Residency Requirements Off Life Support For Now

Local residency requirements have officially been upgraded from critical to guarded condition.  As I posted here in February the reports of the death of local ordinances requiring municipal employees to live within city limits was a bit premature.  Now a third Ohio appellate court has weighed in on residency requirements and affirmed the two previous rulings in favor of cities with such requirements.  Not only is the health of residency requirements looking up for now but his friend home rule is feeling better these days.  The report from GONGWER offers this snippet:

The 6th District Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 opinion that a new state statute prohibiting such residency requirements was "an obvious attempt to circumvent constitutional municipal home rule authority."

The main opposition to residency requirements has come from police and fire unions who state that an undue hardship is placed upon their members.  These groups assert the residency restriction limits the options of housing and other quality of life choices that inevitably lie in the greener grass just on the other side of the city limits.   Now I have worked for a large metro that had a residency requirement and didn't mind it at all.  In fact I was informed of the requirement prior to excepting the job there.  Are the safety forces contending that there has been some deception on the part of muni's that maintain residency rules?    In writing the lead opinion Judge Thomas Osowik offered this somewhat right wing-ish statement:

"Terms and conditions of employment and the choice of whether to accept employment with certain terms and conditions are inherent in all employment decisions in a free market economy,"

Seriously, is it that bad to have to live in a city whose citizens depend on police, fire and EMS personnel to maintain the collective health and safety of the community?   If you prefer not to live in Akron or Cleveland y then you have the right to work for a city that doesn't have a residency requirement don't you?   There are currently two potential cases, including the City of Akron case, that could be heard by the SCO so the final judgement has yet to be rendered.

Akron METRO Sales Tax Follow Up

Akron METRO was able to get a quarter percent sales tax increase passed in March. All that is left for the regional transit authority is sit back and watch the money roll in. The tax will provide METRO with approximately $18 million in additional revenue and that may be about $17 million more than METRO currently needs to stay afloat.

Since sales tax is also a meat and potatoes revenue source for county government the movement of such a large chunk to METRO is making some of the financial types at Summit County uneasy. Tough times over the horizon makes for creative solutions to manage fiscal hardship. That is why Summit County will be suggesting that the new found wealth be shared. In what may be called de facto regionalism the County is going to be aggressively searching for ways to have METRO to invest that extra revenue into economic development projects that could perhaps benefit the region and spare county coffers. This is of course all contingent on being able to pry the cash from METROs cold dead hand.

If the county is successful maybe they can set their sites on freeing up some of those tax dollars from MRDD and the Summit ADMH boards.

A Plus Up for Petraeus

General Petraeus always the loyal soldier will be taking over Central Command later this year. With General Ray Odierno moving up from number two take the reigns in Iraq the "smash brothers" will have complete control of the Middle East Theater. Obviously the appointments signal the administration's intent to change absolutely nothing in Iraq but, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

In terms of U.S policy toward Iran this can only mean a greater chance of some military intervention in the near term. It has been said in some media outlets that the current CentCom chief Admiral Fallon was standing in the way of escalating the conflict with Iran. With Fallon out of the picture and the potential for a President McCain (I cringe) to be in charge in early 2009 the outlook for more war looks great.

As for Iraq, country is is great hands. With Odierno in charge the number of cordon and search missions will probably hit all time highs. This guy has a history of being a relentless hard-ass and at times his tactics haven't meshed the counterinsurgency plans. This From yesterday's McClatchy report:

Many believe that Odierno, the III Corps commander in Fort Hood,
Texas, redeemed himself during his stint as the No. 2 commander in Iraq
last year. He came to the post under a cloud of controversy after some
charged that his strong-arm approach to warfare lacked the nuance that
counterinsurgency required.

Indeed, in his previous post as the
commander of U.S. troops in northern Iraq, he called for aggressive
tactics against the insurgency, at times inflaming tensions between
U.S. troops and Iraqis.

Petraeus will most likely be too busy running for vice president to play good cop to Odierno. Eventually in Iraq the money and guns won't be enough to keep the Sunni militias in line and Odierno will have to resort to more bad cop policies to pacify any unrest. All the more reason taking on Iran at the same time is not a good idea.

