Today's Rosy Headlines (or "Midway in the journey of my life, I found myself in a dark wood.")

Oooh, the good news just keeps a-rollin' in. Do not forget that enlightened right-wingers like Amity Shlaes or the editors of the Wall Street Journal or our newest political has-been John McCain believe that the 'fundamentals are sound' and this is just a dip in the gilded road of American Progress. Onward and upward, Dow 36,000 and all that. Never say 'recession' and may Lightning Strike You Down if you say the "D" word.

• Jobless Rate at 14-Year High After Big October Losses. Almost a quarter million people lost their jobs in October alone. Total job losses for the year = 1.2 million. Official unemployment up to 6.5%, meaning the real unemployment is probably around 13%. My prediction: we will see official unemployment hit 10% before we're out of this dark wood. BUT

• Stocks Are Higher After Jobs Report. Refer back to an earlier rant of mine about how Wall Street just luuuuvs bad news if it's bad for us regular little peoples.

• Retailers Report a Sales Collapse. You can only go on spending the nuthin' you do have or the sumpthin' you don't have for so long. Still waiting for Henry Paulson's announcement that he is going to inject liquidity into US. (Of course, when the Feds inject liquidity into regular folks, it's usually in the form of a lethal injection.)

• Goldman Forecasts Deepest Recession Since Reagan Era. But not for Goldman and not for its executives. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. . . .

• Pending Sales of Existing Homes in U.S. Fell 4.6%. And the rental market is tightening (people forced out of homes due to foreclosures). Do you know where you're sleeping tonight?

(By the way, Kevin Hassett, co-author of Dow 36,000 was an economic advisor to the McCain campaign. James Glassman, the other co-author, replaced Karen Hughes as Bush's Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy — propanda minister. All of which just goes to show, if you got The Official American Seal of Approval, you can't help but fall up, up, up, ever up.)

The Bailout, Day 27

Let's review some landmarks of the bailout to date:

• Paulson is knowingly cheating taxpayers by overpaying major recipients of aid by as much as 100%, particularly when compared to the deal Warren Buffett struck with Goldman Sachs. (Leo Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers Union | William Greider, The Nation, Oct. 29)

• Most money will go, not to ease credit availability for businesses and consumers, but to shore up bank stashes of cash. (Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Group, Bloomberg, Oct. 28 | Bloomberg, Oct. 23)

• A large portion of the money will go to big bank buyouts of smaller institutions (Schwarzman, Blackstone Group)

• Banks that least need the cash will get the most. (Bloomberg, Oct. 29)

• Money will also go to ensure bonuses for executives responsible for the financial disaster. (Bloomberg, Oct. 30 | New York Times, Oct. 29)
  

• AIG, beneficiary of a separate bailout scheme, is "rapidly running through $123 billion in emergency lending" (New York Times, Oct. 29)
  

• Unlike the British, the Treasury has placed few restrictions on how its (meaning our) bailout funds are spent (or not spent).

• Insurers and car makers are seeking funds to bailout their operations. (Bloomberg, Oct. 27 | The Economist, Oct. 2 and Oct. 16)
  

• A record $200 billion deficit in U.S. pensions has developed during the current stock turmoil. (Bloomberg, Oct. 29)

• States are seeking federal funds to rescue them amidst massive budget shortfalls. (New York Times, Oct. 29)
  

• Crisis in credit card debt looms for consumers. (New York Times, Oct. 28)

• Consumer demand is taking a nosedive. (The Economist, Oct. 23)

• American Express has announced that 7,000 jobs will be cut. (Bloomberg, Oct. 30) Job cuts so far this year exceed 500,000.
  

In Case You Forgot, the Environment is a Disaster

The World Wildlife Fund has released its Living Planet Report. There's some good news and there's some bad news.

The good news is: We ain't dead yet. The bad news is: We will be, we will be.

The report concludes that "Humanity's demands exceed our planet's capacity to sustain us" (as if that was news). Britain's Guardian newspaper has a nice summation of the reports findings, which can be boiled down to

"[H]umans are using 30% more resources than the Earth can replenish each year, which is leading to deforestation, degraded soils, polluted air and water, and dramatic declines in numbers of fish and other species."

That's the average for the world as a whole. Humans in civilized countries like the United States are only using maybe 900% more resources than the Earth can replenish.

People like Michael Bloomberg or Stephen Schwarzman (the Blackstone chief who threw himself a multi-million dollar birthday party) use 100,000% more than the Earth can replenish. BUT THAT IS THEIR GOD-GIVEN RIGHT, by God! And if you suggest otherwise, you're an America-hating, Palin-bashing, anti-American Commie Pinko Socialist Marxist Anarcho-syndicalist BASTURD!

BUT there is a silver lining:

IF, by the 2030s (a big twenty years away), we can find A SECOND EARTH, we can all keep living just the way we are now.

So, Solution 1: The Earth 2 Buyout Fund. Congress must allocate $750 TRILLION to find and acquire Earth 2. Alternatively, we can use Earth 1 to build Earth 2. . . . No, no, that's not it. We can clone Earth 1. Or maybe we can do that thing like in Arthur C. Clarke's 2010, only use Jupiter to manufacture Earth 2. That would create jobs. (I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United Nations based on a platform of job creation through Jupiter reconstruction for Earth 2.)

Solution 2, favored by Republicons, Bloombergs and other fascists: Find a way for 99.99% of the world's population to live on 10% of the absolute minimum needed for basic human survival so that Wall Street, innately superior Corporate Executives, and members of Congress can live on the remaining 100,000%. Advantage: This is the solution already being worked on by Michael Bloomberg, Bush, McCon, Palin, and company.

Do I sound a little sarcastic? Pessimistic? Cynical? I apologize. Something about chronically suicidal, species-wide self-annihilation, endorsed by the enlightened 'experts' and 'leaders', just gets me a little down. That's all.

Plus. . . . I have a friggin' cold.

In the future, I will do my best to be more optimistic about the tiny tiny minority of self-appointed über-supremicists destroying the lives of the rest of us.