Don't Get Too Comfortable

Is it just me, or is there a creeping feeling of...creepiness in the air?

The New York Times has been running lots of articles and editorials about "robo-signers" on sub-prime loans. Gold is up a thousand dollars since the last time I paid attention to it. People are even talking about silver, not remembering the recent unpleasantness with the Hunt brothers.

There are always people who can make a quick buck off the fears of people and after what we've gone through in the past two or three years, I don't know anyone who doesn't look in the rear-view mirror from time to time.

I've had a lot of revelations while semi-conscious on the couch, back in the day when I had cable. One night I heard a man with a thick southern accent pounding away about something I can't remember now and I thought, that man is a danger. He's too much like an oily Baptist preacher. I turned to face the TV, put on my glasses, and saw Bill Clinton.

Another time, I saw the fat Di-Tech guy ranting on about low rate mortgages that anyone could get and I thought, uh-oh. This is not a good idea. Later when I was desperate to get my name off Xman's mortgage, I talked to a woman whose son was a mortgage broker. She said something along the lines of, yeah, Xman doesn't even have to prove he has income, which was a good thing because at the time, he didn't. She asked me if I was interested and I backed away, saying, "No, nooo, no thank you."

I know there are people who successfully play the odds with these things, but my risk tolerance is extremely low.

When the financial mavens tried to sound the all-clear last month, I didn't buy it. I started to see articles about "the new normal" and heard estimates about how long it would take for the economy to get back into any semblance of what it had been. The rah-rah voices have gone suddenly quiet.

For awhile, the financial folks started talking about their fears of a double-dip recession, but I'm starting to feel uneasy that the second dip is going to be much worse than this one has been.

I had shelved my plans for getting a roomie, but I think I'm going to have to dust them off again.

I don't like the way this feels. At all.