Comfortably ensconced in a Sussex Countryhouse Hotel, at the Future of Finance Initiative, a conference organized (“organised,” if you are a British journalist) by The Wall Street Journal, top flight bankers and financiers are meeting to discuss the near-death experience of the banking industry in Fall 2008, and whither we goest from here. Former US Fed Chairman Paul Volcker told the impressive assembly that they had better ‘wake up’ before it is too late.

When I say these things here, it is just me; when Mr. Volcker says them, financial movers and shakers might actually listen.

Volcker told them that they failed to understand just how close to the edge the US economy, and therefore the world economy, had come in the Fall of 2008. He also told them they were being pigs about excessive compensation and that complex and exotic financial products (that I have written about here too many times to count), such as credit default swaps (CDS) were a real Witches Brew of trouble. Volcker was in charge of the US Fed from 1979 to 1987 and currently chairs President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He should know from whence he speaks as Volcker presided over several up and down cycles in the US economy (for those who remember back that far).

Well, isn’t this embarrassing. Imagine if you owed $59 Billion, went to get your checkbook and found that you couldn’t even come close to making payments. What to do. . . what to do? Ask for a six-month moratorium from your creditors, of course!

Dubai is the most populous state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the one of the seven emirates (states), the others being: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al Quwain (but, you knew that). A map of the UAE looks like a raggedly slice of pie with all but Abu Dhabi, crowded into one corner. The whole of the UAE is located on the Southwest of the Arabian Peninsula, on the Persian Gulf, next-door to Oman on one side, and Saudi Arabia on the other.

Prior to 1971 the UAE was known as either Trucial Oman or the Trucial States, a reference to a truce made in the 19th Century between several Arab Sheikhs and the United Kingdom; still earlier, the area was called the Pirate Coast. Periods of British, Ottoman and Portuguese rule preceded. Dubai was called Al Wasl by British historians in the 1820’s.

I have written over the past year or so that the impending crisis in commercial real estate is yet to be fully felt or appreciated.  In the last couple of weeks, pronouncements from Media sources, think tanks, and real estate/economics conferences have reinforced my prediction and belief.  The ‘Other Shoe' that hasn't fallen yet in this sad economy is about to fall - and, when it does fall, it just might clobber that shopping mall, office building and other commercial real estate right in your town.

I spent a few days in Cleveland in late Summer appearing at a Mediation of a commercial real estate case (the ‘horse-trading' exercise in what is called ADR - Alternative Dispute Resolution; otherwise known as the full-employment-for-retired judges settlement procedure which has swept our legal system.)  We sat in a largely empty office building downtown, looking out over misty Lake Erie, and heard stories of many other empty or near-empty office buildings in that recently refurbished downtown that was the bright hope of so many there.  I keep thinking about that nearly empty office building, those empty, huge corridors and all the people adversely economically affected by that emptiness.

At first blush, it seems to make a lot of sense.  As National AG, Eric Holder says, paraphrased, let them have their justice rendered within blocks of the National Memorial where the Twin Towers that they destroyed used to stand.  Unfortunately, that is also the prima facie showing on the criminal defense side of our judicial system in support of a motion for a change of venue for the trial on the basis that nobody could ever hope to have a fair trial if conducted in the literal shadows of this horrendous crime against humanity where thousands died so horribly on national TV and in reality.

I know, I know . . . we all have our image of the quintessential old-timey situation where they catch the horse thieves and somebody yells out -‘Let's hang ‘em from the nearest tree,' and then somebody else, usually the justice of the peace, yells out - ‘No, let's give ‘em a fair trial first, then let's hang ‘em from the nearest tree!'  But, that is not what our legal system stands for in the modern post WWII era, not since the Nuremberg Trials anyway. 

Back during the depths of this economic mess, I wrote a piece here advocating legalizing and taxing marijuana as an answer to California’s unbalanced budget nightmare. Since then, my arguments have appeared too many places to count and much has occurred to what they used to call ‘Sin Taxes,’ as a route to getting our states back in the black.

