Are we panicking yet?

The Dow Industrials have surged well past 10,000 as I write this -- it's now at 9,786 and falling precipitously, already down 5.22% for the day. In exactly one year, it has fallen 4,492 points, or 31.5%. The story is essentially the same in markets around the world. And credit is freezing up everywhere. Where's the slide going to stop? More to the point, what will the landscape look like when it does?

Several conclusions seem obvious.

We're heading into a recession, quite possibly a deep and long one. Yet another legacy of the Bush years, another consequence of Ralph Nader, a few dozen hanging chads, a twisted Supreme Court decision, and popular indifference to the suborning of the republic. Elections do matter.

McCain's chances, and the Republicans' generally, look dismal. It's an ill wind that blows no good, one is tempted to say, except that it's hard to envy President Obama and the new Congress for the tasks awaiting them. The ability of the federal government to mitigate the effects of the looming recession, let alone prepare for the future and deal with such major problems as alternative energy development and global warming, are hamstrung by three decades of neocon domination of our government and especially by the current administration's mammoth deficits and ruinous Middle Eastern wars.

The fatal weakness inherent in the drive to privatize Social Security lies exposed for all to see. It's bad enough the retirees with 401(k) and similar "defined contribution" retirement plans are watching their income evaporate, but think what would be happening to them if Social Security was tied to the market. At least Bush was stymied on this.

Workers who have watched -- largely indifferently, and largely in ignorance -- as defined contribution plans have been substituted for the defined benefit plans their parents knew are now looking at their own old age with growing alarm and even fear. Workers whose employers eviscerated their traditional pension programs with the willing acquiescence of successive right-wing governments should be especially angry, although they have not as yet created the political tsunami that this connivance of capitalists and neocons should have produced. Score this as the next wave of voter anger, a grey wave which has to potential to reshape the shoreline of our political continents.

Hold on, folks, this ride is only going to get scarier.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 7 October 2008