Wall Street Sinkings

It's like watching "Titanic" at a multiplex with sequels on every screen as Lehman Brothers goes under and other huge financial vessels with gaping holes are being towed toward hopefully safe harbors.

For older observers, the maritime metaphor recalls a sendup of Wall Street, "Where Are the Customers' Yachts?", first published in 1940 and reissued seven years ago. Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, New York's new Mayor, called it "a hilarious classic that proves the more things change the more they stay the same."

The new edition was on the reading list for interns at Bear Stearns, apparently to no avail, and few investors seemed to take seriously Fred Schwed's opening caution:

"'Wall Street,' reads the sinister old gag, 'is a street with a river at one end and a graveyard at the other.' This is striking but incomplete. It omits the kindergarten in the middle..."

But no one is laughing now. "The nation," says a New York Times editorial today," needs a new perspective on the markets, one that acknowledges the self-destructive bent of unfettered capitalism and its ability, unchecked, to wreak havoc far beyond Wall Street."

Both presidential candidates are out there placing blame and offering life rafts for the survivors, who will have to get out of the kindergarten fast and learn how to stay afloat.

The Ultimate Triumph of George W. Bush

He set out to show that government is useless, expensive and stupid, and in the waning days of his Presidency, the man is proving it beyond all doubt.

Forget Katrina, the war in Iraq, the violation of individual rights--misadventures that might have happened to any brain-dead President--but now our lame duck is giving us his "What, Me Worry?" grin as the economy crumbles around our ears. A catastrophic Bush Depression would be the final gift to his government-hating supporters.

Watching the leader of the Free World address the Economic Club of New York yesterday, Gail Collins muses that "you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.

"We’re really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he’s in control. Suddenly, I recalled a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit.

"The country that elected George Bush--sort of--because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend."

Home prices are plummeting, foreclosures are soaring, the Fed pumps billions into propping up Bear Stearns and his Treasury Secretary belatedly starts talking about overseeing cowboy mortgage lenders, but the President is sure that our country is still "the economic envy of the world" and that "sending out over $150 billion into the marketplace in the form of checks that will be reaching the mailboxes by the second week of May" will cure it all.

But then again, why worry? He probably owns the ranch in Crawford free and clear.