Trader Crackers

When cracker-barrel talk over 3.2 billion dollars of pledges to
avert collapsing loans due to spiraling real estate prices and
long term capital management needing refinancing to make up for
depreciation became so loud that nobody could hear each other

We wonder why is it that sub-prime lenders offering no money down to buy
million dollar neo-colonials
(It's true, why should a bank question a client's credit rating if he or she
has his eyes on a 17 room 9 bedroom 3 bathroom estate?)


Which in turn drives up prices, interest rates, hedge funds and those ever so sturdy
benchmark marks when the market goes for the $Big Dip$
Ok, it's time to take a breath amidst the electronic billions that are colliding and
jetsoned to all corners of the universe with the click of a mouse
But suddenly the investors leave the market and go for and extended incognito
sojourn
crack brained and crack downed
Now the market's sinking 2.96%
Some are tapping their last lines of credit
others are quick-stepping to their banks to withdraw their savings or what's left
Still short term investors on a lunch break
exhibit that volatile dislocation smirk
While a veteran sandwich preparer wonders
"what does this mean for my 401K and what does this mean
for my wife's retirement fund?"
"Pull it out, pull out!" yells an extenuated floor trader in a clinging white shirt
bracing cell phone, blackberry, and two leafy orders in his trembling hands
"Getting out, getting it back" yells another just beside

So for you over 60 the news of a collapsed market only translates into a couple more years
of work and
a sizeable cut -a 20 footer instead of 60- regarding that pleasure craft that you were planning to buy for that
sunny, untainted, day.

Frankenstein re-written

This is the famous scene where Frankenstein meets his monster. Had the story been written today Shelly would have perhaps been moved to modify her majestic glacier descriptions as I have done in blue.
It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent. For some time I sat upon the rock that overlooks a few scraps of ice. A mist covered both that and the surrounding mountains. Presently a breeze dissipated the cloud, and I descended upon the glacier. The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and interspersed by rifts that hardly sink deep at all. The field of ice is almost a half a league in width, but I spent nearly one hour in crossing it. The opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock. From the side where I now stood Montanvert was exactly opposite, at the distance of a league; and above it rose Mont Blanc, in awful majesty.
I remained in a recess of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea, or rather the minor river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains, whose aerial summits hung over its recesses. Their melting and glittering peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds.
(…)
I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, splashing in puddles, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man. I was troubled: a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me; but I was quickly restored by the warm gale of the mountains. I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and horror, resolving to wait his approach, and then close with him in mortal combat. He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely observed this; rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of furious detestation and contempt.
"Devil," I exclaimed, "do you dare approach me? and do not you fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! and, oh! that I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!" And then I heard a mosquito buzzing around my ear, and the wretched creature, sensing my irritation, stretched out its collosal arm attracting the bug to land. Whilst the blood sucker went to its chore the monster squeezed its skin exploding the mosquito towards the alpine heavens. "If you don’t make a female for me this is what I’ll do to you and your family" he grinned, as his feet slopped in the slushy ice.