we all know at this point that lawmakers in DC rejected the bailout plan that was proposed by W and his band of merry men. and there are people out there with more economic and political knowledge that can explain the repercussions of that a hell of a lot better than i can. most people i talked to told me that $700 billion really needed to be about $1.2 trillion in order to actually make a dent in the problem. and even then it was going to be a long row to hoe. personally, i would just like someone that isn’t running for re-election to explain to me how the whole thing was going to seriously impact my daily life.
this whole thing started a full on financial panic a few weeks ago when W started talking about it. then ike hit. now, over the last couple of years when hurricanes usually come through, everyone gets a little nervous with the gas consumption and availabilty coming out of the gulf pipelines. this usually results in a jump in price AFTER the storm blows through and they have to get things up and running again. with ike, this happened here in the CLT BEFORE the storm even hit houston. this led to all sorts of accusations about price gouging and such here. but most importantly, it led to a rush to the pumps. all those clowns that hear hear the word hurricane or snow that usually run to the grocery store and clear out all the aisles of bread and milk now heard the words gas shortage and ran to the corner gas station to fill up every oversized SUV and grocery getter that they had. and yes, media, you created the panic. a lot of people said that if we all would have just done business as usual, there would have barely been a hiccup in service. but no, the hoarding mentality that kicks in when people think their survival is going to be threatened kicked in. not only that, but there were people waiting in line with three quarters of a tank, burning gas, in order to top off and fill up all the gas cans that they had in their tool shed. ridiculous. i saw in the paper this morning that some lady was in a less than appetizing part of town waiting in line for gas when some hood rat cut in front of her and flashed a piece at her before filling up. seriously.
and then this morning citigroup bought out the huge chunk of wachovia. this is going to leave a ton of my friends here in the CLT in some dire straits. this is a city that instead of people asking what you do, its sometimes easier to just ask if you work for watchoverya or BofA.
so without a whole shit-ton of financial intelligence or whatnot, it just feels sort of like this some sort of implosion in what was thriving and growing young city a few years ago. now there are half finished highrise condos in foreclosure, a definite spike in unemployment, and no gas to get the hell out of dodge. like we are trapped to deal with this shit. i feel like we are just a few weeks away from mohawks, face tattoos, marshal law, sawed off shotgun toting, and hijacking gas trucks in tribes that are lead by the guy that screams the loudest. i might be in the kitchen loading shells tonight…