CAR CHASED; GREYHOUND CAUGHT

One has to wonder, given the the weakness in the financial sector, the miasma of the ever widening banking collapse, the economy's rapid swirl around the bowl, one has to wonder if, sometime in last two months, President-elect Barack Obama didn't have second thoughts about actually serving as President, instead of walking the fashion runway we call political primaries.

After all, this was not what he signed up for on May 2, 2007 when he announced his candidacy to the cheering crowd in Springfield, Illinois. These were the issues he named as priorities in that speech: Poor schools, economic hardships, oil dependence and Iraq.

Nobody knew what the the TED spread was. Anybody who had an ARM mortgage knew there was something called LIBOR, but most probably didn't know what the acronym stood for. The fortunate few of us who have hair were pulling it out over the fact that gasoline prices were averaging just bit above $3.00 a gallon. And what in Hades is a Credit Default Swap, and why is it saying bad things about our MBA and PhD programs?

Nowhere on the horizon were the disasters that have exploded like cluster bombs day after day in the recent months, changing, I mean REALLY changing this country and the world forever. The good old days were defenestrating themselves faster than sparks jumping of a sparkler.

On May 2, 2007 the Dow closed at 13136, and the bull was running wild. There were some signs the troubled financial pot-a-feu was starting to simmer, but few indications that a bull market correction would turn into the stampede we now see. The subprime mortgage industry was in the headlines. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke castigated Congress for criticizing the Fed for not doing more to regulate the industry.

Bernanke's speech to the Chicago Fed's 43rd Annual Conference on Bank Structure and Competition shows just how hidden the seriousness of the financial issues were to the keeper of the castle's keys. Reading his speech (like there's anybody even reading this blog) makes even this dim blogger wonder just what in the intercourse was going through his head.

Those were relatively rosy times. The cliche says ignorance is bliss. Bliss may not have been the prevailing emotion in May of 2007, but it is a far cry from the edge of the abyss mind state of today.

Somewhere along the old lonesome trail, now President-elect Obama must have asked the candidate Obama if he really, really wanted this job.

Today he must feel a little like the dog who chased a car but caught a Greyhound.

Continuing the metaphors, the dance is over. Now somebody has to clean up the mess left behind.  In this case, however, it is not the janitor, but the homecoming King himself trying to find the broom.

Pray people. Pray hard.

Afterthought: How long will it take the spell check code writers to include Barack and Obama in their dictionary? And for that matter, one would think that both blog and blogger would pass muster, at least on posting page.