Shoppers kicked off the holiday season by trampling a Wal-Mart temp to death in their mad rush to buy cheap junk. It wouldn't be America without cheap plastic junk under the tree. What if we had to roast chestnuts over the fire and entertain ourselves by singing carols or something?

Meanwhile Santa Claus keeps coming early for the investment bankers. Nearly everyone has lost track of what the monetary number on the bailout has become. Bloomberg puts it at $7.7 trillion while the San Francisco Chronicle has it at $8.5 trillion. But what's a trillion dollars anyway when we're trying to save investment bankers. They need to get back to paying themselves $20 million dollar bonuses and $100 million dollar salaries so everything will be right again. Where does the money come from I keep wondering? Apparently everyone in the world wants to loan Uncle Sammy their money because Treasury Bills are "safe." We've become the biggest subprime borrower in the history of the universe. Hooray for us! We're number one! Sure we're going broke. We have no way and no intention of ever paying back those loans. Uncle Sammy borrows more money to pay back notes as they come due in an enormous Ponzi scheme. But all around the world everyone else is going broke faster. So they give us their money to keep it "safe" and we guard it like a Doberman guarding a hotdog. There will be a great relief when it's over. We'll be relieved of our savings, relieved of our jobs, relieved of our houses. Who knows, maybe starvation will even become the next dieting fad.