Photo by Lyndi&Jason Oil drill outside of Colby, KS image:41251:5::0

Keep that up for another month or so, and the S&P index will be a nice healthy zero. Forget your 401k, rent a sharpened stick and learn to like eating worms.

Who needs to eat, anyway? Only the living, and at this rate there won’t be many of those around.

The “news factor” here is how Wall Street’s latest display of market sentiment reflects global realities.

The New York Times:

On Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 358 points, its steepest decline in nearly three weeks. The blue-chip index closed at 11,453.42, its lowest since September 2006. One longtime member of the Dow industrials, the General Motors Corporation, plunged to its lowest since 1974.

Downgrades in the financial industry and fear over the deteriorating health of the auto sector were the immediate causes of Thursday’s sell-off. But the abrupt reversal in the markets — only five weeks ago the Dow was flying above 13,000 — reflects the realization among investors that the troubles plaguing the economy may be worse than initially feared.

Yeah, and the passengers on the Titanic might get a little damp one day soon, too.

The market will “roar back” like a rabid gopher, at some point, being oversold, but it’s the mentality operating here that’s the basis of the “Morons Unite” heading.

Try the line “… may be worse than initially feared”… How? Are giant termites going to eat Nigeria? Will that kid with the bucket and spade in Venezuela turn off a tap somewhere?

Because that’s the sort of thing that people are being told is driving the oil price and related problems. It’s simplistic to the point of cave painting.

The New York Times is showing a form of Elegy By Euphemism that seems to be covering most of the current wonderful mix of global economic disasters.

It’s part of what I’m starting to see as a holistic form of human stupidity.

It’s also just one of a whole raft of healthy insights into the sheer ineptitude of global commerce. This is the list from Planet Earth Futility Futures to date, over the last 12 months:

Subprimes: Exit a few trillion, bye bye credit market except in straitjacket form. Inject a few billion to offset the few trillion. Don’t buy a calculator, you can do it in your head, where it's cheaper.

Housing crisis: Kick out the paying customers, based on a move in rates. Find yourselves unable to move properties. Burst into tears, ask Fed Godmother to bail you out.

Inflation: Ignore until piping hot, serve to very cold markets.

Global trade: Persist in belief that Do Ha Ha round of “trade talks” (aka mime) is anything less than total shambles, mouth clichés about “level playing fields” until Third World dies of starvation. Congratulate yourselves on a great outcome.

Oil: Allow antiquated economic model to exist well past use-by date, which was 30 years ago at least. Inflict absolute bloodbath on consumer prices, make sure not to have any strategy in place, let alone any actual working alternatives.

Allow speculators to buy a few billion barrels on the futures market, wonder why price of oil goes up. Issue pompous, useless analyses of dead economy, get pat on head.

Politics: Blind faith in anything or anyone, anywhere, as long as they’re able to make noises that sound right. Ignore fact that nobody has expressed anything resembling an idea for handling above. Applaud selves enthusiastically.

Wars (various) Pass bills based on accountancy, rather than anything identifiable as rational thought. Ignore contracts issues, military priorities, military operational requirements, military basic principles. Take selves seriously on that basis.

Social issues: Forget how to spell the word “responsibility”, use ideology to educate people and cut hospital waiting lists.

Environment: Get bogged down on single words, expressions, and if possible anything which has no bearing on the subject. Run around with your little spiels about how you can save the world by issuing a press release.

Moral high ground: If there isn’t any, invent some. It’s more saleable than actual residential property, and cheaper than commercial. There are no actual obligations on anyone claiming moral superiority, anyway. Well, none that you can sue them for, which is the main thing.

Throughout all of which, a parade of people in suits, corporate or political, appears, talks endlessly, does nothing at all, and is replaced by another generation of suits, usually much worse educated and with even less idea of what they could be doing.

Most of the current batch don’t appear to consider they’re supposed to be doing anything, which on present levels of economic carnage, is probably a good thing.

My theory, for some strange, no doubt purely Australian, reason, is that these people are morons. Their world is disintegrating in front of their eyes, they're actively involved in helping that along, and they’ll then go and do a seminar on career motivation.

Their credibility, such as it is, is based not on who they are, but what they represent. Any fool can be appointed to any position, and the credibility is based entirely on what that position is supposed to be.

Nobody minds, because the world is used to ineffectual babble. If the guy does enough babbling, he's doing his job, like a newspaper or a Senate committee.

Whoever it is must be a great guy, because he’s in that position. It’s not his fault that he achieves nothing.

That’s worked pretty well, so far. But give Homo Sap a few generations, and if things suddenly get expensive, someone will start to notice that things aren’t all that great in Toy Land.

Issues are raised, ancient dogmas are trotted out like a Taxidermy Woodstock, and life continues amid a noisy debate about what should be done. After a while it just becomes what should have been done, as the problems become traditions.

“Once upon a time there were people called doctors… and you could go and see them, whenever you felt like you should… ”

“Grandpa’s raving again…”

Just to relieve the sexual tension, new issues appear like zits, and develop into a new generation of unsolved problems.

Credibility is supposed to be based on actual achievement. Have a look at that list of things up there, see if you can spot one.