Perhaps you guys can help me understand something.

Word comes today from a most credible source that the failure of smaller banks may soon lead to more consolidation and mergers in the banking industry. One analyst told the New York Times that 200 to 300 small banks might fail in the near future, and be forced into mergers, presumably with larger entities.

This is a solution?

Didn’t we just see what happened to Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC)? Aren’t both now being deconstructed due to unsuccessful, if not heedless, acquisitions? Haven’t empires from Rome to ITT fallen into rubble as a result of getting too big, too fast? And haven’t we seen ample evidence of that fact as recently as this morning, as the implied value of AOL ratchets down in the wake of a Google writedown (GOOG)?

This is not to say, as some have contended, that all mergers and acquisitions are bad. When two strong entities come together, it’s a beautiful thing. But ugly monsters made out of dead body parts yield the expected results, usually ending when a group of townspeople with pitchforks chase the poor creature into a barn that is then burned to the ground.

Certainly the merger of these bankettes, which are now suffering from being in the same room with the commercial real estate market, is preferable to their failure.

But is the future truly served if the muscle of capital does its usual thing, providing fees to all the lawyers, MBAs and other financial types as they once again set up great hulking behemoths destined to lurch over the cliff in the next high breeze?

A couple of days ago, I was quite upset at what I perceived to be a wholesale disaster – the rejection of the bailout by a confused and vengeful House. A tsunami of comments poured in. Some of you agreed with me. A lot of you didn’t. This observation, from Steve in Charleston, West Virginia, was one of the most pointed and eloquent. “Sorry, Stanley,” he wrote, “but I’m not scared. Not even a little bit.” He went on:

Out here in the hinterlands where small business deals in cash rather than debt, local companies are not hurting. Banks are not folding. It’s harvest time and life is good. In fact, once the Schadenfreude at the demise of Wall Street has a chance to kick in, life couldn’t get much better.

There are quite a few of us out here who hate, loathe and despise everything that Wall Street has become, and we’re even less enthusiastic about Washington. The only politicians who apparently understand that are the ones who voted against the bailout. As far as we’re concerned, Wall Street can go to hell, and then maybe the rest of us can get to work on restoring this country to what it was before Wall Street slimed it.

There was much more of the same from a lot of people. Several things are clear from this. First, that many people’s hatred of the institutions that run our economy and our government is greater than their fear of societal collapse. Second, that public desire for vengeance at this time outstrips any empathy or concern they may have for the impact that this crisis may have on their fellow countrymen. Third, that a lot of folks believe that our economy can get along without the securities market and those who “manage” it. And that, finally, at this time in history, pretty much everybody has a solidified position on just about everything, and that any situations and facts that may intrude on their lives simply fortify their existing points of view.

So if you’re a Democrat, you feel the current crisis speaks to what the Republicans have done to us over the course of the last eight to thirty years. And if you’re a Republican, in spite of the fact that your party has been in power for a long time in all three branches of the Federal Government, you blame liberals, Democrats, oligarchs, and big-spending government hotshots for our dilemmas. If you believe that regulation is necessary to keep crooks and nitwits from running the show, you still believe that. If you think the “free markets” should operate, wherever those might be, you feel even more strongly that you are right.

So events do nothing to moderate or change anybody’s point of view. This is kind of depressing for all of us, I think. It’s hard when you see something dramatic happen and think “Aha!”… and then find that your adversaries are shaking the very same news in your face triumphantly and saying, “Oho!”

I, on the other hand, am a flexible fellow. I’ve been looking at my initial opinion and trying to decide where I was wrong. A lot of you are very persuasive.

See, I thought that a widespread panic leading to tens of thousands of job losses in the financial sector were bad for not just Wall Street, but the nation that has trillions of dollars invested there.

I thought that a banking system in free fall, draining the FDIC of all its resources and ultimately placing all our savings and checking accounts at risk, was detrimental to everybody, not just the fat cats who have screwed everything up.

I thought a limit on the executive compensation at firms applying for a bailout, and assistance for homeowners who might be forced to default on their mortgages, was good. I see a lot of you disagree. Many of you seem to have an image in your mind, when you hear the word “defaulting home owners,” of rapacious, greedy losers who never had any intention of paying off their mortgages. In fact, there’s just as much anger out there, it seems, against those people who got themselves in over their heads as there is against the aforementioned fat cats.

Anger, that’s the ticket. Everybody is very angry. Angry at Wall Street, of course. Who isn’t? Angry at banks and loan officers and those who took advantage of a system that recruited them as good credit risks when they weren’t. Angry at Bush. Angry at Paulson. Angry at Pelosi. Angry at Freddie and Fannie. Angry at the victims. Angry at the perps. 

They say anger can be cleansing. Maybe I should just relax and get with the program. In a couple of months, we can all wake up and see upon what beach this wave of ire has delivered us, and see how many innocent have been washed away with the guilty.

