Boy is It Hot in Here!

The markets were up Thursday for the reasons mentioned in yesterday's blog, but so are the autumn temperatures in the Arctic – a record 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 Celsius) above normal. Melting ice reveals dark ocean waters beneath; darkness absorbs heat better than light (which reflects it away), which accelerates the warming process. And I can't even blame that on Henry Paulson, but I am checking! I wouldn't count on a sustained up-market by any sane estimates any time soon (they're already down!) – stocks should waffle up and down based on each day’s news, and should tumble hard if Henry makes any more recommendations to work through institutions… but I think I would count on Arctic temperatures holding to the “rising temperature” phenomenon for the foreseeable future.

Those aren't Republican or Democratic degrees; they're the old fashioned Celsius and Fahrenheit kind. They're the kind of degrees that should set our best and brightest scientists to thinking about managing the inevitable consequences, preparing the infrastructure for the inevitable strain, and maybe, just maybe, bring Americans together to work together to find energy alternatives, improve efficiency and solve problems from a bi-partisan platform. Or not.

I could just blame this on the Democrats who repealed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 and allowed banks to merge into and own financial trading companies (and vice versa) – a spur to big fat bank/financial institutions that helped fuel the economic mess or the Republican Securities and Exchange Commission that, on April 28, 2004, created a horrible exemption to a rule on how much equity five financial companies (those worth over $5 billion at the time: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch – look who’s gone from that list!) needed to have against their debt load – allowing them to borrow their way into buying massive piles of derivatives based high-yield (and very flawed) subprime mortgages and other secondary values (Bear and Lehman went from 12 to 1 – the old limit, and the limit on everybody else – all the way up to 32/33 to 1 before they died)… but I won't.

Instead, I'd like to suggest that we gather together and simply get to work solving problems that plague us all. Us… you and me… people… making individually responsible decisions. Using less energy. Not borrowing above our means. Not buying it all now. Saving and investing in each other, our children and our future. We can ask the government to help, but they seem not to notice you or me. Not enough of us are plumbers, it seems. I'll keep railing about what the government should do or stop doing, but I know, in the end, it’s just up to you and me to begin to make this a better place, one individual step at a time.

I'm Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.