It’s the last day I’ll be spending at the office this year. Always a funny feeling. Another year is gone. A new calendar must be cracked open. I feel like I should clean up, but there’s really nothing to get rid of. One day I guess I’ll leave this place for real, and perhaps it will feel a little bit like this, only moreso. This time around, I’m luckier than some. I get to come back and see how things work out for another cycle.

I won’t say a lot about 2008. I suppose there were many good things about it, although it’s hard to remember them now, what with all the Spitzers and Blagojeviches and Madoffs and Greenspans and Paulsons and Bernankes and assorted Wall Street miscreants, the bailouts and the purges and the blown hedges and wilted WaMus and all that. The list of losers grows so long that it’s hard to remember who we were mad at last month, last week, yesterday.

You kind of want to hope that 2009 will be different, and maybe it will be. We’ll have a new president. The markets will have to return to some kind of normalcy after a long period of disease. Like, creditors will have to start giving people credit again at some point, right? The debt folks will have to do what they do for a living, more responsibly, we hope. Car makers will have to figure out a way to sell some cars, which probably means somebody will start advertising again. Life will find a way.

The general feeling I get is that we’re all pretty glad to get out of 2008 with at least a portion of our skins on. Nobody I know is sad to see the old year go. That twinkle in the common eye might not be tears of sadness or rage. It might be a glimmer of hope.

Thanks to all of you who come here to browse, get excited, feel outrage or occasional amusement. I love to read what you write. I am very happy to publish the lot of you, as long as you keep it relatively clean and marginally on-point. One thing I do know about the year to come. I look forward to hanging with all of you as we chew over – and occasionally spit out – the events of this world as they unfold.

Now I guess I’ll just lock up and get out of here. I’ll see you when I see you, guys.

Christmas, they say, comes but once a year and while this is good news for our wallets, it’s probably a bit of a bummer for the snail-mail guys. For it’s during this season that all kinds of business people haul out their paper envelopes, cards and stamps and set the air a-humming with jolly wishes. There seem to be fewer such this year, which is either a sign of the market conditions in which we live, where every little financial outlay, even postage, must be scrutinzed, or evidence that I’m less popular than I used to be. 

Most evident in their absence are the lengthy, one-size-fits-all newsletters that people used to send, updating friends, family and assorted associates about the interesting doings of their clan. “Betsy has left the coven and is now celebrating her “solstice” with us, and little Harry recently was awarded the lead in his middle-school production of Annie!” Perhaps folks are using e-mail for that kind of thing now.

Still, there’s a cornucopia of good stuff to enjoy.

There are the cards from colleagues that are, as always, very much appreciated. In vogue this year are pictures of kids, puppies and kitties. A fair number of holiday salutations share portraits of the offspring and assorted family mammals with absolutely no evidence of adult life at all. In this economy, the message seems to be: “You may not be interested in me personally at all, but here are my dependents. Aren’t they cute? Some go to private schools or are headed for an expensive college education. The point is, I’m a human being that has a real existence outside of my professional function. Please don’t fire me.” Or maybe that’s just my imagination.

Second on the stack are the lovely missives from people who either a) do not sign their cards but leave the printed message as sufficient to contain their best wishes or b) sign it quite illegibly and bear no informative return address. These I keep in a very special place in my credenza, for re-use next year.

There are, of course, the law, consulting or insurance firms who do a mass holiday mailing, with each member of the organization scrawling their weeny name in a corner of an acceptably deracinated card that conveys all non-denominational jollies of the season. One just came from the out-of-house counsel we just fired. Here’s another from the management consulting firm that engineered a bunch of our industry’s recent layoffs! So toasty.

I particularly enjoyed the tiny calendar in its faux-leather holder sent to me by my broker. The fact that we’re still talking to each other means my 2008 was not as bad as some others.

But the one that most expressed the merry vibrations of this particular holiday season came from the air conditioning guy who installed the AC machines in my apartment not long ago. I’m going to call him Sidney Roth, although that is not his name. On one sheet of very simple letterhead almost Dickensian in its stark functionality, the following holiday message in 16-point Times Roman is sent to all his clients:

To: All Non-Contract Service Accounts

Effective January 1, 2009, all services will be terminated.

Our new policy for services will be “Payment upon completion of service” (COD).

Our field technicians will receive the applicable service charges while at your residence once your call is completed.

A formal invoice indicating your payment will be mailed the work day following the service visit.

