If zeitgeist - that atmosphere of a particular time - burned oxygen like all transient life here on the planet, it would be breathing hard today, fighting for air amid a cloud of poisonous bubbles puffing up to spread spiritual corrosion as they pop.

It seems we cannot, for example, cast off an economic template thoroughly dependant on rampant speculation. There was a more prudent time in Western history when financial bigwigs simply wouldn't front cash to run this kind of roulette-wheel configuration - markets, they knew, were too volatile and truly fragile for frenzied gaming that invaribly results when human greed meets enabling green. But even with last summer's "meltdown", the party rages on.

On average here in L.A., gas is over $3 a gallon. Prices have been shooting up for several weeks now, with no end in sight. Nobody bothers with the old explanations that it's "supply and demand at work" and "oh... those piggy li'l peasants are just driving too much". Naw. Everybody knows price boosts have nothing to do with oil supply, and certainly not with consumer demand; it's just that banks have shaken off their financial crap-out from last September enough to start lending money to speculators drenching each another in fevered spittle to shout orders for commodities. And the whole world watches another bubble puff.

And although humanity may not live by bread alone, it sure helps fill empty stomachs. At least, assuming we'll be able to afford that staple on down the line:

Some analysts and lawmakers also blame the surge in popularity of commodity index funds for artificially boosting the prices of oil, gasoline, corn and other commodities. The investigative panel of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee found in a report to be released Wednesday that aggressive speculation in the wheat futures market has disrupted normal price patterns and hurt the ability of farmers, grain processors and others to hedge against risk.

"Speculators have overwhelmed the wheat futures market and ... undermined (its) value," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the subcommittee's chairman, told reporters Tuesday. "Excessive speculation in commodity indexes has created losers throughout the wheat industry." [ Source - BUSINESS WEEK ]

Whole-wheat tuna melt today - dirt cookies tomorrow.

We've already seen how bubble-bursts can leave more than disappointment in the hearts of nursery-school ragamuffins and Lawrence Welk's Champagne Musicmakers. The long-inflating housing bubble precipitated last year's deep recession, and although many factors contributed to it, a lot of its devastation tracks to a mistaken assumption that even bad debt from unpayable mortgages could be "packaged" and traded as assets. In the end, prices of houses had nothing to do with the actual value of houses themselves; they rested on the figure faraway brokers put on their last trade.

That was a wallop. To the disposable bubble's ephemeral "value", TPMCafe contributor Dean Baker yesterday put the round, convenient figure of eight trillion - that's dollars, not light years or sand grains on Far Rockaway.

Rising gas and food prices didn't show up in the Fed's "core" inflation measurements, but they sure did wallop U.S. consumers this decade. It's one reason Americans never felt great about the expansion. The soaring price of oil also contributed to the housing bubble by transferring wealth from U.S. consumers to oil exporters such as the Gulf States and Russia, which in turn recycled those petrodollars into U.S. Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. By ignoring commodity prices, the Fed fueled the housing boom.

...All of this is relevant today because there is no evidence that Mr. Bernanke and his Fed colleagues have changed their thinking. They still ignore a falling dollar and rising commodity prices, even as oil has climbed to $70 a barrel from $40 six months ago. They also continue to be slaves to the output gap, which means they are unlikely even to begin to tighten as long as the jobless rate remains high. With that rate now at 9.4% and likely to rise, the monetary spigots will probably remain wide open for a long time to come. [Source - Dow Jones Newswires]

Why do I think none of this will end well? That the new White House plan to bring sense to the financial sector falls short of doing the job? That design teams brainstorming this furtive, palsied plan are over-represented by the same interests who fueled the calamity to begin with?

But some voices criticizing Treasury's fix-it have called for radical steps scary in their own right, some with clawed wraiths of Weimar-style destitution nesting on their shoulders:

That is not to say that there is no limit to how much money the Fed could or should create. Everyone agrees that if the Fed were to order the Government Printing Office to print up $100 trillion in new currency and distribute it to the public tomorrow, there would be massive hyperinflation. Raising that specter as a reason to criticize the Fed today, however, is like saying that the possibility of drowning means that one should never drink water, or swim, or bathe. That it is possible to create too much money does not mean that we should create none. [Source - FINDLAW]

I don't pretend to understand fully what's happening to our economy, or what to do about it, but, oddly, it does register that $100 trillion in funny money would create a... situation... at least... similar to hyperinflation.

Our economic viability has a lot to do with how we see ourselves. Our vision of self-worth is wrapped up in how well we can provide for ourselves and our children. Let's clear the air about this right now: Progressives should realize, if this recession skids deeper, that no one is going to appreciate brainless jabber about who in our population deserves to lose their "privileges". In fact - that kind of dimwitted crap easily could blow up in chatterers' faces. Swiftfully. Painfully. And if this edges close to Germany, circa 1922, and we start heading over the river and through the woods to eat grandma - not her generous meal - no one will be in any mood to hear whining in the aftermath. In suggesting fix-its to crises like this, the Left has proven itself reliably stupid in the past, managing to cough up third-hand indoctrination and nursery-rhyme homilies from the Socialist Songbook as workable answers. Please...

And while I'm giving out free advice, it would be better for the Right if it knocks off the hypocritical bullshit about patriotism and constantly giving the rest of us lessons in morality based on silly fairy tales - better, that is, for its own prospects to continue finding vitamin-enriched nutrients, bedding for the night in warm shelter, grooming hair and making poop. You have the moral dominion of dung beetles, and before you go off all pissy and half-cocked over that comparison, remember such insects are industrious and imaginative, especially in constructing their burrows. ...They just don't give much of a damn where their next meal comes from, or through how much sticky shit they must crawl to make that happen. Just like you.

OK. That was pointless. I know. That "ends justifies the means" is universal in politics, and the misery of this recession will be used for leverage, just as it always has been. It there's a coefficient there, those advantages could be hefty, since the misery continues to grow.

It could all turn around tomorrow. And we could launch Guernseys over the moon.