Dimora's Ameritrust Anxiety Comes Out

Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora's outburst (no,rant) at Thursday's BOCC meeting was actually a primal release of pent up anxiety. The two PD reporters, Mark Puente and Henry J. Gomez, that had been "hounding" the Commish about what was basically a patronage hire got more than they bargained for. You see Dimora himself said he's been in the business thirty years. The man has seen his share of patronage hires that have failed the smell test. A seasoned politico like Dimora doesn't get his giant panties in a bunch over questions on a single patronage hire.

What the Commissioner is actually suffering from is Ameritrust Building Anxiety. The press didn't do much with this story until last year, almost two years after its inception. The flood gates finally opened and the backlash against the mishandling of the project and questionable contracting has been mounting ever since. Even though the Board has come to terms to sell the building and get out of the project it is not doing so unscathed. The County and taxpayers will still have to eat several million (like around 10) asbestos laden dollars after the building is unloaded to a private developer. Even when they find a way out their problems don't go away.

The County faced with an aging portfolio of buildings still has to come up with a plan to either consolidate into one site or address the large capital costs of maintaining the existing sites. The last three years have essentially been wasted with the failed attempt to make the Ameritrust site work out as planned. The County is now back to square one and has already burned a lot of time, money and good will with nothing to show.

Is Joe Lieberman a Maoist?

Obama is not a Marxist. I couldn't say if Joe is or isn't a Maoist. It's certainly something that could be looked into further. I mean Marxism and Maoism are equally prevalent in today's society aren't they?

Joe's good friend John McCain is certainly not a Marxist. He just proposed relinquishing even more fiscal responsibility through more tax cuts. This time its the federal gasoline tax that is holding us back. How about we triple the gas tax and use the money to pay for your pet project in Iraq?

Proxy War Not Going Well Either

The regular war in Iraq is bad enough now we have to worry about some proxy war. According to the administration, specifically Ambassador Ryan Crocker the U.S is also engaged in proxy war with Iran. In an interview Friday Crocker lamented Iran's role in screwing up the path to a stable Iraq and meddling in Iraqi affairs. The problems in Iraq apparently aren't all related to the U.S. occupation. Iran's support of Shiite militias is a major point of contention for the U.S. As reported in the Sunday New York Times Crocker directly called out the Iranian interference in the interview:

While Bush administration officials have long denounced what they have
described as Iran’s meddling in Iraq, Mr. Crocker’s language was
unusually strong, reflecting fresh concern about what he described in
Congressional testimony this week as Iran’s role in supplying militias
with training and weapons, including rockets used in recent attacks on
the Green Zone, in Baghdad.

Although he claimed the U.S. is not engaging in an proxy type involvement against Iran. That seems to contradict the piles of cash and weapons we have been providing the Sunni groups in Al Anbar. Those groups would be a hedge against overt Iranian and Shiite influence in Iraq once th U.S. begins to decrease it's presence there. So this would serve as a proxy to Iran's proxy, I guess. While Iran is meddling in everyones business in the Middle East none of our allies inte region are lending much of hand, Crocker's complaints again from the Times article:

During the interview, Mr. Crocker accused Iran of meddling in
Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza, in addition to Iraq. He also faulted
Iraq’s Arab neighbors for refusing to help, noting that a promised
Saudi Arabian Embassy had yet to materialize.

Maybe the U.S. should consider engaging Iran in a proxy nature and get our so called Sunni allies like Saudi Arabia to get of there asses and spend some petrodollars on staunching Iran's influence in their own backyard. Doing nothing to even the score while the oil producing fat cats sit around and watch is no way to run a proxy war.

Tommy Franks Was Right

Another one of the architects of the Iraq invasion has been making the rounds with the latest book full of excuses. Straight from the "where are the war architects" file comes Douglas Feith. If you know the narrative of how we got into the biggest foreign policy mess ever then Feith's name is a familiar one. He was most recently on the Diane Rehm Show this past Thursday. I've been trying not to hear any of the lame-ass garbage Feith has been pawning off to respected media outlets like 60 minutes but I gave in and listened to the whole one hour segment.

Surprisingly or maybe not Feith has been pushing the idea that the real blame for what went wrong lies with Colin Powell. What I gathered from the interview is that He thinks Powell should have done more to stop the civilian war planners from going ahead with the invasion. To further his point Feith basically stated to Rehm during the interview that if then Secretary of State Powell had a better plan he didn't let on. I come away with this summary. Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolofwitz and the other neocons used bizarro world logic to set off an ill-conceived and ill-planned invasion of Iraq. Colin Powell is to blame because it was up to him to stop them because they didn't know any better. There is a mountain of evidence out there that says they wouldn't have listened anyway.

