A Kunstler rant of some merit

James Kunstler, my favorite Cassandra, is off on his customary tear this week. "As US manufacturing decamped to low-labor-cost nations, we turned increasingly to the manufacture of abstruse investment schemes designed to create 'value' ingeniously out of thin air rather than productive activity. These succeeded largely because of the momentum of legitimacy American institutions accumulated in the years after the Second World War. The rest of the world believed our ingenuity was backed by credibility. That momentum has about run out." Read his entire eloquent rant here. I got an e-mail from one of my senators today telling me just how great things are, but I look at the news -- DJIA dropped 250 points today -- and wonder whether to believe my senator or my lying eyes.