Good Friday Morning, All. The weather people have promised us less heat and less humidity but aren't sure exactly when (or in what combination) that will occur. But by next Friday the 90s are supposed to be back. The rain we got yesterday did not even moisten my gardens. I will have to water well today.

MSNBC ran this New York Times article this morning. It seems the rich are hurting like the rest of us during this Great Recession. The default rate on home mortgages of $1M and more is 1 in 7 as opposed to the 1 in 12 for those mortgages below that level. Another group busted on the breakdown of the old assumptions that salaries and home values would only go up, and jobs would always be there.

MSNBC also had this article that does a nice job of presenting our present predicament. I am always amazed when the economic reporters on CNBC present rosy predictions of consumer spending/retail sales just before the actual numbers come out only to scratch their heads in amazement when the numbers don't match much less exceed expectations. Evidently they all passed on Common Sense 101. When you have a consumer driven economy where jobs are disappearing, consumer spending will decline. That should be a no-brainer.

Charles Hughes Smith at oftwominds summarizes the last decade in our financial history quite nicely and with a nice tone of sarcasm. During the Great Depression we had financiers jumping out of high rise windows. During the Great Recession the financiers are secure while the rest of us are losing jobs, homes, hope. FDR was credited with saving American Capitalism from Fascism on the right and Socialism on the left. At this point, I wonder if American Capitalism is worth saving considering what it has morphed into but it looks like Obama is trying. And his biggest enemies are the capitalists as an earlier generation of capitalists were for FDR.