The sky is falling, according to some

I'm a minor fan of Thomas L. Friedman's column in the the New York Times. I don't agree with some of what he says (alas, my quest to find a clone of myself among big time columnists continues to be a failure, dang it. I need my quest reward), but he seems to be able to write logically, so I read his stuff as it pops up in my New York Times RSS feed.

So this morning, I read his new column "We Found the W.M.D." which opens up thusly:

So, I have a confession and a suggestion. The confession: I go into restaurants these days, look around at the tables often still crowded with young people, and I have this urge to go from table to table and say: “You don’t know me, but I have to tell you that you shouldn’t be here. You should be saving your money. You should be home eating tuna fish. This financial crisis is so far from over. We are just at the end of the beginning. Please, wrap up that steak in a doggy bag and go home.”

Oh Friedman, I chuckled to myself. Playing Chicken Little, are we? And like the villagers living with the boy who cried wolf (after the call thrice) I began to go into autopilot, compiling my grocery list for the day as I skimmed the rest of his article.

Until I read this:

The stock and credit markets haven’t been fooled. They have started to price financial stocks at Great Depression levels, not just recession levels. With $5, you can now buy one share of Citigroup and have enough left over for a bite at McDonalds.

Well, crap. Looks like the wife and I won't be eating out as much anymore.