I woke up yesterday morning and found myself paralyzed. I lay in bed and couldn’t move. I didn’t even know what I was worried about, I was so worried. Eventually, I got myself up, shaved with trembling hands, and made my way to the office. I got to my desk and read the headlines. Then I really couldn’t move.

 A steely hand wrapped its skeletal fingers around my windpipe and would not let go. “Eek,” I said, since it was the only thing that would emerge from my ratcheted esophagus.

All day yesterday I sat here in a cold sweat. Now I figure, what the hey. I can’t be like this forever. Perhaps if I articulate what’s got me so freaky-deaky, it will pass. Or not. Either way, it’ll be better than this emotional and professional rictus.

Here’s my list:

1. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I never really even knew how important Fannie and Freddie were, but their collapse, or even, like, if they got a cold, would possibly force the Federal Government to lose its credit rating. Think about that for a minute. No, on second thought, don’t.
2. The Bank of America: (BOA) Earnings were down. More losses are being reserved against. Deeply disquieting.
3. Other banks. We all saw what happened to Bear Stearns (BS) in two or three days. Once the whispering campaign got started, their goose was cooked. Now every day I hear from the newspapers and the online writers and the bloggers and the guys getting soup across the street and nobody has a single thing to say except, “What’s up with that billion/trillion/gazillion dollar bailout?!” How long before we all make it happen?
4. Saturated fat: Up until recently, I was pretty much saturated with fat. Now I’m less saturated, but I’m not completely unsaturated yet and I get a sense that if I don’t get there soon I may not have much longer to try. I got some ideas from Michael Pollan’s excellent book, In Defense of Food, which basically says we should “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It’s sort of working, except I’m still working out whether vodka can be considered a food. What do you think?
5. Global warming: I don’t worry about it as much as I used to, because I have replaced 20% of my concern in this area with anxiety about Freddie and Fannie. I only have just so much capacity to freak out and then even I run out of resources.
6. Google (GOOG): I feel a little bit better now that their earnings were so impressive. But consider. If Google stops being the outer skin of the balloon, what else do we have to be inflated about? Things that have sort of gone by the wayside as a source of hysteria include: alternative energy sources, recombinant DNA therapy, cloning, robots, nanotech. We all need something to believe in, future-wise. What’s that gonna be?
7. Ben Bernanke: What’s he do for fun? What’s it like to be Ben? When you have a glass of wine at a party and Maria Bartiromo says, “How ya doin’?” do you have to think, “What will the impact be of my statement to Maria here, when all I’m really trying to do is get a smile out of her?”
8. China: Forget all the dubious stuff now under scrutiny from the nation, its army, arms dealers and toothpaste and heparin manufacturers. How about the reaction of the Chinese themselves to people and organizations that express opposition or even mild criticism of their various ventures? Boycotts! Censure! No more business for you! Sure, that’s their right, but a worldwide economic war between China and its allies and everybody else would be something to keep us all up at night.
9. The dollar: I can say no more.
10. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac again. The article raises the specter of a trillion dollar buyout, which might drive the credit rating of our nation itself down a notch or even two. The pundits in the posting do say that such a thing is unlikely. But if it’s so unlikely, why mention it? Why scare everybody? When one knows the power of even the slightest negative wind to move markets and crash enormous battleships of enterprise? Why bring it up? Why put a headline on it? Why publish it at the top of the page?

You know what? When bad stuff happens, let me know. Until then, I’m going to try to remember some things: It’s spring. We’re alive. And bonds are still doing okay. I think.

Word comes from Megan in Chicago, one of our most valued and assiduous correspondents, that this humble blog has been blocked by the IT police of her company. Megan writes:

I can tell you one thing that is going the wrong way. Bing’s Blog page has been officially blocked at work with a code of “Social Networking”… Stanley baby – can you pull a few strings and help the numb nuts in IT understand that I need this site in my daily work life? How can I possibly put in a full 10 hours without a spoonful of delicious irony! I’ve explained that this is a very useful site which quite often covers business related topics. I’ve stated my case that while the site is not essential to doing my job, it does help me do my job better. They’ve claimed that they will review and let me know – *sigh*. I’ll miss you sweetheart…

I’ll miss you, too, Megan! It’s all so unfair! A social network? Us? Could that be? Every day we have as serious a discussion of current business-related events as the facts warrant! Sure, a lot of the time we focus on the ridiculous and outrageous, but that’s a direct effect of the times in which we live, right? Just look at the following issues we’ve dealt with in recent months:

• Guys who play golf and bridge while their city-states are flailing, and are then super-compensated upon their departure;
• The collapse of huge banking institutions that stupidly gave loans to people who couldn’t repay them when belts tightened even one teeny notch;
• The most aggressive Fed in living memory, moving dynamically to do who knows what?;
• Utter confusion on the part of experts and pundits of all stripes, and a general sense of incapacity and weirdness from all over;
• The usual insanity pertaining to mergers, acqusitions, divestitures and other organizational hooey in organizations from Apple and AOL to Yahoo and whatever companies that start with the letter Z you can think of;
• Intense activity in the digital arena, including the geometric growth of online retail while brick and mortar stumbled;
• The worst performance by the airlines industry since Howard Hughes attempted to commercialize the Spruce Goose;
• Other (your peeve here).