As always, we appreciate your patronage.

Sidney Roth Company Services Dept.

I imagine that last bit – the part about how they appreciate our patronage? - was added by some thoughtful assistant to provide a softer touch. It doesn’t seem all that sincere in the context. What I get from the mailing is a very clear image of a working man, sitting behind his scarred and battered desk, looking at a bunch of invoices that are 91 days past due. All his clients owe him a ton of money. And nobody is paying, not at least until they see how things look come January 1. “The hell with this,” he says to himself. “No more free lunch.”

Of all the holiday communications I’ve received this year, this one feels the most appropriate. Holiday schmoliday. Gotta get paid, right?

I read today that another bunch of analysts have emerged to tell us there’s going to be a disappointing end to a slack holiday shopping season. I’m sure we all continue to appreciate the job our analysts do in a variety of sectors and wish quite heartily that they would go away. 

I can report, however, that there is no post-Christmas slump in at least one location. 

We were in downtown San Rafael, Calif., this morning, sometime before 9 a.m., when we noticed a long line snaking down the block outside the Goodwill store. My stepson had volunteered to do some work there. The line looked like one of those that used to appear outside soup kitchens back in the days of the last Great Depression, and we naturally assumed that these were men and women waiting patiently in the northern California cold for the first handout of the day. The boy was there to help in that effort. 

We dropped him off and were headed home when the cell phone rang. It had only been five minutes. “You know all those old guys waiting outside?” Kyle said. “They’re shopping.” Shopping? “Yeah,” he said. “I went inside and asked who was responsible for volunteers, but nobody seemed to know. Everybody is just in there. Shopping.”

We circled back and picked him up. He was right. The place was a madhouse, filled with people looking for bargains at Goodwill. Some were down and out. Others were just poor folk. Still others drove up in very nice cars. 

So I guess we have a clue where there is still some action in our economy. Maybe we should send a couple of those analysts down there to have a look.

I’ve read a lot about the whole Bernie Madoff thing now, and questions still remain. I’ll leave most of them to the forensic accountants and the gumshoes now on the trail of who knew what, when. I do have one very simple one I’d like to offer anybody within the sound of my voice. 

Where’s the money? 

I know this seems like a rudimentary issue, and one I’m sure a lot of people are investigating right now. But I’ve attended a number of meetings, parties and private conversations over the last week or so that Madoff has been front page news, and I have yet to get a clear answer. 

Where’s the money? If the location has been revealed anywhere in video, print or online, I’ve missed it. 

Is it possible that he and his family spent it? I don’t think so. Even the greediest jerk in the world would have a hard time unloading $50 billion on sundries like houses, cars, boats, planes, even. If you spent like a manic chicken for decades, it’s hard to see how you would put out more than, say, $5 billion. I’ve made a list of things I would get if I had Madoff’s war chest and I’m afraid I can’t even get to that single digit number. 

Did he give it to charity? No, he seems to have preyed on charities as well as on the gullible wealthy. Yeshiva even gave him an honorary degree while he allegedly was fleecing them. 

Did he share it with cohorts? Perhaps. Maybe there’s something to that. Maybe we’ll find out that some of those who were ostensibly gulled were in fact themselves intermediaries who profited from the credulous losers who helped to erect this particular pyramid out of golden bricks and platinum straw. Still, $50 billion? That’s a lot of vigorish to spread around without leaving some footprint in the dust. 

So… where’s the money? 

Do any of you know? I’m really asking. Perhaps if it’s just lying around somewhere, we could go and pick up some of it. And if the guy still has any, don’t you think it would be appropriate to get it back? A whole bunch of people are missing it pretty badly, particularly at this festive time of year.

Looking over the list of poor saps who were hoovered into the Madoff money vacuum, it occurred to me that we might have found an excellent beneficiary of at least some of Mr. Paulson’s remaining bailout bonanza.

Why not make the straggling losers in the ponzi parade sign a statement attesting to their credulity, greed and overall foolishness, issue them each a nice, pointy dunce cap - and then help them out with a piece of what they’ve lost? Sure, we can take off a significant percentage of their ill-taken losses as punishment for their sins. Then let’s help them.

I spoke to my broker yesterday. She’s in Southern Florida. It seems that a lot of the old people there who are living out their lives on their investments, assembled after a lifetime of work, are now selling their modest, two-bedroom condos and pawning their jewelry. They’re broke. Imagine that. Eighty years old and without a dime to your name, all because you had to get in on the latest sure thing from the guy everybody trusted. It’s not right.

