This popular mantra of the age of conspicuous consumption must truly be the hardest habit to shake in the breaking of America’s particular “U. S. of A-ness”. It got us into this mess and it’s going to keep us there.

Obama and his look-the-other-way Dream Team are doing literally nothing about ratings fraud, the inherant risk of derivatives, the leveraging and the absolutely useless “do-nothing-about-it” regulatory response from 40 years of successive administrations. If I could figure things out this easily, where were our brilliant minds in government and finance back then?

Doing what felt good!

Here’s what doesn’t feel so good right now:

The rate of collapse of U.S. physical goods trade with the world exceeds what took place during the Hoover Depression. During July 2008, the level of U.S. physical goods imports— capital goods, consumer goods, etc.—was $193.3 billion. By April 2009, the level had fallen to $119.7 billion, a fall of 38.1%. Putting that rate on a yearly basis, U.S. physical goods imports are collapsing by 50.8%. The level of U.S. physical goods exports stood at $117.2 billion during July 2008; by April 2009, that level had fallen by 31.8%. At that rate, U.S. physical goods exports are collapsing by 42.3%, per annum.

Over the 4 years of the Herbert Hoover Depression, 1929 through March 1933, U.S. physical goods trade plunged altogether by about 80%; but imports never collapsed by 50%, nor exports by 42%, during a one-year period at any time during the first Great Depression.

The level of officially unemployed workers plus workers forced to work part-time stood at 11.3 million at the beginning of 2008; that level has risen to 24 million by May 2009, more than doubling in 17 months. Though the level of unemployment under Hoover eventually reached 24.9%, that occurred over a span of 3.5 years. The growth in the rate of unemployment today, equals that under Hoover.

But don’t take my word for it. As Barry Ritholtz, Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and scores of Nobel prize winning economists have said over and over, it’s simply unfathomable that no one in Government is doing anything much about this worldwide collapse of physical economies.

It just doesn’t feel good to think about sinking the derivatives Titanic of wealth without basis.

It feels better just to cruise along in the Never-Never Land of the bouncing DOW and Greenspan’s self-regulating world of casino capitalism.

So let’s all regroup and focus our thoughts on the musical contributions of a deranged transvestite-pedophile who committed chemical suicide last week and heralded a weekend of media exposure that the assasssination of an American Hero like John F. Kennedy pales in comparison to.

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