We’ve covered these terrific business trends and stories just like a responsible information source should, with aplomb, sagacity and no little amount of sang froid. We’ve also looked extensively at your bulls**t jobs and crazy bosses, and even occasionally offered some advice in our Ask Bing sector. And if, in so doing, we have also attracted a witty, savvy, saucy, snazzy, slightly snarky group that get together with some regularity to comment on the general situation? Does that make us a social network worthy of blockage? Well! All I can say is…

Thanks for the promotion, IT dudes! Now come on! Free the blog! Lift the blockade! Let freedom ring!

As we all search for reasons that we’re in this economic mess right now, one obvious solution has evaded notice, I think. Until now.

In this morning’s New York Times, Cheryl Gay Stolberg offers us a possible answer. Up until now, George W. Bush, our first MBA President, a graduate of the august Harvard Business School, not to mention Yale, has been on the sidelines. Obviously, he’s been doing other things, like going on international junkets more than half a dozen times, or locked up in meetings engaging on other important issues, presumably.

“For a man who came into office as the nation’s first M.B.A. president,” Ms. Stolberg writes, “Mr. Bush has sometimes seemed invisible during the housing and credit crunch. As the economy eclipses Iraq as the top issue on voters’ minds, even some Republican allies of the president say Mr. Bush is being eclipsed and is in danger of looking out of touch.

“He’s over there arguing about who should get into NATO, and the American people are focused on what’s in their pocketbooks,” said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan in his second term. “He has talked about the economy, but it is not viewed as being a satisfactory response. Unfortunately, the lasting image is of not knowing of $4-a-gallon gas.”

The idea that the President is out of touch may seem implausible to those who have come to expect Mr. Bush’s traditional level of insight, zeal and impartial sense of balance on key matters of state. And it is true, unfortunately, that Crawford’s favorite resident did recently evince shock at the current price of a gallon of gasoline, much as his father failed to recognize a state-of-the-art supermarket scanner lo those many years ago.

Those who make too much of this kind of thing are missing the point, however. The Bushes, perhaps, are not the best multi-taskers in the world. But when they train their laser focus on something, stuff definitely happens.

Given the way things are going, it just might be time for the President to swing into action, bringing the kind of leadership to this matter for which he has become justly renowned worldwide.

… on the other hand… things are ALL that bad yet, are they? I mean… they could still get worse, right?…

Laissez-faire, Mr. President! That’s the ticket!

I’ve been in business for about 5,427 dog years and at no time during my career has there ever been a day when somebody wasn’t worried about what some security analyst was writing about us. This factoid stretches over six iterations of four separate companies, with enough corporate permutations to confuse a particle physicist.

“Bob Weasel of Finster-Koolaid says we’re off on our guidance and won’t make our EBITDA for the quarter!” the CFO will write while forwarding the latest analysis from Weasel, who long ago decided to take a negative turn on our stock because it differentiates him from the other analysts and gets him quotes in the Wall Street Journal.

“What are we going to do about it?” people will cry. And of course there’s nothing you can do about it. Weasel has every right to his take. Its can’t be corrected, either, even if he’s wrong, because Weasel’s opinion is based on a deep understanding of the marketplace, our business sector, and the economy.

Ha!

Weasel and his kind are, as I am sure you know, generally found to be employees of banking institutions. Real banks. Investment banks. Naturally, you know, the research side is (relatively recently) well-separated from the side that actually invests in stuff, but still. Who’s going to argue with Finster-Koolaid? It’s a division of Omnivorous Potentate, the largest investment bank in this brane of the cosmos!

A few years ago, the former CEO of a former form of a former corporate entity that morphed into one of my prior corporate entities appeared at a conference of these geniuses. Granted, Bob was a loser. He had bad affect. Still, the company had a lot going for it. But the security analysts didn’t like Bob’s style. So within 30 minutes of the close of his presentation, our stock went down like Eliot Spitzer. 

People went off to Froggies Tavern early that day, I can tell you. Because those guys ruled. And we drooled, for a long time afterwards. Then a new guy came in that people liked, for whatever reason. And our stock went up. Same company. Actually, slightly worse off, if I remember correctly. Go figure.

So now we look around us and the very same guys who were telling us why we sucked hose water, boy, are they drinking from the other side of the tap. All the great intellects who said people should divest this or that, or that such-and-such would never grow, or that management needed a kick in the kiester… they represent firms that are hawking up huge chunks of lung every day!

