Bring out yer dead

As the markets continue to tank, along with my (and hundreds of thousands of others) hopes and plans for the future, I can’t help but wonder how many companies now with their hands out and/or declaring massive write-offs, potential bankruptcies and so on are simply taking advantage of the situation as an opportunity to clean their books and get rid of any and all weakness in their corporate portfolios.

Surely there can’t be that many piss-poorly managed companies out there.

Can there?

So if you were so smart.....

The markets continue to melt down. My retirement savings are dwindling by 5-10% A DAY! And like the majority of Canadians, I have no indexed pension to buffer the hit.

Meanwhile, Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty can think of nothing better to say than, "We knew about this last fall and took the appropriate steps. Aren't we just super smart?" and "The fundamentals are sound. Our banks are sound." and my favourite, "It's all the United States fault. They were stupid and there's nothing we can do (shrug)."

Okay, if everything is so rosy in Canada, why the hell aren't Canadian banks the biggest buying opportunity out there today? If they are in such GREAT SHAPE, and the Canadian economy is SO STRONG, why isn't the smart money just flooding ashore by the boatload? Our economy should be BOOMING. Our bank stocks should be SOARING.

But we all know that isn't happening. In fact our markets are getting hit even harder, percentage wise, than the US markets.

Nope, Harper and Flaherty have not a clue between them. They're like a couple of deer caught in the proverbial headlights, saying whatever they think we'll believe while claiming a prescient anticipation of events that somehow eluded the rest of the financial world.

Not surprisingly, we're not getting the straight goods.