NEVER, NEVER

Remember my friend Mike, the world's third smartest man? His daughter was married last weekend in Darien Cn. and that's where we have been for the past week along with a few other stops to see old friends on the Right Coast. Wonderful wedding, wonderful young couple. It's been a while since I have tooled up and down I-95 and even for an old New Yawker the experience is now maddening and terrifying. It's not that we don't have rush-hours; we do--they run from 5:23 to 5:41 every day. We try to avoid them, but the volume of traffic on that stretch of road from the Westchester border to Darien is astounding. Apparently bumper to bumper every day. I simply can't understand how the good folks do it.

Anyway, I expressed my view that having been so close to the endoftheworldasweknowit things didn't seem to have changed all that much. Damn few Fiat Cinque Centos on I-95, not many houses in Darien on therightsideofthehighway for sale under a couple of mil, the hotel was jammed and the shops seemed to be prospering. 'Yeah" said Mike, "things go on."

"We came very close," said I.
"Yeah, said he, "but it's Never, Never."
"Still?"
"Certainly! You didn't think this was going to change anything did you?"
"Rather silly of me I guess."
Not silly, bloody stupid."
"Now Michael..."
"No, I really mean it. Look, even these guys in Washington don't really understand. They're off trying to fix things that don't matter any more. They're trying to fix the car companies because that fixes the Unions and nobody cares. They're trying to fix the banking system and it's changing right in front of them and they can't see it. They're trying to fix health care and nobody wants it fixed because it really isn't broke and nobody understands it anyway. And that's the real problem; nobody cares except those trying to fix all the wrong things."
'Because it's Never, Never."
"Exactly, it's Never, Never."

I've been thinking about that conversation and there's a big element of truth in it. Apparently the pundits are now in full agreement that the greatest financial and economic disaster since the Great Depression lasted a little over 9 months and is now over. The stock market has gained 50% in four months and people are feeling flush again. Some guy at Citibank is about to make $100,000,000 which I guess he needs to keep up the castle in German he bought a few years back and Goldman is making more money than anybody can believe by just being there and having the fastest computers on the street. The Leader and Our Hero along with the rest of the mob are telling us it's all their doing, despite having done essentially nothing of any note and insisting that it would have happened even quicker except for Dubya. Maybe they're right. Remarkably, they keep selling debt on and off the street (and keep making more of it) and no one seems to care. Oh there is the occasional hiccup as when The Leader, sans teleprompter, steps on it but hey, we all do that, don't we? And when Our Hero demolishes The Leader's promise that the middle class(as hereinafter defined) will not have their taxes raised by "One Dime" as he did yesterday. But it seems that our friends, the Chinese, have decided that they are in a bit of a dollar trap after all and may not be prepared to rock the boat for a while, so why worry. A while may be forever. It's Never, Never.

What we are witnessing is truly a remarkable period and the past few months has been without precedent. Can the trend continue? If my friend, Mike, is correct, it will. Because it's Never, Never.

Oh, I guess I should have done this at the start. When credit cards were introduced to England, the conversations went something like this...

"What's that then?"
"It's a credit card"
Wat's it fo'"
"To buy things"
Wha', you don't need money?"
"No."
"Serious?"
"Yes."
"You really don' need money?"
"Right."
"Never?"
"Never."

Got it?