Asia went through a cyclone last night, with the Tokyo Stock Exchange down to 1987-levels, dropping almost 10%. The Indonesian Bourse has been suspended, and the Tsunami is rolling westwards with the sun.
"Selling seems almost unstoppable because of uncertainty over the crisis," said Kazuki Miyazawa of Daiwa Securities SMBC
"Investors simply don't find incentives to buy stocks."
The European stock exchanges opened steeply down, across the map, against a backdrop of bank rescues, interest rate discussions and evaporating housing values.
The mad years of the Bush presidency, where one thought it was possible to reduce taxation, wage wars and allow delusional financial operations without oversight, is coming back like a boomerang from Hell. Bush will leave office as Bush the Destroyer, nothing the man has touched has been spared his anti-Midas force. Let's just be grateful he didn't get to destroy Social Security while he was at it.
What does this mean for Obama?
The Obama presidency can only go one way, and that's up.
He'll take over a nation in a shambles, its infrastructure rotting, its military demoralized, its health care a disgrace, its international reputation in the toilet, the dollar at risk - and its dependency on foreign energy an anvil around the nation's neck. Regular American families are suffering, the housing market is in disarray, peoples' pension plans and investments are disappearing.
Eight years of Bush and Cheney has wrought more damage than a thousand bin Ladens would have been capable of. Because the GOP and the Republicans care only about one thing - the self-interested individual.
That's why Palin thought she would get traction when mocking "community organizers" - they fail to see that this is the antithesis of all they are about: that men and women can come together, united out of common interests, and create greater value for themselves and for their children through doing so.
You'll find a lot of GOPers converting to the benefits of community organizing in the years ahead.