The honer guard has fired three rounds into the air. Now
we stand silently while the eulogy is given.

On Sept. 7, the government seized mortgage titans
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Eight days later,
investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for
bankruptcy, sparking a global financial panic that
threatened to topple blue-chip financial
institutions around the world. In the several months
that followed, governments from Washington to
Beijing responded with unprecedented intervention
into financial markets and across their economies,
seeking to stop the wreckage and stem the damage.

One year later, the easy-money system that financed
the boom era from the 1980s until a year ago is
smashed. Once-ravenous U.S. consumers are saving
money and paying down debt. Banks are building
reserves and hoarding cash. And governments are
fashioning a new global financial order.

Congress and the Obama administration have lost
faith in self-regulated markets. Together, they're
writing the most sweeping new regulations over
finance since the Great Depression. And in this
ever-more-connected global economy, Washington is
working with its partners through the G-20 group of
nations to develop worldwide rules to govern
finance.

"Our objective is to design an economic framework
where we're going to have a more balanced pattern of
growth globally, less reliant on a buildup of
unsustainable borrowing . . . and not just here, but
around the world," said Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner.

The first faint signs that the U.S. economy may be
clawing its way back from the worst recession since
the Great Depression are only now starting to
appear, a year after the panic began. Similar
indications are sprouting in Europe, China and
Japan.

Still, economists concur that a quarter-century of
economic growth fueled by cheap credit is over. Many
analysts also think that an extended period of slow
job growth and suppressed wage growth will keep
consumers - and the businesses that sell to them -
in the dumps for years.

While the bugler plays taps, we slowly walk away all dressed
in black - because that is all any of us can afford these days.

The consumer economy is dead. Long live the consumer economy.

C

Now where are our Liberty loving, anti-government,  free market
republicans on this issue ?

Many public health departments prepare such
templates "in preparation for public health
emergencies," the agency said, but "isolation
and quarantine orders are only very rarely
used in very specific situations."

Questions regarding the quarantine template
should be directed to the Center for Acute
Epidemiology within the Iowa Department of
Public Health, 1-800-362-2736.

The template, which, as expected, contains
several fill-in-the-blank information areas,
is dated May 1, 2009 and reads as follows:

Flying under the radar thanks to our media, a number of states
have drafted such laws and quietly pushed them through.

One would think that the "Birthers" and "deathers" would be
screaming bloody murder about this.


C

At least that's what I get from this opinion piece from the WSJ that
Josh has pointed out.

They hate having to actually PAY to stay well and believe that you
should just die from cancer, heart disease, the gout or what ever
than to pay anyone to have it treated.

And they don't thing health insurance is a valid option at all.
I guess they figure that if you get sick it's your own damn
fault. Talk about callus.

Read it yourself and see if that's what their saying. Sounds about
right to me.

"Many can't go there; and many would rather
die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they
had better do it, and decrease the surplus
population.  Besides -- excuse me -- I don't
know that."


C