An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it. -- Bob Dylan

Last night at the delicious restaurant in NoLiTa, Peasant, I munched on six different dishes -- Octopus, mozzarella, prosciutto, roasted suckling pig, and stuffed Cornish hen. I'd last been to Peasant with James Altucher and the bartender, from Boston, had recognized me as her brother's roommate from Blinn College in Brenham Texas in 1992, and she saw me there again last night and sent over a couple complimentary deserts to finish off the meal.

I'd had a morning workout and was going to ride my bike with Lobo again before the night was over...but even as good as the food on the table was, I just couldn't eat it all. There was too much. That beautiful rosemary on those rosemary mashed potatoes...I should nibble on that more. But I couldn't. It was too much good stuff for me to handle. The breadpudding and white chocolate ice cream? Those four bites I forced down sure were savory!

Which takes me to today's market/economic topic in this post here (no, it's not a post about food). Is RBS (RBS) on crack, or is a stock market crash a reasonable possibility?  True story -- I actually used the word, "Crash", as in, "I think this market could crash another 15% this summer or later this year" as I nibbled on that crispy pork skin.

This economy is sorta like that table last night. We've produced a lot of wonderful things to consume -- houses, cars, refrigerators, iPhones, search engines, networks...and did I mention houses, cars, refrigerators, iPhones, search engines, networks...and that's exactly the point -- we've produced more of much of this stuff than can be consumed.

The consumer is full. As housing prices continue to collapse, the consumer's losing more of his appetite. And housing's still collapsing, btw. And I contend that NYC's market is the next real estate market to push away from the table and collapse to sleep off these excesses.

And, no, I don't agree with this line of logic from Barron's:

Signs of Softness Appear
In Manhattan Real Estate

Signs of cracks in Manhattan's property market could mean the rest of the country is on the road to recovery, since New York tends to feel the effects of a slowing economy later than the nation does. One segment still in the stratosphere: luxury condos and co-ops in exclusive buildings.

The logic here seems to be that the good times are just around the corner when NYC finally gets hit. I think a collapse in NYC's real estate market would probably cause yet more economic pain in the near term and take values of real estate around the country down even lower for the near term.

We remain near all time highs in the stock market in year six of what had been a steady economic boom. I continue to contend that caution is king to trading and investing right now.

In fact, I'd almost welcome a crash, so that we can finally wring out those weak handed scaredy cats in the markets and get on the road to recovery.

Don't you just wish Ben and the Democrats and the Republicans hadn't colluded to waste all those hundreds of billions of dollars they put into the banking system to supposedly prevent all the bad things that have happened and continue to happen anyway? We might actually be onto the sleep over part of the process instead of still trying to get away from the table.

Coffee, tea or a night cap anyone?

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