The Czech government collapsed, which means current prime minister — and current president of the European Union, whoops! — Mirek Topolanek is now powerless and will soon be jobless, but that doesn’t mean he can’t deliver an apocalyptically Slavic-ly gloomy sermon against the United States and its terrible bailout plan, which is just like the American response to the previous Great Depression, which sort of led to … Hitler? Yes, Hitler. Depression + Czech troubles = Hitler. Works every time. MORE »

Thursday, early evening. She turns the key to her Dungeon of Medicines, an isolated pod floating atop the highest vistas of Park Avenue. It is constructed of the finest Metals and can only be reached by rickshaw. Even after all these years, the scent of myrrh lingers. A glass of scotch is poured and she takes to the shelves. Tonight will be a night of barbiturates. Full bottles of Amytal, Nembutal, Seconal, et. al, are downed within seconds. She takes to her camel fur chair — a special model, in that it is an actual camel — and waits whilst supping on a bowl of cough syrup. The hour becomes 10, then 11, then 12. Midnight. A new day. But still, nothing. She is able to walk; this should not be physically possible. Time to bring out the typing machinery. She is struck, sober, hands on the keys, sitting on a camel, poised, wrought, a wordsmith to the death, honest. Peggy Noonan has written her headline: “There’s No Pill for This Kind of Depression.” MORE »

Brooklyn fraud king Isaac Robert Toussie got the gift of Innocence from George W. Bush on Tuesday. But just a day later, on Christmas Eve, mean old Grinch W. Bush’s heart shrunk three times. Even thought Toussie’s dad sent the GOP a $28,500 “reminder” that his convicted felon son really needed a presidential pardon for running an elaborate and cruel housing/mortgage scam that pretty much defines the amoral real-estate boom & bust of this miserable decade, the White House suddenly decided they really didn’t fully understand how this famous crook screwed over hundreds of working-class and low-income minority families. MORE »

Not that you’d know it from the collapse of real estate, manufacturing, finance, retail and basic employment, but America is now officially in a Recession! In the third quarter of this wretched year of Our Lord — which doesn’t even include the 1929-style stock market collapse this month — the economy shrunk by .03%. Not outrageously terrible, as the never-ever-correct people known as economists predicted a half-percent contraction, but it’s still the worse since Our Terrorized Quarter of 9/11. Never forget! MORE »

Here is the saddest thing: Times of London reporter Tom Baldwin was surprised to find two young black ladies canvassing for John McCain in Des Moines. He asks if they’re volunteers. Nope, they are temp workers from an employment agency. And one of them sheepishly admits to being an Obama supporter, while the other one warns they could lose their $10-an-hour part-time job for talking to the press. And they’re both so ashamed. MORE »

Sometimes the stock market is more “faith based” than a mall-church full of unemployed white trash. The Dow did a triple-digit plunge this morning, because the world is actually ending, especially the “making money” part, but it suddenly did a 200-point turnaround on month-old data suggesting a whole 4,000 heavily marked-down new homes sold in September, before the complete collapse of all American and Global stock markets. What? MORE »

If there was ever a time for an old-fashioned community meetin’ at the old town hall, what with the world comin’ to an end and such, that time is now, brothers and sisters. But, we can’t even do a Great Depression right, so get ready for a lot of inane questions submitted via Twitter on the Internet or whatever, as McCain prepares to challenge Obama on the question of whether black people should even be allowed to vote, let alone run for president. MORE »

HELP US, GEORGE W., YOU ARE OUR ONLY HOPE? Oh dear lord, George W. Bush will be rolled out in a moment to speak about the Depression, again. Liveblogging will occur. [Associated Press]

Hmm so yes, this is what it’s come to: our national financial crisis was predicted by a comic book movie about a villain with a lumpy white sliced-up face. This mashup of George Bush’s sad address from last night and Heath Ledger’s bravura performance as an insane person with drymouth is dreadfully offensive to the beautiful legacy of The Joker, who would have suspended the filming of his movie in order to tend to the nation’s business in Washington DC. Also why isn’t Sarah Palin running around in a neoprene cat suit listing the regulatory accomplishments of her running mate? Fail. [YouTube]

It’s time for an old-fashioned “fireside chat,” minus the fire, and minus the comforting voice of paternal buddy Franklin “FDR” Roosevelt. Instead, that one guy will be rolled out this evening, Bush Junior. He will awkwardly read from a teleprompter about the dire economic situation and how those lousy Dems better back Paulson’s $700 billion Wall Street bailout. And then America can laugh again, at this dildo who can’t even read. [Fox News]

McCAIN’S KLEPTOCRACY: Freddie Mac insiders tell invisible pretend newspaper that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis was actually taking $15,000 a month from the ruined mortgage giant until last month. [New York Times]

Here’s some hilarious video from outside a McCain campaign stop in Ohio, where some older people chant “Keating Five,” which was the great group of corrupt senators (including John McCain) who caused the last collapse of American finance, in the late ’80s. This teevee reporter has no idea what they’re talking about, of course. [Blogger Interrupted]

Well, that was a fun week in finance news. So what did the markets get, after the U.S. government decided to end market capitalism and become the Soviet Bank of Soviet America? Stocks ended the week flat, that’s what. Monday morning, the Dow opened at 11,421. Today, after this unprecedented nationalization of AIG and promises of some “We Buy Your Crap” market run by the Fed, the DJIA closed at 11,388. (The S&P 500 was about the same, starting the week at 1,252 and ending at 1,256.) A half-trillion in new U.S. debt just doesn’t buy what it used to! [Schaeffers Research]

Turns out we didn’t need “stealth socialist” Barack Obama to pervert capitalist America into a crumbling nationalized economy run in private by a dome-skulled kleptocracy as our nation’s battered military wastes away in the forgotten bummer of a civil war in Afghanistan. WAIT A MINUTE that is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union! And the so-called Republicans did it, because they are Fiscal Socialists! MORE »