Where were these Einsteins when their companies were lending more money than they had to sub-prime borrowers? Were they any less shocked than the rest of us when the piper came to call?

In retrospect, who the hell were they to tell anybody what to invest in, or any corporation what they should or should not do? And why is anybody still listening to any of them?

Just a look at the front page of cnnmoney today is enough to give even the strong of stomach the extreme willies. Next to a headline that says, “Wall Street Braces for Ugly Day,” and video featuring a scary dude warning about the dangers of inflation, is a deck of headlines. At this writing, here they are…

• Income, spending higher than expected
• Mortgage mess socks ex-Goldman stars
• MBIA says more writedowns ahead
• Wilbur Ross bets on bond insurer Assured
• Dollar sinks further/Oil hits $103
• The 10 best cars – Consumer Reports
• Toyota’s unknown business partners
• Banks could see $600B hit from credit crunch
• 3 steps for living well in retirement
• How Sony won the high-def DVD war
• Don’t panic: That IRS letter is good news
• Furniture company – or hedge fund?

Aside from the interesting tease that a letter from the IRS is good news, there’s not a lot to feel good about here, unless you’re Sony (SNE) and right now popping champagne corks over its victory in the high-def DVD wars.

Of course, winning the format battle for who will provide the DVDs of the future is very good news… unless you think that maybe in five or ten years nobody will be watching DVDs anymore.  I just upgraded my Apple TV (APPL) and up popped a huge menu of movies I might actually want to see, in both regular format and HD.

Wow, I thought. There goes Netflix (NFLX). There goes DVDs. There, in fact, goes everybody but Apple unless somebody hurries up and figures out an alternative to Planet Steve. My new MacBook Air is functioning really well, by the way. I can’t say what I’m really going to need it for, of course, but as King Lear said when questioned about the size of his staff, “Oh! Question not the need!”

Anyhow, just look at those headlines. And they were actually updated nine minutes before I copied them into this blog. When I woke up and looked at them, they were even worse.

I’m expecting to wake up sometime soon and see a headline in the stack that says, “World ends with both bang and whimper. Bernanke soothes investors with indications of additional rate cuts.”

When I was a whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school, I used to love Fridays because I looked forward to freedom from the tedium of class, to watching cartoons over the weekend, to dressing the way I wanted to and not combing my hair. I got nervous on Sunday nights, knowing that I would have to put my game face on the next morning, and that always hurts.

Today Friday feels different. I like it, sure. The weekend will be fine, I have no doubt. But I yearn for this day, I dream of its arrival, because I know that when it is done there is probably no more that the week can do to us. Or at least that tomorrow we really don’t have to pay very close attention.

Not paying attention right now may be a key strategy for survival in the next 18 months or so. Or paying attention to something completely different. I’m thinking of getting serious about my bird-watching, how about you?

I was thinking this morning that I complain about too much. Like, I was going to sound off right here about one of my recent powerful pet peeves — when airline personnel say “Thank you for your patience.” I hate that. I hate being thanked for my patience when I’m all out of it. I don’t really think it’s a genuine thank-you anyhow. I think it’s more like, “Thanks for not getting into our face about the fact that we’ve been on the tarmac for two hours and will probably be on it for another two before we take off” or just “Shut up if you feel like complaining.” Last week I was thanked for my patience so many times before take-off, and then again upon landing, that I thought I was going to pop an aneurism.

But I’m not going to complain about that this morning. Because I woke up a few hours ago and realized that it had arrived. That Holiday spirit. I can feel it bubbling up in my heart and suffusing my entire body. And it feels good.

First up is Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays, because it centers around food and doesn’t have too much religious baggage. I like the menu a lot. And I generally enjoy the feeling of being thankful, don’t you? So let’s all take a minute in this runup to what feels like an early turkey-day and consider what we feel grateful for right now.

I feel grateful this morning, for example, that the front page of the New York Times has a story about clone monkeys. The content of the story is important, of course, but just the headline made me feel glad to be alive. Clone monkeys. What a great world we live in.

I’m thankful that all the banks that have declared write-downs are still doing okay. At least they look okay. Nobody’s jumping out of windows there, at least. And I went to the bank yesterday and they still seemed to have plenty of money they were giving out to people who wanted it. That’s a good thing.

I’m thankful for the fact that we’re not at war with Iran yet. I don’t really think going to war with another nation is an altogether good thing, at least, you know, not right now. So I feel positive that those who seem to want a war with Iran don’t appear to be getting much traction yet.

That’s just the short list right now. I’m going to keep on being thankful for about a week or so, before I guess it all collapses and I start whining and grouching around again. I’m not promising there won’t be interruptions in my mood, of course. But I’m going to try to sustain this.

Can you help?