A Christmas Carol ~ 2009 version

Ebenezer CEO was walking to his brand new GM Cadillac he got for a steal after turning in his old clunker 1990 Nissan his son had used 15 years ago for college. Counting his money from the huge bonus he received this year; from saving his company from bankruptcy by taking a big bailout from the government. He noticed a man, his wife and small boy standing in line at the food shelter.

The man Bob Cratchett had just been laid off from his job about 6 months ago and his little boy "Tim" needed surgery that his HMO refused to cover. Although his wife tried to look for work, she was a very successful office manager for a home builder, she to was soon unemployed when the home builder packed up and moved out of town.

A few months went buy and a few late mortgage payments Ebenezer CEO foreclosed on their property and left them homeless. No matter that Bob was able to catch up with the payments the bank foreclosed anyways.

"Are there no work houses, are there no prisons?" He exclaimed "Bah Humbug" He got to his car his driver took him, way uptown to the top of the hill to his gated community.

"What are we going to do Bob?" his wife asked. "I don't know, after we were foreclosed on our credit is ruined. No one will rent us an apartment and I can't keep paying the $25 credit check they keep asking for or we won't be able to pay the security deposit and rent." He kicked a bag into the street. A policeman pulled up and wrote him a ticket for littering.

Ebenezer was visited by three ghosts that night:
The First was Herbert Hoover
The Second was Charles Keating
The Third was Bernie Madoff

He awoke that morning, jumped up out of his bed glad to be alive, feeling his heart, and his hands, he rushed to the window. He opened the shutters and exclaimed to a boy watching his father mow his yard. "Boy what day is this?" The boy says "Que?" "What day is this" Ebenzer starts feeling frustrated. The boy says "No habla ingles?" Ebenzer shuts the window glances at the computer and looks at the date; it is December 26th.

"Great, the markets open." He calls his secretary. "Take out the rest of my money and buy,buy buy!" He laid back in his chair, he knew he didn't have a heart of gold but at $1200.00 an ounce he could just buy one.

What happened to the Cratchetts you ask? Well were still waiting for that story to unfold in 2010. Maybe with a public option for health care "Tim" will be ok. Maybe Bob and his wife will get another job, cleaning out all the foreclosed properties. We will wait and see.

Ok, you say I need to lighten things up a bit, well I no longer work for Walt Disney, I did for a brief time in 1995 after I was "let go" from Countrywide as the benefits administrator. One thing about Walt Disney as a company is; it truelly is the happiest place on earth when you work there.

Although I won the Wall Street Journal Dartboard contest earlier this year with my stock pick Rangold Resources (GOLD), I chose to sell it last week because I wanted to take the considerable profit. I do not forsee anything wrong with the company and truelly believe the next big bubble,like Real Estate in the 00's and Tech stocks in the 90's is in gold, I do not want to be a part of it. If you continue to read past articles on this blog like the Christmas themes you will understand that I warned of the coming economic downturn and this year although I believe it is going to stablize after a brief downturn in March or early April in the next few coming months we are going to here about the rise of gold and just like the housing market everybody buys when its going up not when it is at the bottom.

I also would like to welcome our newest affilliate Coffees of Hawaii can you guess what everyone is getting for Christmas this year?