Dateline: Lafayette Indiana

Lafayette Indiana. Eleven o’clock in the evening. The man has been up since six in the morning. He is watching the Daily Show. It is the man’s favorite show. The man realizes that mental masturbation can only put off the day when everyone realizes that the two party system is horseshit. The man doesn’t care. He is tired and the stylings of John Stewart bring him pleasure. The man knows that Barak Obama will be a better president than John McCain. The man also realizes that no matter who gets elected, the fortunes of the average American will still be heading southward. No one seems to care. The left is pacified by Obama, who they see as the second coming of Jesus. The right has destroyed itself on cultural issues that no one cares about. Jesus is apparently dead as a campaign issue. (Thank God). The governor of Alaska has been caught in another scandal. The election staggers on.

The man takes a sip of a glass of piss poor Indiana wine and wonders whether the heartland cares one whit about the Constitution. He concludes that they do not. Indiana is a battleground state, leaning towards Obama. The fact that the race isn’t closer, in Indiana or elsewhere, troubles the man. Who the fuck is voting for McCain, he wonders. People who either don't understand the issues or can't be bothered to care. The man thinks the hicks from the sticks should spend more time on Sunday reading books other than the Bible. The man gets weary. And sleeps.

Pundits

The PBS pundits seem to think McCain did ok, but Obama held ground. McCain's performance was very engaging, but didn't deliver the necessary knock-out. I agree, it seems like Gramps was on the Viagra tonight, but I don't think his performance was good enough to change the momentum that has been building behind the Obama campaign. Polls bear out the fact that going negative has hurt McCain's campaign and I don't think McCain visiting the Ayres matter helped him with the swing voters, which is all that really matters at this point. He has the base. He needs the moderates, and the moderates are more worried about their 401ks than any past associations Obama has with radicals from the 1960s.

The elections are 2 weeks away and both candidates have approval rates in the 50% range. This is almost unheard of this late in the game. Obama has squandered a great opportunity in this race by failing to hammer the Republicans on the economy, but he could hardly do so without calling attention to his own support by the financial industry. Nader, as usual, is right. You cannot have a debate between two establishment candidates and expect anything other than moderate differences between the major candidates. The economy is heading into a recession, maybe a depression, and neither candidate thought the issue was important enough to engage on a meaningful level. The lack of a meaningful articulable difference on economic issues makes the debate, and indeed the election, a mystery to the average voter, which makes them susceptible to attack ads and the like. McCain would be a disaster for the economy, but to expect much more from Obama might be a fools errand.

Part VI

Still on abortion. Taking a bathroom break.Back. Still on abortion. Smoking a cigarette. Back. Still on abortion.

Next (and last) question: Education. "We spend more than anyone but still suck compared to the rest of the world. Comments?" Obama says more money and reform. Recruit an army of new teachers and pay them well but would require pay for performance. Proposes a national $4k tax credit for a volunteer program. McCain says the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Supports charter schools and would let the rest of the people rot. Both favors competition, which is odd because it is an inherently uncompetitive field. McCain seems to favor allowing ex army people to get into schools without being accredited. Obama supports tradition of local control of schools but favors feds getting involved somewhere. Says the problem with no child left behind is that the feds also left the money behind. Obama is against vouchers and attacks McCain on college funding. McCain favors choice with vouchers. Unsurprising positions for both.

I'm getting slightly drunk. Thank god this is over soon. This election has taken years off my life.

Closing remarks: You know what they are saying. It's all bullshit.

Part V

Healthcare, blah, blah. If Obama wanted to win this election he would come out in favor of universal healthcare. All he has to say is, "if we can find $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, we can certainly find the money to create a healthcare system for every American". Election over. But he can't. Because they own him. They own both of them.

Boy, I'd hate to be "Joe" right about now. Every media outlet in America is sending a van to his house right about now.

Next Question: Abortion. McCain will appoint pro-life judges to please his base, Obama will appoint judges who actually understand the law. Although on second thought, his support of the FISA law makes me question his judgment, Harvard Law degree notwithstanding. Personal comment: Roe was decided on the wrong basis and as legal precedent it is questionable. That is very different from believing that the issue was "wrongly decided" which it wasn't. Next question!

Part IV

Deep into the second bottle of Bogle Pinot Noir. McCain attacks Biden for the vote on the first Iraq war and his idea to partition the country after the failure of the second-a good idea in my opinion.

