We are living on the brink of the apocalypse, but the world is asleep.
I’m one of the most pessimistic people I know. Yet it’s this same unique trait I exploit while designing High Availability architectures. I expect things to fail, and plan for the worst almost constantly. I’ve based my career on it. Granted, worst case scenarios rarely come to pass, but my motto is and always will be to “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
I kinda have a thing for Matt Tiabbi. I never would have expected a Rolling Stone columnist to constantly harangue and brutally deconstruct the players of the economic fiasco. Without remorse, restraint, or mercy, he absolutely eviscerates everything from Goldman Sachs and AIG to the current administration and everything in-between. It really is a thing of beauty, and one of the best reasons investigative journalism had better survive the media reorganization caused by the internet.
Well, there we have it. Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States. For the most part, everyone I know views this as a preferable outcome. One, for whatever reason, perceives Obama as a “dangerous charlatan.” Now, I’m not going to appeal to authority here, but the man is a former professor of constitutional law, wrote two books clearly outlining his core beliefs, and only recently paid off his student loans. Regardless of the hilarious and often wildly inaccurate labels applied to Obama on a fairly regular basis, he seems genuinely devoted to, at the very least, pull us out of the gaping void Bush has been–and until next year, will continue–digging to hide the battered body of America.
I think it’s time I reveal my little secret to where I’ve been acquiring financial news and commodity trends. While none of these can be considered a penultimate resource, their combined effervescence should explain at least a fragment of my pessimism concerning our economy.