Paul Sullivan in The World's Greatest Newspaper (not!):

[Robert Clarfeld, president of the wealth management firm Clarfeld Financial Advisors], who manages $3 billion largely for financial services executives, takes exception to lumping all of Wall Street together. He said his clients felt that they had worked hard and honestly for their money [of course, of course and were now being unjustly judged alongside those who did not.

He is counseling clients to live their lives largely as they’ve done in the past, though in a slightly toned-down form. Mr. Clarfeld said he had taken his own advice to heart. He bought his dream car, a Jaguar XKR, before the market crash but then felt uncomfortable about it. “I didn’t like the way it made me feel but not enough that I was going to get rid of the car,” he said. So he made light of it with a vanity plate to recall better times: “PRE LEHM.”

Yep. That's a kneeslapper. Tom Joad would have loved it!

I've tried to draft this post for the past couple of weeks and it isn't working. So I've decided to try stream of consciousness so the readers could do the work for me. Kind of like mad libs Joyce. So here it goes:

We are a country built on paper (mortgages, securities, etc.) We don't make things any more. We make paper. That is by design. It's what our elites wanted, sell off the industrial base, keep the paper.

She had a dream
And boy it was a good one
So she chased after her dream
With much desire
But when she get too close
To her expectations
Well the dream burned up
Like paper in fire
- John Cougar Mellencamp

How do you organize/protest in a country built on paper?

Fire?

[I have dear friends who will vehemently disagree with me about this. But so be it; I have to make a choice!]

Now that Edwards is out of the race I find myself, like VastLeft, surprised, even chagrined, to find myself endorsing Hillary. But there it is. I wish this could be something other than a rambling, impressionistic post, but heck: Maybe that's how we all make decisions anyhow.

My bottom line is this:

I feel that I know Hillary. For all her faults, I know her.

I want to entrust the very challenging future of our country to someone I know. Simple as that.

I don't feel that I know Obama, and the more I learn about him, the less I like.