Psychologists say that the goal of crisis intervention is to help victims confront the reality of what they are living in DENIAL of and to bring a dose of reality to their life. Does this work for groups, institutions, or nations or just individuals? America and the world is in need of some sort of crisis intervention- BIG TIME! If there was ever proof that the world is in trouble and that something is terribly wrong with our world, one need look no further than the Notre Dame football record: 1-9! Is God mad at the world or what?

Here at home, the stock market is tanking, the US$ is on life support, the price of oil and gasoline has gone crazy, and banks have a bad credit rating! Banks! How many BILLIONS will the banks have to write off and for how long before we are out of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco?

Then overseas we have this problem called Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan for starters. Maybe the last shall be first and if so let� �s look at Pakistan. Will the nuclear power that Pakistan is fall into the hands of Muslim extremists? Can Musharraf survive the turmoil. And if he doesn� �t can we? Is it good to have opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest, or would it be worse for her to get out of the house and be killed?

Is there a win-win anywhere in these scenarios?

Is there anyway that we can take the � �bottle� � away from Ben Bernanke or Congress before they drink and drive us into oblivion? As Richard Russell said today, � �The US government ever since the early 1980s or really ever since 1974 has spent as much as it wanted and in any way it wanted. As a result, the US has become a vast empire and policeman to the world. I believe the markets are now saying that the US empire has run into a brick wall. You can� �t run a empire on borrowed money. You can� �t run an empire on money that the empire is creating and that other nations are forced to accept. The cracks are starting to appear. The first big crack has been the sinking dollar. If there� �s a second big crack coming up, it would probably be the stock market.� �

So is there any wonder that some are saying this week will be a major downturn?

How� �s your 401k working out Dr. Phil?

Or is there any wonder that someone like Jim Melcher, says he� �s � �worried about a recession. Not a normal one, but a very bad one. The worst since the 1930s. I expect we� �ll see clear signs of it in six months with a dramatic slowdown in the gross domestic product.� � Jim uses the word RECESSION because he� �s afraid of the � �D-word� �, but his taking us all the way back to 1930 speaks volumes of what he fears.

If the saying that bad news com es in THREE� �s is right, then I� �d say that the stock market is ripe for a major fall since the housing market and the US$ have already been toppled.