Likewise, a bunch of very credible charities are sucking the hose, funds that helped indigent widows and holocaust survivors and people suffering from illness so dire that they will be gone long before Madoff will have to spend one night where he belongs. And why is the guy still walking around on Park Avenue, anyway? Don’t they have jails for such people? 

Anyhow, even after Mr. Bush dribbles a little rain on the parched Big Three, there’s still going to be hundred and hundreds of billions just sitting around collecting minimal interest. You’ve got a whole bunch of victims out there who are guilty of nothing more than believing in the risk/reward game. Didn’t we all?

Please, Mr. Paulson! Have a heart!  It’s Christmas!

Word comes today that the SEC was informed about Bernie Madoff’s miscreancies several years ago, but engineered a neat solution to let him off the hook. I hate to say I told you so. But I told you so.

Look at our economy as a gigantic brain, and the regulatory part that governs all the others has mouldered since, like, 1980, hanging like a withered appendix off the powerful other portions of the organ instead of doing its job. And so people like Bernie Madoff were allegedly allowed to grow and fester.

If the charges against Mr. Madoff are true – and we hasten to add that in our system everybody is innocent until proven guilty! (or gets off using a variety of other strategies) – he was one of the greatest confidence men in history. Confidence men bilk money from other folks by establishing just that: confidence. Mr. Madoff was the head of NASDAQ. He was a man above reproach. He looked peerless in a suit. There was every reason to have confidence in him.

But confidence can’t be established if its seeds fall on infertile ground. The garden in which it grows, located deep within each of its victims, must be tender and soft, turned gently over by the need to believe. It must be watered by greed and warmed by the sun of jealousy and competitiveness. And as we now see, the entire garden itself must be left to sprout whatever it will, untended.

Bernie Madoff told people that he would guarantee their money. Now we look at the poor losers on which he feasted – the charities, the elderly shuffleboarders in Miami, the guys with McMansions in Greenwich whose future now perches on the head of a pin, and we marvel. How could they have been so credulous? Didn’t they know that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is?

Look in the mirror. None of us are any better. Some of us are just luckier. Each of us believed in whatever portion of the system in which we had confidence, and are now being punished to one extent or another.

The only ones who are making out all right are the shorts who never trusted in anything in the first place. It’s a pretty grim world where those are the guys who turned out to be the winners.

I was at a party the other night — yes, Virginia, there are still Christmas parties – and I asked my friend Steve what he might be getting his friends and loved ones this festive  season.

“Well,” he said, “I was thinking about getting them stock in some really great companies. You can get some incredible deals right now.”

I thought this was pretty brilliant. I asked him how he came to this idea, which would help some beleaguered companies while at the same time make innocents who still believed in the market and other children very happy.  

“I was at the St. Regis hotel just last night and I bought a pack of cigarettes,” he said. “It occurred to me that I could get, like, four shares of Ford (F) for the same price. The only problem is that I can’t figure out how to get actual stock certificates. You’d want that if you were giving out the stock as a present.”

He has a point. It is tough to get actual paper now if you buy a stock, unless you use a service like oneshare.com, and they charge a hefty transfer fee. Why not revisit the no-certificate thing? It’s possible that some companies should revisit that policy. You could offer actual paper shares in a variety of corporations for less than what it sets you back to buy a magazine or two at the local candy store or airport news stand. It wouldn’t be hard to sell them at such locations, as well as at Wal-Mart, Target and other big box establishments.

Don’t you get kind of misty just thinking about it? Little Bobby and Jenny wake up on Christmas morning. Santa has been there! The cookie plate left for the jolly, fat fellow is empty, the glass of milk drained. And look! There under the tree are the gifts – a new GI Joe doll for Bobby, a motorized monster truck for Jenny. But what they’re really excited about are what’s in their stockings — candy and little plastic toys and yes! Shares of General Motors (GM) and Citibank (C) and even Yahoo (YHOO)! Oh tidings of comfort and future value! And so ridiculously reasonable, too!

Let’s make this a merry and happy holiday season for all the needy around the world, including the fine companies whose stocks are stupidly undervalued by the moronic times in which we live.

And you out there presiding over such enterprises: Think about whether there might be a new growth model here. For once you’d be selling something worth more than what you charge for it, and creating a whole new bunch of folks who hold a little stake in your future. That’s a gift that keeps on giving.

