It seems everyone who is anyone (and has a blog) has been doing a “review” of 2008 during the past few days.  Dave Barry is not one to shy away from following the crowd and he’s now added his voice to the cacophony.

And while a big point of his 2008 review was that everyone got financially whacked to a point at which grown men now have to consult with their significant others about whether or not they could afford a medium slurpee.  I thought I would provide a quick review of Dave Berry’s review.  Sort of like a niche market within a niche market… let’s call this 2008 review a micro-niche market review.

January

In the Iowa Caucus, the surprise winner is Barack Obama, who is running for president on a long and impressive record of running for president. A mesmerizing speaker, Obama electrifies voters with his exciting new ideas for change, although people have trouble remembering exactly what these ideas were because they were so darned mesmerized. Some people become so excited that they actually pass out. These are members of the press corps.  And in in what some economists see as a troubling sign, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac invest $12.7 billion in Powerball tickets.

February

Amid much fanfare, Congress passes, and President Bush signs, an ”economic stimulus package” under which the federal government will give taxpayers back several hundred dollars apiece of their own money, the idea being that they will use this money to revive the U.S. economy by buying TV sets that were made in China.  The undefeated New England Patriots lose the Super Bowl to the New York Giants in a stunning upset that confounds the experts, not to mention Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had $38 billion on the Pats to win.

March

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer becomes embroiled in an embarrassing scandal when a criminal investigation reveals that he looks like a large suit-wearing rodent. Also he has been seeing a high-class prostitute known as ”Kristen” in a Washington, D.C., hotel. Spitzer resigns in disgrace; ”Kristen,” hounded by the press and no longer able to pursue her profession, receives a $23 billion bailout from the federal government. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac apply to be contestants on Deal Or No Deal.

Barack Obama addresses the issue of why, in his 20 years of membership in Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he failed to notice that the pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is a racist lunatic. In a major televised address widely hailed for its brilliance, Obama explains that . . . OK, nobody really remembers what the actual explanation was. But everybody agrees it was mesmerizing.

April

The price of gasoline tops $4 a gallon, meaning the cost of filling up an average car is now $50, or, for Hummer owners, $17,500. Congress, responding to the financial pain of the American people, goes into partisan gridlock faster than ever before, with Republicans demanding that the oil companies immediately start drilling everywhere, including cemeteries, and Democrats calling for a massive effort to develop alternative energy sources such as wind, the sun, tides, comets, Al Gore and dragon breath, using technology expected to be perfected sometime this millennium. It soon becomes clear that Congress will not actually do anything, so Americans start buying less gasoline.

May

The International Atomic Energy Agency releases a report stating that Iran is actively developing nuclear warheads. In response, Iran issues a statement asserting that (1) it absolutely is not developing nuclear warheads, and (2) these are peaceful warheads. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia and China convene an emergency meeting, during which they manage, in heated negotiations, to talk France out of surrendering. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac invest $17 billion in an Herbalife franchise.  Both the Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500 are won by Usain Bolt.

June

Chicago developer Tony Rezko, a former Obama associate and fundraiser, is convicted on corruption charges, but the press realizes that this is not an issue after Obama explains that it is not an issue. Tiger Woods, in an epic performance, wins the U.S. Open playing on an injured and very painful knee, thereby proving, beyond all doubt, that golf is not a real sport.

July

Barack Obama, having secured North and South America, flies to Germany without using an airplane and gives a major speech — speaking English and German simultaneously — to 200,000 mesmerized Germans, who immediately elect him chancellor, prompting France to surrender.  The economic news continues to worsen with the discovery that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have sent $87 billion to a Nigerian businessman with a compelling e-mail story.

August

Internationally, the big story is the Olympic games, which begin under a cloud of controversy when journalists in Beijing, who were promised unfettered Internet access by the Chinese government, discover that no matter what address they enter into their browsers, they wind up on Chairman Mao’s Facebook page (he has 1.3 billion friends). But even the critics are blown away by the spectacular opening ceremony, which features the entire population of Asia performing the Electric Slide.  In yet another troubling economic indicator, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rob a liquor store.

September

The federal government is finally forced to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after they are caught selling crack at a middle school. But that is not enough, as major financial institutions, having lost hundreds of billions of dollars thanks to years of engaging in practices ranging from questionable to moronic, begin failing, which gives the federal government an idea: Why not give these institutions MORE hundreds of billions of dollars, generously provided by taxpayers?

