What’s an investor to do? Without ‘deals on wheels,’ what will keep stocks rolling? And without rising house prices, how will consumers keep spending? And without consumer spending, what will prevent the U.S. economy from going into recession?

If prices keep going down at the present rate, the average house in America’s top 20 cities will lose more than 5% of its value this year. The bottom can be years away. It all depends on how much the Fed fights the slowdown (the more the Fed fights a needed recession, the longer the recession will be).

The poor subprime nation had it so good for so long. Now, it seems to be at the twilight of a magnificent – if preposterous – era, in which Americans could spend money they didn’t have on things they didn’t need and not have to worry about what happened next.

Investors must think that the Fed’s intervention in the credit markets will be as effective as the Bush Administration’s intervention in Mesopotamia. Some problems just don’t lend themselves to meddling from outsiders.

Whole new industries are waking up to a new China, with a middle class, and millions of rich people too. It is the greatest leap forward ever.

Everyone, everywhere uses the U.S. dollar as a reference, and a substitute, for wealth. But what are these dollars really worth, and how do you know what anything else is worth?

Just when you begin to think that comfy trends are permanent, suddenly, everything changes. All that ‘flation’ in the system explodes...prices soar...or collapse, and markets are hit.

How do you make a lot of money in this kind of finance-driven economy? Simple. You sell things to rich people.

Everyone wants to know what the Maestro was really thinking.

The feds are bailing out the big banks as fast as their buckets allow, even though the rescuers are bound to make the situation worse, just as they always do.