If marijuana were simply legalized in California, and taxed at $50 per ounce, let’s say 10% of retail price (give or take), it would add $1 Billion per year to California’s budget – I didn’t make that up; that’s what a recent study has concluded. We don’t have the luxury of ignoring this any more. The time and scarce resources of our court system, law enforcement, and prison system are all hugely consumed and negatively affected by keeping marijuana technically illegal in California. I say ‘technically illegal,’ because the medical marijuana legislative scheme has worked well in this state since it was enacted in the mid-90’s and it has spawned some 12 or 13 other states’ schemes, all working fairly well in these days when nothing associated with government (or finance) seems to work well, or at all for that matter.

Not since 1984 have we passed this barrier, one many thought we would never see again. 10.2% unemployment means one in five American families have somebody out of work; real numbers of people unemployment may be nearing 20% without using all the statistical gimmicky used to keep the percentage as low as it is.

The Christmas year-end holiday season is virtually upon us. No sooner than we will wash our Thanksgiving dinner dishes than the Christmas songs will again dominate our media and the shopping bargains will dominate our retail industry. The retail industry which shudders to see what 10.2% unemployment means for year-end holiday shopping. Some five million Americans without jobs, maybe many more who have fallen off the far end of the statistical body count, will not be shopping at the local malls this year and will be hoping that they can pay rent, mortgages and for their family’s food.

This is big for next year’s off-year elections across the board. Incumbents are already watching their backs after the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections, and after Mayor Bloomberg won another term in the Big Apple, spending something like nearly a couple of hundred dollars per voter to squeak by his challenger for a too close for comfort, re-election victory.

Wall Street had something to cheer about Wednesday, other than JP Morgan Chase's reported record $3.6 Billion profit.  After flirting with the prized, five-figure psychological threshold a bit, the Dow finally crossed 10,000 once again, closing at 10,015.86, up 144.8 points or 1.5 percent gain, closing above 10,000 for the first time in a bit shy of a year and a fortnight - since Oct. 3, 2008.

Are we rich beyond dreams of avarice again?  Hardly.  Will the well scrubbed, unemployment figure now cross 10% nationally - juxtaposing two entirely different worlds (the second of which is not celebrating today)?  Likely, say our brightest economic minds.

President Obama gave a speech at a construction site joining two highways that ran out of money to complete their construction decades ago, fresh from his dubious Nobel Laureate-hood, touting how well we have done in this recovery since the dark days of last Winter.  Some $60 million of recovery funds gave jobs to hard-hatted construction workers smiling behind the President while he spoke. 

In Chicago on business this week where the City has just been stunned by the announcement from the Olympic Committee a minute ago - the 2016 Games will not be here in Chicago.  And the wind blows and the rain falls . . .

This mid-morning news has crowded out Media coverage of the bad employment statistics announced earlier this morning - US National Unemployment now stands at a scary 9.8%, above estimates, further clouding this stormy Friday here.

By the time you read this, it will be next week.  Media Talking Heads & Wagging Tongues will have chattered endlessly over this past weekend (which you can still, faintly, remember) and beyond:

I spoke over the weekend with a 94-year old woman, who just happens to be my Godmother, Elizabeth.  She had just attended the funeral back in Boston (where I grew up) of a woman that she had known for 91 years - her 97-year old friend, Jeanne.  Both Elizabeth and Jeanne's families were wiped out in the Austria of the late 1930's by the Nazi onslaught.  Elizabeth and her husband, Richard, had made it out by the skin of their teeth.  Richard was an anti-Nazi activist, and the Gestapo was literally knocking on doors on his street when he led his young wife-to-be, Elizabeth, on a wild journey to America, landing in Portland, Maine in 1939, and making their way to Boston.  My parents were their first American friends.

"Your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime." - Mose Allison.

What possesses one member of Congress at a joint session, while listening to a prime time Presidential address, to suddenly yell out: "You're a liar!"  - words that were quickly eaten by his own post-address apology and Obama's prompt next-morning acceptance of same. 

When it happened, the TV camera was fixed on the President at the lecturn, with Speaker Pelosi sitting behind, on the viewer's right, and VP Biden, also sitting behind, on the left.  Pelosi looked like she had been punched in the stomach if you play back a video recording of the speech, but wisely did not call order or single out the single Congressman who let his mouth obliterate his reason on national TV.

How did we get here?