If the commercial real estate market erodes further and the option-arm and Alt-A loans collapse as I expect, we are headed for a double-dip, and the second leg down will be as bad if not worse than the first as we've already thrown trillions at the first leg and pushed the interest on our debt sky high.

I agree with you there. As a matter of fact, I just rolled my 401K, which was invested in stable value finds into an IRA CD and this is exactly why.

The good news is that it appears that both economy killing proposals from the administration, cap-and-tax and socialized medicine, are going to be at best defeated and at worst de-fanged in September.

See! Every cloud has a silver lining <s>.