There’s an interesting psychological analysis of Rod Blagojevich in today’s NY Times. In it lies a case study of which we should all be aware, with implications for each and every person who still has the privilege of going to a job each day and working for a person who, for better or worse, they call their boss.

For a long time, we have known certain things about the people we work for:

• As all people are, they are bent and warped in certain ways unique to their characters, with each individual sporting warts, zits and lumps all his own;
• Common personality traits of bosses include narcissism, anger, inability to concentrate on details, failures in compassion and empathy, grandiosity and, in later stages, delusion, addiction and career death;
• In good times, these characteristics are often modified by the overall positive mood of the operating environment;
• In bad times, the warts grow hairs and sprout like tumors from the head of the beast.

These are not good times. Hence the usefulness of any investigation into the kind of decomposition we might come to expect from those we serve.

Some aspects of Blagojevich’s character, according to the Times:

• A person he worked with told him his stepfather had just suffered a stroke. Blagojevich expressed momentary regret, then went on to ask whether the man’s family could contribute money to the campaign. Lack of empathy.
• He was obsessed with his own personal brush from Paul Mitchell, which he referred to as “the football,” a reference to the bomb codes always within reach of the president in case of nuclear attack. This might have been funny at one point. Even narcissists make fun of themselves when they’re feeling particularly flush.
• Even as his world started unraveling in the last few weeks, Rod can still be heard on tapes speaking about his ambition to run for president, perhaps in 2016. Who knows? With that kind of grandiosity he just might make it.
• He also reportedly had a lot of trouble showing up, being on time, dealing with the actual details of business, while demanding perfection from others. I read that as depression and anxiety, which I know a little something about from, you know, personal experience.

So… how do things look around you? The economy is throwing off blue smoke and headed for the side of the mountain. Heads aren’t just rolling, they’re flying through the air like cannon balls. People are talking about more of the same until 2010.

Every day another former captain of industry explodes into criminal malfeasance, in what seems to me like the most massive collapse of leadership in all aspects of public life since… what… Grant?

How’s your boss bearing up? Look for the signs. And be prepared, fellow Scouts. Keep those matches dry, and your own personal compass in good working order. It’s a long way out of these woods.

Do you guys know what a piddling amount $14 billion is to the Federal Government? We just allocated 50 times that amount to the financial business. But not a penny will Republican Senators allow to the crumbling American automotive business.

Yeah, I know what 47% of you will say. It’s the fault of the UAW, those greedy, stubborn auto workers who won’t give up their big fat paychecks right away in order to secure the deal. Bad, bad auto workers!

Sure. I know each and every one of you would give up a chunk of your salary and benefits without a full and aggressive negotiation beforehand, just because a bunch of suits were holding your company hostage.

Guess what. You wouldn’t. I will bet you right now that each and every auto worker is at this moment willing to talk about a rational deal achieved after a good hard look at what needs to be done. But the Senate holding a gun to their heads as it earns its pinstripes playing to the angry anti-bailout voters back home? That’s the price for that meager little pile of  cash?

America complains that, when bold, decisive action is needed to guide the nation, Washington moves too slowly on what needs to be done to stave off disaster. We saw it in the reaction to Katrina, certainly, or the floods in Ohio in 2006, although strangely not in Orange County, California, when it had its acts of God. Well, Washington is a stupid beast. Its temporary residents do what they think will keep them in power. They don’t want to lose their paychecks, either, I suppose.

So the little bit of grease that just might get our economy out of this year with one eye, one leg and a makeshift crutch to limp away on has just been squelched.

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. January 20th can’t come too soon for me.

Well, let’s see. We’ve killed Quality. Excellence is gone forever. And with the advent of a new show on cable, Leverage is soon to jump the shark. But idiotic euphemistic terminology is never lacking in the world we live in and there’s always a new candidate to occupy the august slot reserved for the Most Overused Word of the time we live in.

Today’s term of which I am now utterly and thoroughly sick? May we have a drum roll, please?

The word is: Monetize.

The term has finally exploded into total foolishness thanks to the soon-to-be-former Governor of the Land of Lincoln, Rod Blagojevich. This is a quote from the prosecutor’s press release, issued upon the arrest of the most (allegedly) flamboyantly egregious governor since Eliot Spitzer:

On November 10, in a lengthy telephone call with numerous advisors… Blagojevich and others discussed various ways Blagojevich could “monetize” the relationships he has made as governor to make money after leaving that office.