Feith asserts that his account is based on the record and that's what gives his book real juice. Feith also boasts that the planning was a collaborative effort in which all points of view were entertained. You don't have to go any further than the pages of the book Fiasco by Tom Ricks to see how Feith's "on the record" account contrasts starkly with what actually happened. In the chapter of Fiasco titled "The Run Up", Ricks covers how the lack of attention to objective input from other sources soured the war planning. There were two very large scale and comprehensive reports created by dozens of security experts, military planners and Mideast scholars. Both of these studies where ignored by Feith's office. Ricks summarizes this phenomenon in his book:

"What is remarkable is that again and again during the crucial months before the invasion, such warnings from experts went unheeded-or even unwelcome. Almost no Middle Eastern experts inside the military were consulted on the war plan, in part because the plan was produced on a very close hold basis that involved few people , and even then only parts of it were shown to most of those involved."

Despite the non-attentiveness to the counsel of all of these experts Feith still defends one of the
biggest blunders of the occupation, disbanding the Iraqi army. He claims in his "on the record" version of events that military planners agreed with this decision. The historic facts recounted in Fiasco point to military experts stressing that the Iraqi army not be disbanded. In December of 2002 a report produced by military experts at the Pentagon (a third report in as many months) stated unequivocally the error of folding the Iraqi army after the invasion:

"...To tear apart the army in the war's aftermath could lead to the
destruction of one the only forces of unity within the society."

Feith's claim that the Iraqi army was already broken and had to be rebuilt clearly contradicted the advice being given at the time of the run upto the war. This is just one major example of the incompetent way Feith's office handled the planning and execution of the invasion and
subsequent occupation of Iraq. In the end it was the incompetence from key war planners like Feith that lead to the abysmal failures that have morphed into the never ending disaster that is the occupation of Iraq. General Tommy Franks is quoted in Fiasco as summing up Feith's level of competence with this morsel, "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet". I don't know if I'd go that far but he has a point.

Feith's book smells like pure revisionist crap if you ask me. The only good that may come out of his new book is that he plans to donate all the proceeds to charity. I think a charity that supports the families of fallen Iraq war veterans would be a good start.

Praying For Rain In Northern France

What's better than bikes racing on ancient sections of cobblestone roads in the Ardenne? Bikes racing on wet and muddy sections of cobblestone roads. Paris Roubaix also known as the "Hell of the North" is this Sunday and the riders are expected to be met with rains and wind. This a good thing if you are watching the race and not riding in it. The past few years the peleton has been spared from the brutal wet and cold conditions that normally claim tires, forks, handlebars and the occasional face. I think this could be big George Hincapie's year if he can stay upright, this may be his last chance to claim a victory here.

The Petraeus Take Away

We're not going anywhere anytime soon. General Petraeus made that abundantly clear with this automated response at today's hearing as transcribed by the Washintgon Post:

At the end of that period, he said, he has recommended starting "a
process of assessment to examine the conditions on the ground and, over
time, determine when we can make recommendations for further
reductions." He strongly counseled against setting any deadlines for
withdrawal.

I called Central Command Headquarters and they have this message playing on the answering machine so they got the memo. Maybe we'll know more in December.

Petraeus is Coming! Petraeus is Coming!

Another six months and another status report from the king of the surge. General Petraeus makes his way to Capital Hill tomorrow to give his latest assessment of the conditions in Iraq. I can't imagine anything new is going to be divulged by either the general or U.S. ambassador to the fortified Green Zone, Ryan Crocker.

General Petraeus has already gone on record as saying not enough political progress has been made by the Iraqi government. I almost wanted to throw in the adjective nascent before the words Iraqi government but by now the new car smell has worn off. That statement made a couple of weeks ago will probably be fodder for inquiring minds at the Congressional hearing and should elicit some tough questioning. I'm sure Petraeus and Crocker will be ready for the onslaught and will repel any suggestions that all is not well with healthy doses of "surge must be given more time to work" medicine. American's will once again be told that we need to stay in Iraq even if it means sacrificing more lives and resources for a failed policy.

The real success of surge has been its ability to buy more time on the political front for the administration. Tomorrow's performances are intended to extend the deployment beyond the election and pass it off to the next commander in chief. I know it's a cynical outlook but god dammit can you blame me?

