I am amazed at my age to see the crap that kids buy. There arethese game boxes that cost hundreds of dollars and all kinds of ipodsand cellphones. What is going to go first in a recession? My generationis looking retirement in the eye, a threatened social security systemand many of us have teenage kids. The good news is we all have companyand once Jimmy and Janet realize that their friends are losing theiripods and Xboxes as well, it won't matter that they don't have one. Newfuel to the California fire, as this is where the profits from thiscrap flow. I venture you can make the entire group of kid electronicsfor $25 to $50 and it sells for $1000.

What is this going todo to the price of cellphones and cell phone service once thesaturation point is met and subscribers have to drop off? Metro PCS ishere in DFW and I think you can get all the service you want for$39.99. I bet it can be had $20 bucks if they get desperate, plus LD.Kids would rather send text messages than talk, one of the mostassinine activities I have ever witnessed, so they might be rewardedwith 100 minutes and unlimited text for $15. Would you rather talk orhave a warm place to sleep and eat?

Where are the best payingjobs? Financial is where. As much as I don't like how much doctors andlawyers charge, what they make at GS is criminal. You can pay an entirestaff of doctors, nurses and staff in a large hospital for what some ofthese guys make. Buy the equipment and drugs to boot. These guys notonly are on Wall Street, but live in your community. Their gravy trainis leaving and the gravy that gets spilled around the community isgoing with it. The free credit these guys get paid in is also going,because that is where their income comes from. They take a slice of thenew credit. It is time they took a slice of the losses.

Ithink I part company with a lot of people on this board on how I thinkthis thing is going to play out. I think consumption collapses with thecredit markets. The governments have never figured out how to fix thecredit markets. FDR thought he fixed them, but the depression neverreally ended under FDR. It appears that Japan's gets fixed from time totime, but it clearly isn't. The Chinese don't know diddly about banksand are about to find out the hard way, as their mess deflates withfalling US and European demand. The excessive dollars are about tobecome the scarce ones, as people scramble to survive and service theday to day expenses of living.

What is the problem here? Thereare a couple of problems. One is that the bankers and their croniesdon't want to give up their illgotten profits and powers and neither dothe politicians. Bad banks need to be closed early and all equity wipedout. Quite likely the depositors need to be given the keys and figureout how much of their money they have left and banks and depositorswon't do this again for a long time.