If you’ve been following this column over the last month, you’ve likely made some money by shorting the Dow Jones Industrial Average. 

Oh…we are such optimists!  So far, the Crash of ’09 has paralleled the Crash of ’29…and the Crash of 1873.

Americans are becoming used to seeing our money get sucked into a government-created whirlpool of debt and frivolous spending. A trillion dollars used to be a lot of money, but after the last few months, it is nothing. Get out your checkbook, Uncle Sam.

Dollar and yen slip as stocks gain, risk aversion eases…  Government aid for banks offset Citi, BoA results… U.S. net capital inflows fall sharply in November.

Risk Takers return…  Bank of America gets more cash!  30-year mortgages below 5%!  Looking for direction… And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Indexes drop 3 percent; All 30 Dow stocks lower… Financials lead slide on outlook concerns… Dec retail sales fall signals spending contraction

All around the world this Friday, investors are wringing their hands. The papers are full of the cause. More job losses. Slower growth. Bankruptcies. Debt.  There. Don’t you feel better now?

This country has made an incredible ideological shift in the past three months. I cannot help but think there is a deadly cliff at the end of this unexplored road. It is a scary time for patriotic American.

A spree of economic props dominoed across Europe today (Thursday) all sharing the same theme – stopping the global financial crisis from getting worse. The European Central Bank took a drastic step to protect the Eurozone economy from shrinking further by lowering its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 2.5%.

Citigroup Inc. (C) today (Monday) unveiled plans to cut more than 50,000 jobs in the “near term” and slash expenses by 20% to preserve capital as it faces a global slowdown that’s expected to push well into 2009.