Job Losses Bad News For NEO

The latest round of bad economic news arrived this week in the form of more job losses. If that isn't enough to bum you out then the impact of the downturn in NE Ohio will. George Zeller from the Center for Community Solutions spells out out the impending hard times for NEO in his latest information release:

In Ohio, our year over year job growth has been a loss for the last
12 consecutive months. It is likely that we will see the same in the
March 2008 figures when we get them on April 18.

Of course, we have no evidence at all that Ohio or Cuyahoga County
ever recovered at all from the 2000s recession. Thus, the new federal
figures today for the whole country are not a good sign for us
locally. We have now gone more than one quarter with job losses in
the USA. In another two months, unless job growth resumes, we will
have two quarters of national job losses. Even then, until the
Conference Board sees two negative quarters of GDP, they probably
will not declare an official recession. But, there is obvious
significant weakness in the national economy right now, and that is
very likely to spill over into our local situation.

Therefore, despite a lack of a local component in today's new
figures, the national employment figures are discouraging for us in
Ohio and in Cuyahoga County.

Zeller has had the unfortunate role of chronicling our economic woes. As he mentions we are already vulnerable due to the lack of a true recovery from the previous recession. The take away here is that the ebb and flow of the Dow Jones Index and Fed bailouts are only a small portion of the economic picture. These latest indicators point to adeep and troubling times for NE Ohioans.

The Lessons of Basra

The dust is finally starting to settle in Basra after last week's ill fated offensive by the Iraqi government and their U.S. handlers. The amount of devastation and carnage resulting from the uprising or whatever that was is a harsh reality check on the state of our deployment in Iraq. As usual McClatchy has been on point with its coverage of the situation on the ground. The plan to de-surge or stand down (because they have to stand up) has hit a new snag.

As part of its post-surge plan, the Pentagon planned to reduce troop levels by one brigade a month, thin out its presence in Iraq and lean more heavily on Iraqi forces. But the Basra offensive has some in the U.S. military fretting that Iraq's forces, while better than they were six months ago, cannot fully defend their communities.

An unintended consequence of the surge has been the reliance on bottom up self governance to claim reconciliation has been occurring. As an example the Sunni awakening and relative calmness in the Kurdish north has been sited by surge fans as proof of its success. Not too quick. What has been visited upon Iraqis this week in the form of a proto-civil war is this lesson: correlation is not causation. Didn't the event of the past week demonstrate that the cease fire issued by Sadr was the real reason behind the success of the surge? The Maliki offensive turned into a clash between central governance (the original plan) and local power centers like militias. The top down approach didn't fair too well.

Relying on local players to maintain stability gave the surge an appearance of success. The problem is that this stability was proven to be a mirage once the interests of Sadrists no longer lined up with the central government. When the decision was made to break that calm, whoever is to blame is almost irrelevant, the stability evaporated and fighting erupted. When the Iraqi forces were not enough to quell the Shia fighters the U.S. forces had no choice but to "Fallujahize" the city with air strikes and artillery. The after effects of that offensive are turning the residents of the once somewhat allied south into haters. Another piece from McClatchy details the carnage resulting from the air strikes and the collective dismay of Iraqi hearts and minds being lost. It seems that the surge is approaching the end of its shelf life before the stated goals were ever realized.

Flush Your Free Lunch Down the Toilet

Mayor Plusquellic's Sewers for College plan has evolved into a lease of the Akron sewer system rather than sale. After looking at other lease deals on infrastructure around the Country the original plan to sell the system outright has been modified to be a lease deal. Leases comes with the same caveats as sales. The system would almost certainly be leased by a foreign entity and that foreign corporation would have to raise user fees in due time to cover operations. A spokesperson from one firm is quoted in today's ABJ article:

''Generally, it means more efficient operations and lower-cost pricing,
even taking into account profit for dividends and reinvestment into the
system,'' Henning said. ''It also means that customers are paying 'real
cost' pricing, rather than a subsidized price based off the use of
government bonds to finance infrastructure improvements.''

You see public works are actually subsidized because capital improvements are financed with government issued bonds. Oh wait a minute, I thought local governments pay debt service with revenue collected from user fees and taxes. So the subsidy actually flows from citizens that use the infrastrucure. We are subsidizing ourselves, that has to stop.

