Headlines Suck!

As I have told you guys in previous posts, I scan about 1000 plus news feeds a day to pull out one or two stories that catch my eye. While I was working on this post last night I noticed that it was just one negative headline after another. I mean hundreds at a time! It got to a point where I just wanted to toss my laptop out the friggin’ window and end it all. Here is just a few from yesterday’s news.

• GM to announce further restructuring
• Fannie, Freddie: Not out of the woods
• Fed’s war against shady home loans
• Freddie Mac under attack
• SEC’s red herring: Chasing rumormongers
• Mortgages: More expensive, more scarce
• IndyMac customers line up to withdraw money
• It’s a bad week ahead for banks

No good news there that’s for sure. But then it hit me. Well, two thoughts hit me. One, how the eff did we get here so fast? I mean the wheels really came off the bus in a hurry. In less then two years the U.S. economy has become the laughing stock of the industrialized world. Europe is next and it looks like the downturn is starting to take hold in Great Britain already. But while the planet hunkers down for an economic winter, that other thought occurred to me….but before I get to that, here are more feel good headlines from yesterday;

• Bye-bye global economic boom
• Stocks dip despite rescue plan
• Yahoo nixes Microsoft offer
• Why the Fed has to ignore inflation
• Inflation risks haven’t gone away
• Bush to lift executive ban on offshore drilling
• SEC to crack down on rumors
• British mortgage lender to be sold
• Oil slides below $144 a barrel
• Paramount Drops Out of Plan To Raise $450 Million for Films

OK, on to the other thought. Somebody somewhere is making money in this mess and I don’t mean big oil. I mean some A-hole like me figured out a way to make a buck in a crappy market and while the rest of us hold on to every penny tighter than a frog’s ass, someone is capitalizing on an opening and will be a millionaire when this is all over. Well, good for them…bastards! Now on to a few more headlines;

• Sales Expected to Fall 20% in Semiconductor Equipment
• Midwest Air Cutting 40% of Workers
• Publisher of Los Angeles Times Resigns Amid Steep Cuts at Paper
• G.M. to Announce a Further Restructuring
• GM may cut thousands more jobs
• Genentech profit up, misses forecast
• Pfizer to lay off 275 at Michigan plant

My main focus for this post was really about the complete and utter free fall this economy took on the back of higher priced oil. On the day that President Bush announces the U.S. will resume drilling offshore, oil prices rise. There is a bubble about to burst somewhere, it just needs to burst soon. The United States supports a lot of countries through economic, humanitarian, and military efforts and I for one am looking to call in a few markers. If this was a political rant, I would go on for another two thousand words, but since it’s more of a long, drawn out question, let me ask you…how do we get out of here?