I don't know economics from applesauce, but I've had an ominous feeling about the state of our nation's economy for some time. I went digging in my archives to find out how long I've been beating this particular dead horse and I learned a few things. For instance, I learned that I've been blogging for about 16 months now; the one year mark for my rhetorical masturbation came and went unnoticed. I also discovered my archives are searchable, which is pretty cool considering the titles I've slapped on most of my 150+ posts before uploading them to the mother ship have often been only vaguely connected to their content, if at all. (I've been known to just name a post after whatever beer I'm drinking when I write it.)

I found a post about Chalmers Johnson and his book Nemesis from last February in which I mentioned his prediction of a US national bankruptcy and a world-wide recession. Coincidentally, I had that book in my hands today at Barnes and Noble, but I just couldn't pull the trigger on it. I'm being frugal. Then I returned to my mobile command center to find this headline on CNN's home page: World Markets Plunge On US Fears

Stock markets around the world plummeted Monday, prompted by pessimism about U.S. President George W. Bush's plans to boost the U.S. economy.

From Paris to Mumbai to Tokyo, it was one of the worst days for stocks since the terror attacks of September 2001, as share prices in Asia, Europe and the Americas all plunged by significant amounts; Wall Street only avoided joining the tumble because U.S. markets were closed Monday for Martin Luther King Day.

Investors remain skeptical about Bush's plan and are worried that a U.S. slowdown will lead to a global recession.

It will be interesting to see what happens to US markets tomorrow. They dodged a bullet today only because they were closed, but the ricochet could be nasty. I'm betting this final year of dubya's presidency will have a lot of days like this. I think we're in for a nasty downward slide economically.

I believe the chickens of an economy propped up by rampant consumerism on credit, both individually and as a nation, have finally come home to roost. The reason Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's interest rate cuts aren't producing the same effect as those of his predecessor is that American's have already spent themselves into trouble.

The prolonged period of extremely low interest rates initiated by Alan Greenspan created a blizzard of home refinancing with far too many homeowners borrowing against (and spending) the equity in their homes. With home prices now falling, many Americans are finding their single largest asset has vanished.

That's why dubya's gimmick fix of sending every taxpayer a few hundred dollars to spend on a new washing machine isn't going to work. The stock market is a measure of the country's optimism and I don't think there's much of that left right now.