Call it a lease, a sale, creative financing, it's all the same. Privatization will come with more costs in the form of increased fees. This deal can't create money out of thin air and fund universal college scholarships at the same time.

A Bold Move Towards Regionalism

The City of Akron and Summit County Governments are about to sample the much talked about but seldom visited waters of regionalism. Akron and Summit our planning a trial by fire approach to merging the administration of safety forces. The ABJ explains how the new chain of command will report to County Sheriff Drew Alexander:

Larry Givens, the retired Akron Police Chief, was introduced as Plusquellic's new deputy mayor of public safety. Givens will report to Alexander and the two will now be at the top of Akron police department's chain of command, Plusquellic said.

There are several positive aspects of this prposed arrangement. The first of which is that it sign proactive move in the direction of combining a city and county government in real life. It's not just topic for MPA students to write papers on. Carving out one of the core services for this first phase gives the move some credibility and potential to have a real impact. In theory the plan is supposed to achieve efficiencies and save money without stripping the APD of its autonomy which is important for buy in. It's been two or three years since the Fund for Our Economic Future started pushing for transformational change in our framework of governance and this move may be a result of that proect.

Mayor Plusquellic is also a winner here. He claims a new creative idea to tout to constituents and this one makes sense. Merging government services good, private sewer systems bad.

Crossover Voting Meet Overwhelming Force

The prospects of crossover voting amounting to anything more than a pet project of Rush Limbaugh and his merry band of dittoheads are slim and none. Of course loud mouth righty blowhards get the adulation of an intellectually immature fan base poised to move when called upon. The thought of steering the election to a favorable match up for November is in the same category as the bumper sticker pablum they ingest daily.

There as been a good deal of press on the GOP crossovers in the Ohio primary election and Cuyahoga County in particular. The Columbus Dispatch released an analysis of crossover voting and found a sizable number of GOP superfans crossed over to the tune of over 20,000 voters. The intent of course was to cast votes for Clinton and keep her campaign alive thus throwing the race into turmoil. Of course the democratic race didn't need an help with that and the crossover voting didn't really alter overall course of the election. In politically savvy move SOS Jennifer Brunner has cast aside any ideas of prosecuting crossover voting in an interview with the Cleveland PD:

"I would be very hesitant to move forward in a criminal investigation," Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said before giving a speech at John Carroll University. "At what point are you going to start getting into censorship?"

Basically let the cretins have some fun it can't stop the inevitable defeat the GOP will be suffering in the general election, or so we hope. Still the Cuyahoga BOE is pursuing a investigation of crossovers in the County. This "quixotic effort" as described by County Prosecutor Civil Division chief Dave Lambert, will go nowhere fast once it hits the inevitable party line vote.

I've said it before, winning this election will have to be done using the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force. The GOP attack dogs are going to use voter suppression, caging and other dirty tricks to sway this election. The appropriate defense to this crap is to bring the full force of progressive ideas and a strong candidate to the electorate. An unstoppable wave of D(d)emocratic voters that will wipe out the effects of any GOP nonsense.

Caging, Voting's Dirty Little Secret

The practice fo voter caging is finally getting some attention from Congress. Politico has an article covering the efforts of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to introduce legislation limiting the practice. Supporters of the bill claim rightly, that the practice of challenging the addresses of large swathes of registered voters discourages college students and younger voters from voting.

In NE Ohio we have had are share of this tactic. In the case of the 2004 election the GOP cadres submitted mass requests to verify voters addresses in Cuyahoga and Summit County. The requests targeted minority voters in low income neighborhoods not college students. This was a perfectly devious compliment to the voter challenges at the polls that also targeted this demographic. Nothing like the white mayor of rich Westlake challenging black voters in poor East Cleveland.

Limiting the practice at the federal level makes sense. They already have something called the Voting Rights Act I think. Still you will always have some critics of measures that encourage people to vote. In a wonderful coincidence one of the potential critics on the Senate Judiciary Comm. is Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT). A different man but same name as beloved Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett who coordinated the voter suppression efforts in 2004.

Five Years of Lies

"When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth."

Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner


The war in Iraq was built on lies and false bravado. From the tales of errant WMD to the not so subtle conflating of Saddam and the terror of September 11th. The mission accomplished moments, last throes, fight them there and surge is working chicanery have had five years to obscure the truth of what has happened in Iraq. Any meaningful debate on Iraq policy must be navigated around the detritus of talking points and bumper sticker schlock. Almost every pronouncement from the administration on progress must be interpreted with either skepticism or outright disbelief. Awakening counsels are really the result of bribing one side of a future civil war. The the reconstruction of a country into an economic success has morphed into a failed free market laboratory. The spread of democracy in the Middle East has been revealed as an entreaty to ethnic cleansing, torture and has created a new class of diaspora left to flee the calamity as means of survival.

The lies that this war are built on have damned this country, its leaders, and its citizens to an endless feedback loop of suffering and human wreckage. The American attention span for the never ending and costly occupation of Iraq has continued to shrink. The lack of thirst for information or demand for the truth and accountability are acts of complicity in creating the lies that have sustained this war.

Now the next champion of this misadventure has grabbed the baton and kept marching forward with the same talking points and disrespect for the truth. John McCain is already finding convenient ways to falsely conflate Al Queda and Iran and then retracts the words as alleged gaffes. He is proudly proclaiming that we only have two options, continue on this reckless path or surrender to the forces of evil. Never mind the folly that led us to war in Iraq is the reason for the instability. There is no gray or in between even though the complexity of the mess we have created can't be mitigated with absolutes. Our right to the truth was stolen long ago. Until we get it back this trip through the hellish confines of this period our history will never end.

The Cost of Floyd

The former winner fo the 2006 Tour De France has one more fight left in him and he's not letting money get in the way. Floyd Landis makes one last ditch effort to save his bad reputation starting today. Not taking the decision by USADA to uphold his positive doping test seriously Landis now goes to the Court of Arbitration of Sport. This time around promises to be another rehash of the previous findings. Floyd's people will again plead why the test administered to Floyd after an unprecedented comeback in stage 16 of the 2006 TDF must have been wrong. Floyd will rant like a paranoid delusional about the French lab that bothcedhis test and the dark secrets of Greg Lemond's childhood.

None of the time and money spent presenting an alternative to what actually happened will change the outcome. UCI cycling is already hurting from more doping scandals like Puerta and last year's tour. This latest round in the Floyd chronicles is just one more reminder of the hubis tearing down a great sport.

McCain Already Opting for Public Funds

John McCain hit the dusty ground of Iraq running by conducting a "fact finding" mission Sunday. This trip didn't appear to have the exorbitant security trappings of his last junket but had the regular hoopla. On the fact finding agenda were meetings with St. Petreaus and Iraqi leaders including his honor president Nouri al Maliki. Just to blur any line between fact finder and campaign stop McCain had Senate colleagues and stalwart Iraq enthusiasts Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham in tow.

The punditry has been keen to point out McCain's advantage over his rival Dem challengers. While Obama and Clinton continue to drag out the nomination process McCain can start assuming a presidential aura and visit important people and kiss important general asses. It's a really smart strategy I'll admit. I'm guessing a sliver of voters have assumed that a transition already took place and he's the new president.

I hope someone at the Federal Elections Commission is paying attention. This trip was clearly a campaign stop at the expense of taxpayers. If the Straight Talk Express is going to opt in for a public campaign funds that's great, he has been a champion of campaign reform right?

McCain just started running a tab barkeep, don't forget to settle before the General Election is over.

Cheney was also in Iraq today. He snarled something about last throes or phenomenal progress. I don't know does anyone even care?

JP Morgan Takes Out the Trash

How bad is the outlook in the financial markets? If the fall of the great Wall St. powerhouse Bear Stearns is any indication then it's bad. More than Jim Kramer ranting bad.

JP Morgan Chase agreed to buy the beleaguered Bear Stearns today for the insane and even troubling low price of $2 per share. That blows my mind. Bear Stearns a mainstay financial giant was brought to its knees from the corrosive (explosive) impact of the credit woes stemming from the sub prime mess. The fact that JP Morgan was able to snatch them up for almost free ($236 million total price) is telling to how done Bear Stearns was. Even the unprecedented offer from the Fed to accept mortgage derivative securities as collateral for securing much needed liquidity couldn't save Bear from the Bear market.

Another gauge of the magnitude of this downturn is the type of victims it has claimed. The tech bust of the 2000 era killed off a lot of crazy IT and web concoctions that had no business plans and no way to make any money. I mean come on man Loudcloud was no Citigroup. The whirlwind we are reaping now is going right after the heart of the financial system and that's what makes this particular turmoil rather frightening.