Peggy Noonan's most recent column in The Wall Street Journal provides an uptown take on the sense that many have of a gathering societal storm.

My first take was that her column is melodramatic. But she's right that after 6 months of economic panic, a lot of us are tired -- even those who are by most measures in good shape. A friend shocked me last fall when she said she'd pulled $10k cash out of the bank to have on-hand. I always have some around but nowhere near that much.

I wonder how many Wall Streeters are buying farms and seeking self-sufficiency?

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html


...I asked a friend, a perceptive writer, if he is seeing what I'm seeing. Yes, he said, there is "a pervasive sense of anxiety, as though everyone feels they're on thin ice." He wonders if it's "maybe a sense that we've had it too easy in the years since 9/11 and that the bad guys are about to appear on the horizon."

...Gun sales continue up. "Smith & Wesson stands for protection." People are scared.

...They are taking cash out of the bank in preparation for a long-haul bad time. A friend in Florida told me the local bank was out of hundred-dollar bills on Wednesday because a man had come in the day before and withdrawn $90,000.

...when I asked a Wall Street titan what one should do to be safe in the future, he took me aback with the concreteness of his advice, and its bottom-line nature. Everyone should try to own a house, he said, no matter how big or small, but it has to have some land, on which you should learn how to grow things. He also recommended gold coins, such as American Eagles.

...In Manhattan, Catholic church attendance appears to be up.

...We are actors in a moment of history, taking part in it, moving it this way or that as we move forward or back. The moment we are living now is a strange one, a disquieting one, a time that seems full of endings.