You will note that the term “monetize” has sanitized the process that used to be called “making money,” “profiteering,” or several other more direct verbs.

In this way, a guy selling hot watches on the street can now “monetize” his position in timepieces, as opposed to “fencing” them.

I just went to one of those conferences sponsored by an investment company. The room was filled with analysts and the stage groaned with the weight of the moguldom thereon. And everybody was monetizing things all over the place, monetizing this, monetizing that, monetizing everything all day long.

Enough. Stop the monetization now. Let’s just all start making money again.

Many smart people are busy deriding it. There are a host of philosophical, political and economic idealogues, each with a dozen excellent reasons, postulates and theories, backed up by cogent analysis of the first order, riding into battle against it. But it’s going to pass. And I’m glad.

I don’t care if the Detroit business model is wrong right now. I don’t care if their leadership is the biggest bunch of bozos who ever drew breath. The fact is, everybody looks kind of stupid right now, don’t they? In fact, the whole game has changed for just about everybody, no matter what part of the supply chain you’re in. A guy can’t even sell a Senate seat in peace and quiet anymore. And you can’t allow an entire industry to go down because its leadership is lousy, can you? Think where your industry would be if that standard was applied.

So if we’re really gonna bail out the big three in spite of all the good reasons not to, I’m glad, for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with all the good reasons not to.

First of all, people work there. A lot of people. Yeah, they belong to Unions, which are part of the problem and should be punished! Them and their damn high salaries. So tempting to see them whacked around a little, huh? Those super-rich blue collar workers with their high-paying Union jobs. Let’s get ‘em! And their families. And their communities. And the stores they shop at. And the schools that their property taxes help to keep going.

Well, I guess if there’s a bailout of some kind, the Unions are going to have to eat some of the salary and benefits they’ve won from Management over the years. They’ll have to, to make the system level again, probably. In the meantime? Bail them out, I say. Each and every one of them. Let’s make sure they don’t lose their homes and feed the vortex of disaster. I don’t care if we’re investing in a broken down model or helping people who make more money than you think they should. I like the idea of several hundred thousand people staying on the job, paying their mortgages, buying flat-screen TVs, shoes and hamburger.

I also like the idea of the Big Three, back in some kind of business now, really having to sell a whole bunch of those ill-considered and very comfortable gas-guzzlers that are so reprehensible and dumb to have built but still, smell very nice when they’re new. Because in order to sell them, they’re going to have to advertise on all the media that are right now sucking the hose and missing the massive chunk of revenue automotive advertising represents. I like to think of all those ads keeping Madison Avenue up nights working, instead of laying people off, and all the television, cable, radio, Internet and other media people running to fill the orders, earning enough bread to purchase one of the idiotic vehicles we really shouldn’t be making.

I like the idea of money being spent on companies that make something other than money, that produce a product other than a financial instrument, and maybe even putting a halt, even temporarily,  to the incredible, screaming descent in which we are now engaged.

Finally, I don’t believe anybody’s analysis about anything, frankly.  A couple of weeks ago, people were ridiculing the idea of simply printing more money to stablize the economy. Stupid! Boneheads! Simplistic boobies! Yesterday I read a Nobel Prize winning economist who suggested we do precisely that, and cited several excellent sources for his view. He may be right. He may be wrong. Who knows? I do know one thing. I know that nobody knows.

In short, there’s no opinion out there right now that’s worth more than any other. If ignorance was bliss we’d all be tap dancing down Wall Street.

So until we figure out what’s really going on? Let’s try to use the money we have to help the greatest number of people. And let’s start from the bottom, for a change.

Today FORTUNE senior editor at large Geoff Colvin looks at four potential repositories for blame in our ongoing saga of doom. They’re a credible group of whipping boys, from Alan Greenspan to Bill Clinton to the collapse of regulation that was supposed to protect us.

While opting for a subtle, nuanced melange of factors, Colvin believes that, in the end, blame will center on the failure of government to keep an eye on those were supposed to do it for themselves – our financial institutions and their ostensibly capable viziers, wizards and mendicants.

Colvin thinks this is unfortunate: “If this version wins out,” he says, “watch for heavy new regulation of risk markets and financial institutions – leading to reduced innovation, profitability, and market values in the sector.”

