[LEADERS EDGE]

Aren't all days historic days? Once it's over it's history.

Don't get me wrong, I do not want to see people lose jobs(Including myself) nor do I want to see people losing their houses and belongings(Including myself).

However, you cannot have good times without the bad. They are hand in hand.

Sure, the car companies are down right now, but it isn't because they make bad products. It is because they make good products. The average lifespan of the vehical on the roads today is 9.7 years. The highest average since they began recording it. Soon however, there will be many people buying cars because the others are at the end of their life cycle.

Have the markets tanked? ABSOLUTELY. That doesn't mean they will always be down the same as they always can't be up. There are some great buys right now and I personally believe GE and Ford will look a whole lot better in the next 2 years. GM may end up filling for bankruptcy, but they aren't going anywhere. Dodge will get rolled up, but they have quite a few desireable designs.

Sure we have defaults and foreclosures, but we also have loan reorganization and investors snapping up some of the best deals in history. Lets be honest here, did everyone really drive by all of those new housing additions on your way to the races and think the housing boom was infinite?

In many ways, I think the American consumer is just tired. Tired of working the most amount of hours in the modern world and tired of being on the treadmill of life. They want to catch their breath and slow down. In many ways, the consumer is getting smarter and doesn't want to be a sucker anymore. They don't want to pay the interest, the taxes and overdraft fees. They just want to live. Unfortunately, that may also cause them to have to lower their standard of living because there may be less of a need for their services. So much of this is going on because people aren't just buying any and everything anymore. The American consumer is actually starting to think before it buys. Of course it had to learn that lesson after running through thousands of dollars on credit cards and taking equity loans to go on vacation, but hey; better late than never.

I don't think it's a coincidence that we work all these hours, with all of these outside financial pressures and we have all of this material wealth; but we can't get it up, we can't have kids, were depressed and we can't stay married.(In turn losing half of the stuff you gave up sex for, worried about and still owe money on.)

I know this, for the years when it was just the inner cities that where affected by these things it wasn't a big deal. Now that it is in the suburbs, suddenly it's a crises. What's the saying? When it happens to your neighbor it's a recession, when it happens to you it's a depression.

Dean is right, the news companies are selling fear because it helps drive their ratings. We always hear about 1 company laying off 1,000 workers, but we never hear about the 1,000 companies hiring 1 person.

I remember hearing about Crazy Eddies. I heard about them because the company was part of an elaborate accounting scheme. I forget the specifics, but it was a very complex deal that took some others down with them.