Well, I finally get one day out of the office (Friday) and what has changed....nothing! In fact this morning Citi announced it would cut 52,000 jobs in the very near term. Citi, who employs around 352,000 as of the end of September also said it would try and reduce expenses by 20% although I have to believe the job cuts will be where the blunt of that expenditure will lie.

The bottom line in all of this economic windfall is we (you, I and the U.S. economy) are hurting! That may be the understatement of the year. Are we at the bottom, is there still room for us to fall? The answer to that question is....nobody knows but I will try and answer it none the less....yes and no! I truly in my heart feel things are at or near the bottom. However, I think financial analysts, traders, and even heightened professionals are gullible to say the least to think that the worst was over a year ago like many believed. We are in uncharted territory most of the U.S. population with the exception of the more "seasoned" citizens have never seen an economy in this condition. Folks we are on VERY shaky ground right now with some laws that are going to take affect and perhaps hurt a battered industry (mortgages) even more. After watching a ton of hearings/meetings on capital hill over the past year I really do not have faith in the politicians making the calls when they can't even pronounce individuals names correctly or do not have the slightest clue on how intricate our financial system is but they sit on a committee that directly impacts the decisions made!

Our system is flawed and the radical changes taking place are going from one extreme to another on the opposite end and the more troubling thing about it is nobody is talking about it! Yes changes need to be made, yes confidence MUST be restored, yes we need regulation but the U.S./World economy is not what it was like in the 1920's. We are far more complex with systems that are so far complex that a manual from the earth to the moon couldn't explain everything. That's why when I see the unemployment rate hinting at 7% and I see it going to possibly 8-9% it scares me! When I see the two of the most prominent indicators of the economy (real estate and auto's) struggling so mightily even in the face of Billions of dollars being thrown out every window....yes it scares me. When I see huge corporations who simply made bad business decisions get bailed out, file for bankruptcy and then get billions of dollars while a simple mortgage broker who has come across bad times but does his job very well get his occupation yanked out from underneath him/her yes that scares me! Let's see where this all shakes out but I just have my doubts the more this carries on that we will see relief even in 2009.

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