The Oracle Speaks?

At 2:50 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones industrials were down 318 points, or 4.1%, to 7,458. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was off 34 points, or 4.2%, to 782, and the Nasdaq Composite Index had slumped 55 points, or 3.6%, to 1,490. Remind us again, o wise one, how no matter what happens to the rest of the world, we here in Miami Springs will be immune to those problems and they will have NO effect on us! Explain to us how we can overpay and disappear hundreds of thousands of tax dollars on each and every construction project we undertake by paying TRIPLE the costs, and more, and it will have NO EFFECT... on the Mayor, Council or City officials! The residents, yes those residents actually pay the City's bills, will be unhappy with the increases in taxes and fees, that is true, but that is so negative! Lets focus on the HAPPY contractors who will make a LOT of money from all the change orders and cost overruns! Those who write open letters to the public in the Gazette or cheelead a new gym project without telling us they stand to make a LOT of money from the project, are masters at positive thinking. They are POSITIVE they will make a LOT of money from these projects, and they really dont care that it is an abuse the public trust. Dr. Mel P. Johnson

recession now? yep

WASHINGTON - The economy fell into recession late last year, according to a panel of economists that is responsible for determining the dates of business cycles. Monday's declaration by the panel of the National Bureau of Economic Research confirms what many private economists, lawmakers and members of the general public already have assumed and puts an official date on it: A U.S. recession began in December 2007. For those of you who were waiting for final confirmation; we have been in a recession since last December. Where are our contractor buddies to cheer us up and tell us how good THEY are going to do at the new gym? If we just had MORE Happy Talk, all this would disappear. Its obvious that Unhappy Talk about record rates of unemployment, forclosures, bankruptcies, and the like that have caused all this mess! Sure, it may be hard to find anything good to say when you have lost your job, home, life savings, and business but thats just because they arent trying! They are all just content to sit home and collect their unemployment checks!!! Lazy, shiftless bums...... all of them.. and probably all Democrats too... they just need PATIENCE!! as I am sure that some of the contractors wealth will trickle right down to them.... maybe... eventually ... perhaps.... soon..... any minute now....

happy talk as a cure

There's a sense afoot that the real problems we face aren't the crippled financial system or the slowing economy, but rather all the bad stuff people are saying about them. In other words, not enough Happy Talk. To ward off panics, financial media organizations are keeping Unhappy Talk to a minimum. "We're very careful not to throw words around like 'meltdown' and 'free fall,' " CNN correspondent Ali Velshi, who is getting mucho face time thanks to the meltdown and free fall, told the New York Times. The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal is engaging in un-Murdochian restraint, banishing words like crash and pandemonium. Maybe I have a limited vocabulary, but I'm not sure how else to characterize a month in which the country's largest financial institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had to be nationalized; Lehman Bros., the fourth-largest investment bank, filed for Chapter 11; AIG, a component of the Dow Jones Indsutrial Average, had to turn over most of its stock to the government in exchange for an $85 billion loan; the government had to guarantee money-market funds to stop people from hoarding cash under their mattresses; the nation's largest savings and loan, Washington Mutual, failed; and the nation's greatest financial minds declare that a bailout the size of the Netherlands' GDP is needed to stop the bleeding. Yes, we have to be careful about crying fire in a crowded theater. But calling Wall Street's a meltdown a meltdown is more like crying fire in a crowded inferno. the problem isnt too many greedy and crooked politicians and special interests, its a lack of Happy Talk! We could start by talking about HOW WELL the greedy and crooked politicians and special interests are doing! at a national level all the way down to City Hall.

Happy Talk solves the problems?

There's a sense afoot that the real problems we face aren't the crippled financial system or the slowing economy, but rather all the bad stuff people are saying about them.

In other words, not enough Happy Talk.

To ward off panics, financial media organizations are keeping Unhappy Talk to a minimum. "We're very careful not to throw words around like 'meltdown' and 'free fall,' " CNN correspondent Ali Velshi, who is getting mucho face time thanks to the meltdown and free fall, told the New York Times. The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal is engaging in un-Murdochian restraint, banishing words like crash and pandemonium. Maybe I have a limited vocabulary, but I'm not sure how else to characterize a month in which the country's largest financial institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, had to be nationalized; Lehman Bros., the fourth-largest investment bank, filed for Chapter 11; AIG, a component of the Dow Jones Indsutrial Average, had to turn over most of its stock to the government in exchange for an $85 billion loan; the government had to guarantee money-market funds to stop people from hoarding cash under their mattresses; the nation's largest savings and loan, Washington Mutual, failed; and the nation's greatest financial minds declare that a bailout the size of the Netherlands' GDP is needed to stop the bleeding. Yes, we have to be careful about crying fire in a crowded theater. But calling Wall Street's a meltdown a meltdown is more like crying fire in a crowded inferno.