While I have nothing but respect and affection for Mr. Colvin, who has probably forgotten more than I ever knew about economics, I do have to say I’m disappointed with this analysis. In fact, it qualifies, I think, as the first salvo of note in what will most certainly be the battle to maintain Big Finance’s right to screw with everybody else’s money as soon as things get back on their feet again.

File it under “Sowing the seeds for our own destruction, Part VI, A New Beginning,” scheduled to open at a financial theater near you in the Spring of 2012. It forms the basis of a rationale for getting the party started again just as soon as we’re able, in the name of creativity and, of course, profitability.

Here’s what I think: Every piece of the machine does its job, performing its function as one would expect. That’s something we can count on. So:

• Big financial institutions operate in such a way as to garner the greatest amount of short-term profit for their managers, first and foremost, and then for those they purportedly represent;
• Individual investors want to make the greatest amount of money possible;
• Everybody will behave in such a way to pursue their own self-interest where money is concerned;  a “free market” is therefore designed to nurture and encourage a free expression of institutional and personal greed, which is neither right nor wrong, just what is;
• The level of risk people are willing to accept for others is a lot higher than what they will tolerate for themselves – in other words, if they get a fiduciary hangnail it’s tragedy, if other people fall down the stairs and break their financial necks, it’s a free market;
• Government, in all its many forms, exists to represent the needs of the larger society over and above the needs of any one sector of that society; and to stand in for those who do not normally have the power to pursue their own interests in this supposedly free market, which is not really free, because…
• A free market is not free but in fact favors the strong and wealthy;
• It is therefore Government’s job to manage the larger picture so that any one group does not run amok and pursue its own interest to the detriment of the larger society in which we all live.

When any major segment of the structure fails to do its job, then, things simply don’t work as well and, after a while, don’t work at all. In our case, in my humble opinion, the biggest, fattest and greediest of the moving parts of the machine was allowed to spin too hard and too fast for far too long. Now it’s flipped off its trestle. We the people need to get it back into the right groove, and then retool the mechanism so that it won’t happen again for another 100 years or so.

For a much more articulate and credible take on this matter, I refer you to what Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman has to say in the current New York Review of Books. It’s not a long article; even somebody with my attention span was able to get through it without looking at my BlackBerry even once.

“What we’re going to have to do, clearly, is relearn the lessons our grandfathers were taught by the Great Depression,” Krugman writes, continuing:

“I won’t try to lay out the details of a new regulatory regime, but the basic principle should be clear: anything that has to be rescued during a financial crisis, because it plays an essential role in the financial mechanism, should be regulated when there isn’t a crisis so that it doesn’t take excessive risks. Since the 1930s, commercial banks have been required to have adequate capital, hold reserves of liquid assets that can be quickly converted into cash, and limit the types of investments they make, all in return for federal guarantees when things go wrong. Now that we’ve seen a wide range of non-bank institutions create what amounts to a banking crisis, comparable regulation has to be extended to a much larger part of the system.”

I know a lot of you are going to start weeping and gnashing of teeth about this stuff, but hey, look at it this way: even really big capitalists are occasionally amenable to a little friendly socialism now and then when, you know, it’s absolutely positively necessary to protect EBITDA.

I had a dream last night. More of a nightmare, actually. I woke up trembling and very cold, even though the room itself was quite warm. I thought perhaps if I told you about it, the sense of unease I still carry with me without dissipate somewhat. 

I was in a strange room, having slept there because I could not find my way home. I thought maybe I had had too much to drink the night before and fallen asleep on an alien bed. When I awoke, it was bright day, and I was hyper-aware that time was a-wasting. I had a powerful sense that I needed to get in touch with the office or something terrible would happen. 

This is no surprise, I think. Something terrible is happening pretty much every day now, and not in dreamland, either. 

I got dressed and went looking for my BlackBerry and cell phone. They were both dead. I realized I was in an unfamiliar place and there might be a huge issue finding chargers for my electronic devices. I saw on a table in the living room of the place a jumble of chargers. I started looking through them. Each held promise, but when I got to the service end of it that was meant to interface with my phone or BlackBerry, it was the wrong type. I tried one. Then I tried another. None of the chargers fit. Somewhere in there somebody came to the door of the apartment. It was a guy from High School I haven’t seen in a long time and had no desire to see now, particularly in this desperate situation with the chargers and everything. He started to talk to me about insurance. I left him in the hall and continued looking. 

Finally I realized there was still a tiny bit of charge in my BlackBerry, because it was ringing. I answered it, even though I hate to use those things as a phone. They always remind me of Maxwell Smart talking to 99 with a shoe in his ear. 

