Economy in Detox.

• Author: Clinton, Kate
• Position: Unplugged - Viewpoint essay

My nephew Paul played trumpet in his high school band and during the Christmas season they performed at nursing homes in their community. They played holiday favorites and the residents sang along. My sister Mary went to pick him up after a performance, got to the facility a little earls and decided to go in and see how the program was going.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

She heard the band doing a nice job with an up-tempo favorite as she walked down the hall. The combo was cranking and the residents were chirping along at different skill levels. The seniors were a bit sketchy on some lyrics: the weather outside, frightful; the fire, so delightful; no place to go. But they all nailed the chorus in a full-throated, "Let it go, let it go, let it go."

The chorus is not just for Christmas anymore. We are all learning to let it go.

Not that we have much choice. The B-School colony collapse is like Katrina without the water. Heckuva job, Georgie. Hanky. Benny. Who needs offshore pirates?

The real scandal is the shredding and looting that is happening in D.C. Oh, for the good old days when the Clinton team supposedly took the W's off keyboards on their way out the door. Sometimes I think this recession--there I've said it--is Bush's real immigration plan. Who would want to come to the U.S.? They might have to quick put a wall up at the border just to keep people in.

What we witnessed after Katrina was not only a natural and civil disaster but also a whole area of the country going through an unplanned detox at an involuntary rehab. It was not pretty. What we are experiencing in this rolling Category Ten financial disaster is an entire country going through an unplanned detox from turbo-consumerism. Flat-panel TVs, I-everythings, Uggs. Let it go, let it go, let it go.

As that GPS lady says, we are recalculating now. People are...