The bathroom attendant at the Fed says markets are calm but trouble percolates underneath

Ben Bernanke is trying is damnest best to soothe jittery markets. He says, at present, the waters of past turmoil, are calm. But all indices point to a steady erosion. Investment banks are writing off more and more billions as they must owing to the subprime Ponzi scheme chickens coming home to rest. Fuel prices keep climbing higher and higher; food and commodity prices, likewise. Standards of living are deteriorating even in the first world; political unrest is increasing; and the effects of global warming are striking dangerously close to the heart of the nations. The US dollar is so weakened that countries with useless dollars are creating sovereign funds, in order to buy up the crown jewels of America's industries and buy influence in its big bracket banks. It is a sign of the times of a declining US behemoth which has accelerated under Herr Bush's watch. Not only that liberal free market economics is suffering a backlash...remember Napoleon's crusade to bring the virtues of the French revolution to Europe and elsewhere; it had the effect of stimulating local nationalism and this precisely what we're seeing today. Little wonder, the bathroom attendant at the Fed has cause to worry.