October

A Las Vegas jury convicts O.J. Simpson on 12 counts of being an unbelievable idiot. He faces more than 60 years in jail, which could end his relentless quest to find the killer of the people he stabbed to death in 1994.

Congress passes, and Technically Still President Bush signs, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, and everyone heaves a sigh of relief as the economy stabilizes for approximately 2.7 seconds, after which it resumes going down the toilet. As world financial markets collapse like fraternity pledges at a keg party and banks fail around the world, the International Monetary Fund implements an emergency program under which anybody who opens a checking account anywhere on earth gets a free developing nation. But it is not enough; the financial system is in utter chaos. At one point a teenage girl in Worcester, Mass., attempts to withdraw $25 from an ATM and winds up acquiring Wells Fargo.

November

Barack Obama, in a historic triumph, becomes the nation’s first black president since the second season of 24, setting off an ecstatically joyful and boisterous all-night celebration that at times threatens to spill out of The New York Times newsroom. Obama, following through on his promise to bring change to Washington, quickly begins assembling an administration consisting of a diverse group of renegade outsiders, ranging all the way from lawyers who attended Ivy League schools and then worked in the Clinton administration to lawyers who attended entirely different Ivy league schools and then worked in the Clinton administration.

December

Federal authorities arrest Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod ”Rod” Blagojevich after wiretaps reveal that he was . . . OK, that he was being the governor of Illinois. Everybody is very, very shocked. Meanwhile the recount in the extremely tight Minnesota Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken is thrown into disarray with the discovery that more than 13,000 of the ballots were cast by residents of Palm Beach County, Fla.

The CEOs of the Increasingly Small Three auto makers return to Washington to resume pleading for a bailout, this time telling Congress that if they can reach an agreement that day, they will throw in the undercoating, the satellite-radio package AND a set of floor mats. ”We’re actually LOSING MONEY on this deal!” they assure Congress. Finally they reach a $13.4 billion agreement under which the car companies will continue to provide jobs, medical insurance and pension benefits, but will cease producing actual cars. The agreement will be overseen by the federal government, using its legendary ability to keep things on budget.

If you enjoyed these snippets, you’ll love reading Dave Barry’s full column over at the Miami Herald.

It was crazy watching the stock market today.  The Democrat-led Congress was messing around and turning a serious situation into a time of name-calling, blame-shifting, and partisan back-stabbing, while the rest of the world (investors, savers, retirees and employees) lost our investments faster than any other time in history.

After the market closed, groups of politicians fought like elementary school children over the failure of the House of Representatives to pass Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion bailout plan. The S&P 500 index had just plunged to its worst day since the week of the 1987 stock-market crash, wiping out more than $700 billion in the index’s market value.

What this means is that we just spent that “$700 billion” today - and we still didn’t get a rescue plan in place.  Congrats to the Congress, Great Job!!!

Just to clear up a few things: The democrats were decrying the “fat cats on Wall Street”.  Well, these “fat cats” are still rich.  And there must be several dozen “fat cats” in total.  They were worth many millions, and now today they’re just worth several million.

But as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, that by making this about a bailout of “fat cats” and not what it cleary was - an emergency rescue of the global financial system - Congress put at risk the investments, deposits, money markets and life savings of MILLIONS of Americans, to say nothing of the people around the world.

Could we have the November election day moved up so we can get rid of some of these worthless Congress persons?

Even a country that is known for having a fractured government (Belgium) was able to put together a rescue of banking and insurance giant Fortis over 48 hours this weekend.  But our own Representatives, when they were faced with the greatest economic threat in the past 70 years, took more than 10 days to hash up this rescue plan (load it down with tons of “personalized” riders), and then REJECTED IT ANYWAY.

Just so people at home who are keeping count can be aware… More than $1 trillion was wiped off the value of the entire US stock market today.

The market (thanks to capitalism and free markets) will bounce back, possibly even this week.  But when we all finally catch our breath and look back over this debacle, we’ll realize it was never about the “fat cats”.  The House of Representatives missed it completely.  It was the small investors and savers around the world that have been left to twist and flap about in the wind as the systemic failures that till now had been merely theoretical takes place right before our eyes.

So, now we finally have an answer to whose fault it is.

Thank you Congress!