General comment from Cardin: It’s worse than they’re telling us Henry Paulson Jr., secretary of Treasury, left, with Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, during a Senate hearing Thursday. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) As the intentionally redundant saying goes, it’s deja vu all over again. Be sure to read the first two items…
Author: Matt Cardin
Teeming Brain founder and editor Matt Cardin is the author of DARK AWAKENINGS, DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP, A COURSE IN DEMONIC CREATIVITY: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO THE INNER GENIUS, and TO ROUSE LEVIATHAN. He is also the editor of BORN TO FEAR: INTERVIEWS WITH THOMAS LIGOTTI and the academic encyclopedias MUMMIES AROUND THE WORLD; GHOSTS, SPIRITS, AND PSYCHICS: THE PARANORMAL FROM ALCHEMY TO ZOMBIES; and HORROR LITERATURE THROUGH HISTORY.
What a difference a year makes (Headlines from the Meltdown)
America’s accountant-in-chief: The United States is bankrupt (streaming videos) 60 Minutes, March 2007 The Real Story, CNN, March 2007 [Cardin comments: What a difference a year makes, at least in today’s world of throwaway news and entertainment with its attention span dwindling to such a vanishingly small point that it verges on instant amnesia. When…
Week of wild cards (Headlines from the Meltdown)
Analyst says dozens of U.S. banks will fail by 2010 Ottowa Citizen (Reuters wire piece), Feb. 6 Dozens of U.S. banks will fail in the next two years as losses from soured loans mount and regulators crack down on lenders that take too much risk, especially in real estate and construction, an analyst said. ….Between…
Swirling galaxy of systemic risk (Headlines from the Meltdown)
The Rising Risk of a Systemic Financial Meltdown: The Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster Nouriel Roubini’s Global EconoMonitor, Feb. 5 [Cardin comments: Read this one very carefully, bearing in mind that Roubini’s grim outlook on the American economy is now being embraced by many of the very same economists who formerly dismissed him. Case in…
I’m a guest of honor at MoCon III
I’m proud to say that I have been invited to attend as a guest of honor this June at Mo*Con III. Mo*Con is a genre convention organized by (and named after) Maurice Broaddus, who in addition to serving as the pastor/facilitator of a large nondenominational Christian church in Indianapolis is also a horror writer and…
Detonating economic bombs (Headlines from the Meltdown)
General comment from Cardin: This ongoing scan of dire-sounding economic news and opinion pieces may have grown unworkably large. I’m contemplating creating a separate page to house these things, thus freeing up the main blog page for other items. For now, though, here are the choice items I’ve found over the past few days. *…
Disasters looming all around (Headlines from the Meltdown)
U.S. accountant-in-chief: ‘We’ve never seen the likes of what’s coming’ – Financial Times, Jan. 29 An influential US official on Tuesday hit out at his country’s “addiction to debt,” warning that the federal budget was on an “imprudent and unsustainable path” due to ballooning healthcare costs. David Walker, US comptroller general, warned a Senate budget…
Doomer fringe converging on the mainstream (Headlines from the Meltdown)
Cardin comments: You know life on planet earth has gotten weird when conventionally respectable mainstream news sources start running stories that sound like what would have formerly been dismissed as the ravings of a conspiracy nut. But — and this is a crucial point — is anybody really listening? Case in point: an analysis piece…
Letter to a student: Philosophy for fun and self-deprogramming
Yesterday I received an email from one of my former high school students. He asked me a few questions that indicated he has really entered into a reflective state of mind: Am I familiar with C.S. Lewis and Mere Christianity? What do people mean when they refer to other people, situations, or anything else as…
A plague of toxic everything (Headlines from the Meltdown)
General comment from Cardin: A few things I’m reading and hearing — none of them referenced below — suggest that January’s generalized stock market mini-crash/meltdown may have played itself out, and that the coming weeks may witness a generalized, although volatile, meltup. Only time will tell. What’s certain is that other problematic aspects of the…