The economic firestorm that we are in the midst of is yet to be contained, or for that matter, completely understood.

Some things are very clear like the fact we spent more than we earned, as individuals and as a nation, for decades on end. That we know for sure, and regardless of who we blame the most for this situation there is no bigger economic mistake one can make.

This is something that I harp on often, and I expect I will keep on doing so because I do not have any reason to believe things will change; see: Ignore Washington -- keep saving; General Patton makes a point.

Today's funeral of Ken Lay puts to rest his physical presence. Where his soul will end up has been commented on many times and there does not seem to be any controversy. The fact that his family wanted to cremate his body (beating Satan to the punch or hiding the evidence?) is ironic in the sense that when he was alive his company (and my company too), crashed and burned from a financial height that I do not believe has been achieved before in such a short period of time.

The pain of his (and Fastow's, Skilling's and others) financially and morally corrupt adventures spread far and wide affecting a very broad swath of the nation and will be reviewed for decades in business schools, board rooms, Federal Commissions and more.

I crashed with the rest of the shareholders, workers, lenders and affiliated companies. To me the amazing thing is that in one day I made the best sell decision of my investing career and the worst buy. When Cisco Systems hit an all time high of $82 and was the highest "valued" company in the world at a capitalization of $450 billion, some idiot analyst prognosticated that it would be the first trillion dollar company. At the time Cisco was touting 50% annual growth for years out and my alarm bells began flashing. I decided it was time to abandon ship. I sold.

So what did I do with the money from the sale? I decided it would be a good idea to diversify more and moved the money from Internet/tech to energy. The sector was lagging at the time and I thought it might be ready for a rebound.