The stock market, sucked downstream for the past week, finally plunged  over Vernal Falls today and the finance “experts” on CNBC are still searching for the body. Ya gotta love those guys. Their favorite phrase, when calamity strikes, is ”it was predictable” ,although none of them ever manage to predict it.

But in some ways, this shit storm was predictable. America’s GDP  is down, unemployment hovers around 10% (with another 5% of Americans simply having given up ever finding work again), Europe teeters on the brink of insolvency, and last month’s budget debacle made Washington the world’s laughing stock. And investors are a twitchy bunch with a herd mentality who react emotionally when things begin to slide.

But what was amazing about today’s market crash was how much it rapidly accelerated during this morning’s address by President Obama. Ostensibly the prez was attempting to assure the quivering masses that everything was gonna be just dandy, that Standard and Poors’ downgrade of the U.S. credit-worthiness was unfair, and, as Obama put it, “We are still a Triple A country!” That was about the point that traders began to bale big time and red barf covered the stock screen. It was probably not reassuring that Obama’s speech came 45 minutes after the announced time, but there’s a bit of history behind this: every time Obama (or Tim Geithner) speaks during business hours, the market begins to tank. Obama is like the William H. Macy character in the movie “The Cooler”,  the guy employed by the Vegas casino because he brings such bad luck to other gamblers. The fact of the matter is that, no matter how hard Obama attempts to appease them, the business community flat-out dislikes him, doesn’t trust him, and can’t wait for him to go away. 

Today’s speech was about as inspiring as plate full of  fermented trout, but it’s not to late. The tycoon community will never look to Obama for leadership, but the rest of the country is. Obama needs to double down, forget all about those phony “green jobs” he’s always braying about, come up with a grand plan to save the economy, and put it all on the line. I personally believe that at this point he has nothing to lose. The plan should include another stimulus of government spending, but this time the money goes to the people, not the banks. Remember all those “shovel-ready” projects that were going to provide opportunity for blue collar guys? They disappeared faster than Bush’s WMD’s. But with another infusion of fed cash, we could re-animate all those infrastructure projects the President talked about so many moons ago. This country’s collective transportation infrastructure is pure crap, with roads, streets, dams, harbors, and bridges in worse shape than most of us can remember. And it wouldn’t be just construction workers back on the tax rolls, it’s also engineers, and concrete men, and lumber men, and the guy who drives the taco truck to the construction site. And who knows, if these people had a little coin in their pockets, maybe even the aisles at Best Buy, or Gap, or Sears wouldn’t be so empty and desolate.

Now I know what you’re thinking, that a tea party controlled congress would never go along with another stimulus bill, especially one that would likely require new taxes. Well, fuck ‘em. With less than 60% of Americans under the age of 65 gainfully employed, with the stock market in free-fall, with the housing market in the toilet, and with Main Street in a state of disrepair, what the hell is Rand Paul gonna say, let’s not kick the can down the road? Well, the cans have all been scavenged from the dumpster and the road is so full of pot holes that the can wouldn’t get very far anyway.

Of course Congress would dig its heels in and fight Obama at every level. And it’s a fight he might likely lose. But, frankly, like the guy in “The Cooler”, it might be the President’s last chance at the craps table. And it might also be the last chance for the American middle class.