Here's the deal: I'm getting motion sick watching the Dow chug up a few points only to plummet. Seems it's not just me, though. Riding back from McDonald's wedged in the back seat with my brother's kidlets (I'd taken them to heights only an evil auntie can and was being punished), I heard a news report on his Sirius that was discussing the tanking of foreign exchanges in places Finland or Norway (or somewhere else where one would be hard-pressed to find a self-and-heat-respecting Negrito such as myself) and elsewhere like Iceland .

Shocking to me is the fact that stock titans like GM have taken a hard tack downward. Given that health and welfare and salaries nationally are benchmarked against those of the Big Three auto manufacturers, this is particularly problemmatic. If GM cuts health insurance offerings, these offerings simply drop across the nation. Truth be told, those in the Comp and Benefits world use a formula for H/W bennies based on the Rust Belt -- $1,000/employee.

What we're seeing now is the beginnings of a slinky run down the stairs. Salaries will drop. Active employee benefits will plunge and then vanish and retiree benefits will disappear after Medicare eligibility. Then, those benefits will become a thing of the past. It's already happening.

I'm thinking that bailout was too little/too late.

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