New question: Climate change. How can we reduce our dependence on foreign oil? McCain says Canadian oil is ok, but Venezuela and Middle Eastern Oil is off limits. Accuses Obama of being an extremist. Advocates Nuclear, hydrogen and clean coal. Obama thinks that in 10 years we can reduce our dependence on that nasty oil. Obama drifts over into borrowing 700 billion (an interesting number) from China being a bad idea. Says we cannot drill our way out of the problem and advocates wind, solar, and geothermal. Much cleaner than McCain's plan. Obama reiterates support of free trade but suggests enforceable labor and environmental components to future trade agreements. Frankly, with gas prices falling, who really gives a shit? McCain does. "Drill now! Drill now!"

Missing from this debate thus far is any suggestion that the banks should be held accountable for bankrupting our children's future. Or the fact that there is a recession. Or that the Wall Street titans should be hauled up in front of a tribunal, found guilty, and shot. I suppose that is too much to expect. Why the fuck are they talking about the high-tech cars of the future when the economy is in a total meltdown? See last week's post on contributions to their respective PACs for my answer.

Next question: Healthcare. Both of them have no serious answer to this problem because they are both in the pockets of the insurance industry. Nevertheless, McCain's plan is a complete disaster and would cost most people thousands of dollars a year. Because he is a Republican, and they could care less about you.

Blogging part III

Getting nasty. McCain hiding behind the flag and defending the nazis who come to his rallys and suggest killing Obama. Obama, a bit less aggressive, but brings it back on message. Suggests tough vigorous debates but says we need to focus on the issues. McCain hits Acorn. Obama says Bill Ayres actions were despicable, but notes that the panel he served on with Ayres was funded by Republicans. With respect to Acorn, Obama says he represented them, alongside the DOJ, in a motor voter issue. Obama then reels off a long list of positive associates who have thrown nothing more than rhetorical bombs. McCain isn't letting this go, but sounds a bit petulant.

Next topic: "Who are you going to bring into the government. Specifically, why did McCain pick such a freak?" Obama defends Biden. McCain attempts to defend Palin. Round III to Obama. (And I haven't even heard McCain's answer yet).

Live Blogging the Debate Part II

McSame claims he can balance the budget in 4 years, which is completely unrealistic. Also claims he isn't president Bush. Accuses Obama of raising taxes on people making 42k per year. Talks about being a maverick. Obama takes the bait and answers McCain's attack, which is counterproductive. Denies the McCain claim on his tax plan. "On the core economic issues that matter to the American people...you have been a major supporter of President Bush." Keeps trying to push McCain into the Bush administration. McCain is very feisty tonight. Knows its his last chance.

Blogging the Debate

Hofstra University. Repository of underachieving college students for decades. Our two underachieving candidates meet for the final time answering the softball questions of the main stream media. This one takes place with both candidates seated facing each other, which makes it easier to stick a knife in your opponent's neck, but harder to attack them verbally.

First question is about the respective candidates tax plans. First question, "which of your economic plans sucks less". McCain opens with a violin sonata to Nancy Reagan who broke a hip or something. McCain then goes on to pretend to care about homeowners by proposing an outright purchase of home loans and expresses disappointment at Paulson for not proposing this in the plan that he enthusiastically voted for. Obama agrees that supporting the corporate bail-out was a good idea, since he voted for it too, and proposes his own rescue plan for the middle class. Obama offers tax cuts, cotton candy and free pony rides, and also proposes that we invest in clean energy and something else. McCain appears on edge and a bit combative. He is talking directly to some guy named Joe who is one of the 25 people who would be affected by Obama's tax increase on the rich people. Obama calmly explains that McCain favors more corporate tax reductions. I feel like I watched this debate last week, which, in fact, I did.

Stock answers follow thinly veiled attacks. Etc., etc. McCain accuses Obama of class warfare and wealth redistribution (which I enthusiastically support)and Obama reiterates the fact that he is proposing a tax increase on the wealthy. McCain, the owner of seven houses and at least as many ex wives, is arguing that the $700 billion we sent to Wall Street has no tax implications. Yawn.

Next question: deficit. "Aren't you both ignoring reality?" Good question. Obama is talking about structuring the bail-out properly and argues that America has been living beyond our means and needs to suffer. Suffer! He wants to end subsidies to insurance companies (there goes my job), and make government work better. Obama wants to invest in healthcare (preventive) and energy, sending young people to college. Good stuff. McCain is talking about adopting Roosevelt's policies in the Great Depression., developing nuclear power and offshore drilling. McCain proposes an across the board spending freeze. All of a sudden the Republican maverick has become a Grover Norquist conservative. "I know how to save billions", says McCain. Accuses Obama of porkyness.Brings up the projector at the planetarium. Obama gives a history lesson on the history of the national debt. Everyone not living on either coast is sleeping.

