The stock market lost 512 points on Thursday — the most points in one day since 2008.

Why?

Because of information that the EU is in the process of collapse, and it’s bordering on being irreparable. It’s on Life Support; Germany is doing chest compressions as best it can with some occasional breaths. But it can’t jumpstart the entire EU. Just remember the acronym PIIGS — those are the countries in dire straits: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. Who bailed out Portugal’s energy grid recently? Yes, that’s correct: the Chinese.

This week, it’s called a “market correction.” Nice phrase.

The real portent will occur at the end of today. As logical thinkers know, one day does not a trend make.

Europe is on fire. Thursday’s stock market sell-off was a key indicator that things are bad and confidence is low, but — things are not yet, for us, beyond being irreparable. If not staved off, however, there could be a US double-dip recession. Recession = bad. Depression = the worst.

But DC still doesn’t get it and philosophically can’t get it — meaning Mr Obama and the Dems (and some Old Guard GOP Ninnies as well). Mr Obama wants to “raise taxes on the rich” and create another “stimulus package.” TARP and stimulus packages have been crazily — wildly — ineffective. Is this actually Cloward-Piven enacted in real time by an adherent?

So, beyond that, what’s Mr Obama’s solution? Road trip!

And of course, he’s backtracking just a bit. Shocking, yes?

After Obama quipped earlier this summer that shovel-ready jobs weren’t as shovel-ready as “we expected,” it seemed that a central tenet of the 2012 campaign was probably going to be something along the lines of, we just haven’t had enough time. At his Chicago fundraiser last night, that’s exactly the stance he took, even going back to blaming George W. Bush:

It’s been a long, tough journey. But we have made some incredible strides together. Yes, we have. But the thing that we all ought to remember is that as much as good as we have done, precisely because the challenges were so daunting, precisely because we we were inheriting so many challenges, that we’re not even halfway there yet. When I said ‘change we can believe in,’ I didn‘t say ’change we can believe in tomorrow.’ Not change we can believe in next week. We knew this was going to take time because we’ve got this big, messy, tough democracy,” President Obama said at a campaign fundraiser in Chicago on Wednesday night.”

Right.

In conclusion, I leave you with this quote from Jean-Francois Revel:

Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.

BZ

P.S.
When we go down, who is going to cushion our fall as we historically cushioned the falls of innumerable countries in our short history? Whilst keeping the entire world safe?

That’s right: no one.