Diving Into an Empty Pool Head-First

Diving into an empty pool head first. That's the way things seem to be going as the stock market lost more than 1,000 points in less than a week, and the worst plunge in more than three years.

The Dow Jones Industrials Average closed today at 10,809.85. This figure, give or take a few hundred points, was not expected, but it was the severity of the fall that knocked the wind out of investors such as yours truly, whose investments are in blue chips, utilities and other safe places to put our money. I own TIPS -- Treasury Inflation Protection Securities, one of the most conservative investments anyone can make. They hardly paid anything when I bought them, but I figured that one day the U.S. government would own up to the fact that there is indeed inflation, and then their value would rise. Yes, many others invested in riskier securities and did very well for themselves. I bought the investments I did with the belief that although my returns would be modest, they would high enough to beat inflation and yet the risk would be low enough so that I could sleep at night. Now we're all insomniacs.

The blame was on Standard and Poor's for downgrading the credit rating.of the U.S. For so many years, Standard and Poor's was considered reputable and impartial. When Standard and Poor misled everyone on the CDO ratings, which were a factor in the economic collapse of 2008, it lost that credibility. When word had it that Standard and Poor's planned to downgrade the U.S. debt, many regarded it as an act of market manipulation. That could very well be. Now we all know that Standard and Poor's is a division of the McGraw-Hills Companies. In other words, it's part of the private sector that no one trusts. One news item that is under most people's radar is that in 2009, the European Commission charged Standard and Poor's with unfair pricing and accused it of abusing its position as the sole provider of international securities codes for U.S. securities by charging European financial firms and data vendors to pay licensing fees for their use. So it's not just part of a private company; it's corrupt on its own.

Barak Obama had to face the nation and give a pep talk about how things aren't so bad. We need to "reform" entitlement programs (read: cuts in the safety net) and tackle budget debts over the long run. Naturally, he failed to give details. Even if he had any, it doesn't matter. Whatever the Republicans want, he will give them after a song and dance about compromise on both sides. He is the Great Capitulater. It was interesting to read comments posted by readers of The New York Times. Many people are calling for him to resign or at least not run for office in 2012. They honestly believe his stepping down would actually help the economy and give people more confidence. I agree, but I believe that the same things holds for all politicians. Americans are fed up. Their approval rating of Congress is surprisingly only about 82 percent. I don't know of anyone who actually approves of Congress. There are a few holdouts for Obama, but I think it's for the same reason that they supported him. It's not so much the hopey-changey thing or win the future, which is clearly lost, but because they're afraid of being thought of as bigots. Be color-blind, folks. Take him for what he is: a failure as a leader. He was in the perfect position to give this generation a new FDR or even a new JFK. Instead he gave them an empty suit.