“Hello?” I said into the dying BlackBerry. 

“You need help,” said a voice I didn’t recognize. “We’re all worried about you.” 

Then I woke up.  I wonder what it means. 

I’m glad I told you about it, even though I don’t feel much better. In fact, I now realize that my cell phone is downstairs and it’s getting kind of late. I wonder if I charged it last night. I fear I didn’t. See you later.

Are you aware that there was a time in American history when you could go to a restaurant, order a meal, and not receive a sprig of something inedible and obnoxiously green on your plate? Why don’t we start there. People who like parsley, mache or other sheep food can order it. Total cost savings to the nation: $157 million.

We could do away immediately, as far as I’m concerned, with the paper mats they put in your car after you wash it. Total cost savings: $320 million.

Then there are the little buds they give you in case the ones they provide for your bluetooth earpiece don’t fit your ear canal. Since those don’t fit any better than the original ones, I’d say we could away with them altogether. Total cost savings: $65 million.

We could certainly cut immediately any executive who still has a putter and mechanical hole/ball return machine in his or her office. Total cost savings: $56.7 billion.

We could also without question do away with management consultants who direct the firing of lots of people, then charge corporations the precise amount of costs they are saving the company through those reductions in force. Total cost savings $93.6 billion.

In addition, I think most of us would embrace the total elimination of solicitations for credit cards. Total cost savings: $1.6 trillion, not counting the cost of the energy required to rip them up, dispose of them, turn them into compost, etc.

Those of us who are over 50 would probably be supportive of an immediate cut in all mail from AARP concerning various forms of insurance. I thought AARP existed to support the interests of middle-aged and older Americans, not terrorize them with constant inundations of sales debris. Total cost: $156 million.

We could cut all communications to employees from corporate headquarters reassuring people that there will be no more cuts. This would have the added benefit of cutting stories about such reassurances, impending layoffs, cutbacks and other fearsome things by more than 86%. Total monetary savings: $472 million in time, paper and effect on productivity, along with possible reductions in reporting staff dedicated solely to that function.

I’m sure there are other cuts I’ve missed. How much of what we eat, do and say is discretionary and could be eliminated? If we’re all going to live through this derepressive stagflationary curve, we’re going to have to start thinking rigorously.

By the way, all numbers in this exercise were totally fabricated. I’m sure we’re all pretty comfortable with that situation by now, particularly those in the financial sector.

We cede our territory today to TJ Knowles of San Diego, whose comment on yesterday’s post carries the double benefit of being interesting and extremely cogent, and also obviating the need for me to write anything today. Since the weather is fine and I don’t feel much like looking at the financial news, or considering anything appropriately bleak, I want to thank TJ and turn over the conch to him for a little while. Here’s what he says:

On Monday I took my Toyota Matrix (best car I’ve ever had – except for my 1930 Model A) to a guy who is one of the most intelligent, practical and highly skilled men I have ever known. He works as a handyman, but his experience and expertise as a mechanic, expert welder, and all-around construction problem-solver are a constant amazement to me.

He completed some major brake work and electrical repair, gave me great advice and sent me on my way with an invoice that would have been triple at any Dealer service.

During our conversation, he said he was concerned about the economy and his workload.

It occurred to me – and I told him, that he was mistaken – that he was sitting in the catbird seat and would thrive in this dismal economy because he actually KNOWS HOW TO DO THINGS. And the things he knows how to do are a staple in today’s world.

In some ways, the cliff-diving our economy has been doing is a blessing – we are getting the big wake-up call to see that we have become a nation of consumers – not producers. We have invented 200 names for money, and none of them is worth a tinker’s dam now.

We are clever manipulators of information, which translates into zippo-nada-zero in a world in which Substance now rises from the ashes like the mythical Phoenix, devouring the pathetic, paper-pushing and ethernet-laced house of cards we have been referring to for years as an “unstoppable” economy.

It is still a real world. Tools, hard work, physical labor and a laborer’s pride will be the honorable watchwords of the day.

I watch Ken as he struggles with my car’s serpentine belt that fights him for control.

Ken will win.

Thanks, TJ. From your lips to God’s ears.

The National Bureau of Economic Research of Cambridge, Mass., which I personally have never heard of until yesterday, has declared that we are in a recession, thereby capturing the No, Duh trophy of the decade.

