Before I go to my mail, I want to point out a neat little summary from CNN on the latest financial crisis: Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs).

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/news/0710/gallery.superfund/index.html

What’s happening here is that the sub-prime mortgage crisis moved on to being a mortgage industry crisis which went on to being a credit crunch which evolved into a commercial paper crisis and is now folding into the “SIV Superfund”. Think of it as cleaning up a financial Love Canal. It’s just one step from all being absorbed into the government, which will ultimately resolve it by printing a lot of paper – in this case, greenbacks.

Last April Fool’s Day, I penned this column for the Saint Paul Real Estate Blog, where I do a Sunday column for a friend. You can judge my predictive skills for yourself:

http://www.stpaulrealestateblog.com/st_paul_real_estate/2007/04/fed_source_the_.html

What’s this got to do with my Tuesday ritual of answering mail? Too much, I think. Last Friday’s. column was a bleak and dark one, reflecting my mood at the time. I lamented that the USofA, land of opportunity and all that, has turned into a machine where creativity and intelligence are less valuable than rote training and indoctrination that doesn’t actually make anything of any value to the world as all our stuff comes from China. I said all of this without even mentioning ISO 9000 and Six Sigma, either.

Well. Did I get mail. Lots of mail from people who were a bit worried about my mental state (it was bad, I admit it) but a lot more like this one:

“As a retail manager, it is my responsibility to do the hiring, and I have a set ideal candidate handed down by the powers that be, and that candidate is a conformist who is most likely to show up to work, do their job consistently, and never challenge authority. I guess it’s not the specific to the retail industry. And 90% of the product in my stores is made in China. We’ve already recalled some of the items. My mother lost her manufacturing job of over ten years about five years ago due to jobs being sent overseas. She went back to school, got her Associate’s degree, and now she makes $10 an hour in a gift shop (she was making over $75000 a year as a manager in the manufacturing industry). None of it makes any sense.”

I have little to add to this. Honestly, it’s the way things are going. I don’t think anyone is entitled to anything in this life, but I do know that as a kid a lot of ballyhoo came my direction in the form of what seemed like a promise. The USofA was a land of opportunity for all, especially the resourceful. I simply don’t think that’s true anymore. It’s much more of a land for the lottery winners, the people somehow were noticed by the powers that be and allowed to express themselves openly. The rest of the folks playing the scratch-offs are supposed to shut up. And keep scratchin’.