?It’s a mad, mad world these days. An individual, who shall remain nameless, had a nightmare during the holiday season that merchants were only taking cash. One by one, neighbors were arriving at the pool party (the dream was set in warm-all-year Houston), empty-handed, saying, “They’re only taking cash.”


Credit markets had collapsed. Chips, salsa, tequila…These were just not going to be possible, except for the lucky few who hit an ATM the day before.


Burr, what a cook-out killer.


The dream was clearly rooted in a couple of recent events: the week post-Hurricane Ike, when Houston neighborhoods were emptying their fridges and freezers, and gathering for gluttonous consumption (even of long-shelf-life liquor) in the noble aim of preventing wastefulness; and the fact that the sleeper’s radio alarm is set to NPR, which has been reporting terrifying market news, morning after morning, evening after evening…and the sleeper has a bad snooze-button habit.


The waking reality is that, while markets have not collapsed (as of press time), they are certainly turned on their heads, teetering delicately on the edge of an abyss, without a clear view of a soft landing, provoking increasingly palpable anxiety among owners—of real estate, stocks, cash, jobs, creativity, charm, wit.


There are few observable fundamentals at work on Wall Street, largely because the job of valuing assets has been turned over to Washington. In the top-down market-propping approach, valuations are not being set from the bottom up—by the users of goods and services, and by the providers.


This year’s business experience is alarmingly, and dangerously, reminiscent of the events in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which plays out what happens to an economy and its constituents when government props up the most inferior business, an exercise on paper of market anti-Darwinism.


2008 began with an emergency Fed-rate cut one Tuesday morning in January before markets opened, setting off alarms throughout pro-markets havens. Very quickly in the year, the rate-slashing Fed ran out of monetary-policy power, and turned to a mint-and-smother currency policy to extinguish the fire with the sheer weight of paper.


While much of asset-valuation dynamics are now out of the hands of consumers and providers, this pause in reality may offer a time for reflection on what does remain within Americans’ power, such as improving Earth, or doing it no harm. One initiative bored business-owners and current and former employees can take is joining in a plea to end the past time of skipping stones.


Skipping stones is the habit-forming, neurotic, overly competitive practice of trying to excel at something. In this case, it is the attempt to flick a stone across water, and count the number of times it will skip (upon natural water tension) before losing velocity and simply sinking.


And, this is destroying the environment.


Some organism—usually a paramecium—is usually stunned, possibly fatally, by the ding of the stone upon the water it happens to inhabit. Paramecia are food for other water-purifying life, and their important work is set back by each stunning stone.


If these stones are carried to the site of violation and are lumps of coal, the lumps’ expression of their gas content displaces the water due to natural desorption. This, again, results in a less-oxygen-rich pond, further starving the paramecia, thus the two-celled organisms, and so on.


And the act requires energy on behalf of the stone-skipper. This energy is derived from consumption, and increased consumption creates further depletion of non-renewable resources, such as the fuel required to transport food (which could have been used to create transportation fuel, such as ethanol, which is made from applying gross amounts of the depleting natural gas to corn).


The stone-skipper would have a smaller carbon footprint if sitting on a couch all day.


In the new year, act proactively and discourage stone-skipping behavior. Meanwhile, buy stock in the maker of Ambien. Pour some tequila and hang out on the couch. Don’t throw stones. Switch the radio alarm to the local Golden Oldies station, and get a good night’s sleep.


The markets need consumers and business-owners rested and ready, so that they may still use Visa and American Express.

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