Even more impressively, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s research shows that we have, in fact, been in this recession since last December, which makes me a little more sanguine about not having heard of them ever. I mean, if the National Bureau of Economic Research couldn’t ascertain that we were in a recession until one year after it started, I’m wondering what they do all day. 

Better still, the NBER — that’s what its friends call it — also determined that this will be a really bad recession, very, very bad. Worst since World War II, and it will go on for a long, long time. They don’t know how long, but, you know, LONG. Like until next year, even. Or maybe longer, if it turns out that way. Right now I’m sure there are research scientists in long white coats working to make sure that the NBER informs us that the recession is over a year after it has ended. 

The news that the National Bureau of Economic Research had finally issued its Seal of Approval on our recession kicked off a number of observances around the nation. 

• Many folks flocked to gambling establishments to throw their money down the first available hole. 
• Others rushed to large retail establishments to make sure they got every last high definition TV that was on sale, sometimes achieving price reductions of more than 15% on those essential objects. 
• Wall Street mooed, bleated and went running for the door, which is the only mode of conduct of which it is capable at this juncture, other than jumping up and down and shrieking like a little girl. 
• Lots of people took time for lunch. 

Other than that, it was pretty much a day like any other. Except special, too. I wonder if one day we will all look back and remember where we were when we learned that we had all been in a recession for a year, and kinda get all choked up all over again. It feels like one of those great events, don’t it?

Look, I don’t want to be a pill and rain on the whole gloom thing we’re all experiencing. There’s no doubt it’s real. I look at the numbers the same as you do. Revenue is down. Unemployment is up. We’re circling the drain, definitely, I’m not arguing with anybody about that. It’s the worst black hole since all those black and white pictures were taking during the depths of the century just past. 

But it’s got to be one of the weirdest recession/depressions on record. I just spent the same weekend you did. Turkey. Ham. Leftovers. And, of course, shopping. So I’m wondering if you saw the same thing I did. As in: Crowds. Lines. People clawing at stuff on racks as if their lives depended on it. Hoards of greedy Americans shoving lunchtime carbs into their faces so they wouldn’t have to break stride in mid-spend. 

So I have to ask: What’s up? 

Started Friday, after a Thanksgiving filled with good cheer, grog and incessant radio and television spots screaming about unprecedented buying opportunities. I asked myself: Who are these numbskulls who get up at dawn to purchase a flat screen TV? Who would stand online at 3 a.m. to get a ticket so they can come back later and get a Wii for a couple bucks off? 

The new day dawned early. “Let’s go to Best Buy,” said my son over breakfast. “Really?” I said. 

We were there by 10. As we rolled into the parking lot, I said to him, “You know, this recession is hitting everybody right now. Even me.” Perhaps he was wearing those tiny earphones I got him for his birthday, because he didn’t answer. The lot was full. Like, totally. I had to park in the overflow area.

In the store, the scene was nuts. Huge crowds around the gaming systems, the HDTVs, the computers, the DVDs. Lines at the register. We went over to the area in which we had an interest: car audio. He has a new/old clunker whose main deficiency, it seems, is in the quality of its sound system. 

There was a massive megadeal posted on the wall. A fabulous complete set-up for just $600. The car itself is worth about that, maybe a buck or two less. “Do you have any super-mega-awesome-once-in-a-lifetime Black Friday deals?” I asked the clerk, who was younger than the car in question. He looked at the deal posted on the wall and ripped it down. “That deal ended a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “But we can work something out.” He did some figures on the back of an envelope. “We can do a mid-range system for… $875, plus tax. That includes installation.” 

I noted that the price seemed to be a simple total of the hardware necessary, plus about $300 for installation. “What happened to the meta-mooga-humongous deals for Black Friday?” I asked. “They’re not store-wide,” he said. We left, fighting our way through the mob of frenzied consumers toward fresh air and light. 

So obviously, there was no panic about the recession at Best Buy. True, there were absolutely NO people in their installation area, so maybe they’ll be sorry later they didn’t moderate their prices a bit on the car stereo question. Maybe they’re getting the overflow from other places that have gone under. But who are all these people forking over piles of green? Aren’t they aware that the economy is in the sump? 

Throughout the weekend, the same story proliferated. Target was full. At Costco, you couldn’t get a seat at the hot dog stand. I had to knock over an old lady to get to a 50-pound bag of frozen shrimp.

So I’m open to suggestion. What do YOU think is going on here?