IRONY

On Monday our previous Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, spoke about a possible recession later in the year and wham the next day stock markets all around the globe.....tumbled.

It was a nice flashback to the late 90's when every time he spoke.....markets jumped one way or another.

Do you think he simply decided from his retirement perch to test the powers that he used to demonstrate?

I would think it might be hard on a financial superstar to just mosey off into the sunset when there's so much havoc to be raised with just the slightest verbiage....a small tidbit.....a tiny tad of info....an experiment in irony.

To further the irony and to test the powers of the new Fed Chairman, yesterday Ben Bernanke spoke up and reassured the world that the central bank would step in and stop any major financial crisis.

Bernanke seemed to contradict Greenspan when he was quoted as saying..."there's a reasonable possibility that we'll see some strengthening of the economy sometime in the middle of the year." Although Greenspan did say the recession could hit later in the year.

Well, now that we have the financial answers for the rest of 2007 perhaps we can move on to more important matters.

But always remember one thing about economists.....they are the supreme prognosticators and the slightest tiny sign alters anything they said the day before and allows for a different outlook. A very similar trait can be applied to the Japanese culture.

By the way.....who gets the grand prize for inflated ego and strange behavior over the last 100 to 200 years......GERMANY or JAPAN?

I realize that there are certain individuals from other countries that might dwarf the behavior of those two countries, but I'm talking countries not single nut cases. It takes a true group effort to achieve 200 years of bizarre behavior.

The irony of where those two countries are positioned, today in world affairs, does not escape the average global observer.

I've said it before and I'm saying it one more time......ANY COUNTRY THAT WANTS TO HAVE A STRONG ECONOMIC INTERNAL STRUCTURE.....SIMPLY HAS TO HAVE IT'S ASS HANDED TO IT BY THE GOOD OLD USA.

Or in the case of China.....learn to make anything and everything we use....ten times cheaper than anyone else.

And now China has to worry about INDIA and VIET-NAM because they are learning to make everything 15 times cheaper.......and pretty soon white cotton socks at the Torrance Wal-Mart will be 10 for a dollar.....and they will be giving a free small bag of white rice with every purchase.

Does that last comment sound Asiaphobic?

I'm fairly certain that I probably am Asiaphobic....but as a prognosticator I can honestly say that in 10 years at least 71.4% of the American public will be Asiaphobic.

Irony seems to be a more common occurrence on a planet with no shortage of ironic behavior. I get concerned when I realize that ironic and moronic could be very close cousins.

I would like to see Greenspan and Bernanke have a little round table discussion about China and what the economic future holds for them and ultimately for.....us.

That would be a nice reality show. "FEDS FOR FUN & FEAR."

Those two guys on a weekly show could create the ultimate global rollercoaster until of course people finally realized that economists are generally just prognosticators and they are lucky to be right 30% of the time. But since they change their mind every day......depending on the signs.....they think they are right 100 % of the time.

I'm really not sure that irony is the right word......I just like saying it today, and I'll probably never use it again....which really would be ironic.

Michael Timothy McAlevey