companies gouging us, but rather they're irresponsible spending. A quick check of the various oil company 10k's submitted to the SEC shows that the margins of the oil companies have remained constant for many years, both gross and operating. Their enormous profits are simply the product of the percentages being applied to larger numbers i.e. 30% of $1.00 is 30 cents, 30% of $100.00 is 30 dollars.

OPEC isn't to blame either, unless you want to blame them for pricing oil in dollars. Because of reckless spending by the Congress, (the President doesn't have the legal authority to spend a dime)and the huge deficits and national debt, the dollar has been plummeting for some time. The dollar has fallen from 82-cents/euro to just under 63-cents/euro in just 2 years. If the dollar has lost 20% of its value, when OPEC sells oil priced in dollars, it's going to be priced 20% higher over that period. Starting right there at it's base, applying the markups at the various stages along the way the price is going to be much higher at the pump. So the Congress can bluster away all they want, until they rein in their spending, the price is going to continue to go up. Their dog and pony show is simply the use of mis-direction to keep us angry with the oil companies rather than see the problem for what it is.

Combine the price of energy with the tight credit and you have a formula for disaster for small and medium sized businesses. Again mis-direction is used to keep us from seeing the problem for what it is. The party line is that borrowers were irresponsible, true, some were, but the real problem is far bigger than that and that's what they're having a hard time containing. The sub-prime mortgage problem is just a small part of the overall problem. Derivatives are the real problem. There isn't time here to give a lesson in derivatives but you can keyword it and you'll get more information that you want. There is currently about $70-Trillion out there in derivatives and no one, not the banks, the Fed, the Treasury or those insuring them can place a value on them. Because of that, we're seeing banks writing down their values little by little even though most are worthless. It's an effort to cover their losses as quietly and gradually as they can to avoid a panic. The people in Congress took the bribe money offered to turn a blind eye to what was going on, now they want to get the bankers up there to berate. I'm waiting for the day that one of these guys when called before the Senate or House says, "I'm sorry Mr./Mrs Senator, I don't understand why you're so upset, we paid you well to leave us alone and now you want us to take all the blame?" That would make for some great tv. I'll continue this discussion tomorrow.