It is not a good start to the week of Thanksgiving. The stock market is in negative territory again. Stocks are plunging on more bad economic news that has to do with a failure of leadership more than anything else.

The so-called "super committee" in congress that has been charged with crafting a deficit reduction plan appears to be a failure. Partisan politics is more to blame here than anything. This committee was almost designed to fail since it contained six Republicans and six Democrats, all heavily weighted by their party's ideology. The news that they will not come up with a plan is once again showing the failure of leadership at the congressional level.

Going into an election year this is presenting an uncertain picture before other world leaders. Another downgrade of government debt could result. Without a deal automatic spending cuts kick in that can trigger massive cuts in some vital government programs like defense.

Today's stories about this use words like "failure" and "lack of confidence' to describe how this is being received by the public. Even if some last minute compromise is worked out it shows the utter inability of leaders to craft an intelligent and effective deficit reduction plan that will insure the future economic integrity of the United States. There appears to be no wise men left in the room to get the job done.

Steve Myers and I did a piece this morning for BT Daily that talks about this issue. It seemed the best piece to lead with this week. I am watching this development carefully in preparation for a presentation I will make next month. "Mene, Mene Tekel Upharsin: Nations Weighed and Found Wanting" will survey the current world scene and the failure of leadership in bringing effective solutions to today's world problems.

We keep kicking the can down the road. One of these days the can is going to explode in our face. It will then be too late for any committee, super or not, to put it all back together.