Of Looming Depressions and Credit

Recessions are interesting. Even more interesting is the collective attempt of the media and government to minimize the seriousness of the upcoming economic doomsday staring the country in the face. Even the Times got it wrong by referring to the “looming recession” in an article on the decrease in consumer spending as if it were an event yet to come. As a number of people noted in comments attached to the article, its hard to conceptualize the recession as “looming” when the stock market is down 40 percent for the year, one in three houses in some communities are in foreclosure, consumer spending is down, people are maxed out on their credit cards, new credit is unattainable for anyone except those who don't need it, and the banks are broke. “I expect those sort of semantics from that idiot in the White House, not from the New York Times,” observed one reader.

I’m thinking of investing in coal, since it is bound to feature prominently in a majority of Christmas stockings this year. I’m also wondering how long major retailers like Target and even Walmart can hang on if American consumers have no credit with which to purchase their large televisions and super-sized bags of corn chips. While interbank credit liquidity has grabbed the headlines, perhaps more pernicious is the drying up of previously available consumer credit. This is a big part of the crisis that is being underreported. Here’s an example: I have a friend who had an unused Citibank card with a $25,000 spending limit and a WaMu card with a $7000 limit. After inadvertently being 30 days late on one payment on the WaMu card-with an otherwise perfect payment history-Citibank closed his account and WaMu reduced his credit limit to the balance owned. So my friend went from having a credit cushion of $30,000 to zero, in less than one month. I have heard other reports that the banks are simply slashing credit limits for no reason whatsoever and closing inactive accounts, effectively leaving consumers with no credit at all.

So, in addition to the late payment dinging his credit report, canceling his Citibank card and reducing the limit on his WaMu card caused his FICO score to drop like a stone. Why? Because he was, all of a sudden, using 100% of his available credit. Mind you, this is a person who one year ago had a FICO score of 800. Now his score is in the low 600s and probably heading further south. Does this make any sense? The banks already loaned all of their available capital to people who truly should never have gotten credit, and now they are trying to balance the books and make up for their own sloppy underwriting by destroying the credit of their remaining customers.

Mind you, these same banks were just gifted with billions of dollars by the U.S. Treasury with no strings attached in the hopes of shaking loose the credit market. Ben Bernanke, said yesterday that he "hoped "the banks would put this money into circulation, although apparently the banks are not required to do so. Given their prior track record, does anyone really think that this money will do anything to help the economy? I sure have my doubts.

Oh, well. The family and I went apple picking this week-end so at least we'll have something for the boys to sell from a cart when the whole economy winds up in the shitter. Have a pleasant day.

Abuse of Power and Appeasement

While we have all been running around stashing our acorns for the coming apocalypse, there has been no let up in the government's campaign of spying on American citizens. In a piece of perhaps unsurprising news, two low-level NSA employees being interviewed for a forthcoming book on the warrantless wiretap program said in interviews that they routinely intercepted the phone calls of average Americans-Red Cross volunteers, aid workers, etc. and transcribed those calls at the request of their superiors. These are not people suspected of any terrorist activity, simply people overseas making calls to their families. On more than one occasion, phone sex calls were intercepted and transcribed.

I don't have the best of memories, but I seem to recall Bush swearing on live television that the only calls that were being intercepted were those of, hmm, how did he put it..........oh yeah, "It’s phone calls of known Al Qaeda suspects making a phone call into the United States. " It turns out that he was lying. Another surprise. Since listening in on phone calls of American citizens without a warrant is actually a felony, one would think that the Congress would have something to say on the matter.

Alas, the Senate Intelligence Committee (har har) which was created in the 1970s because the U.S. Government was abusing its surveillance power then, did nothing. They knew what the administration was up to because the administration told them what they were doing, and they did nothing. As Glen Greenwald points out in his excellent post on the subject over in Salon, "the Senate Intelligence Committee never bothered to investigate what the Bush administration was doing with its secret, unlawful spying powers, whether those powers were abused, which Americans were spied upon, and how they were selected. To this day, they have never bothered to investigate those questions. "

The "to this day" part is important because at the time the initial abuses were made public the committee was run by the Republicans. Since 2006 it has been headed by Democrat Jay Rockefeller, who has still decided to let the issue lie.

Let's be clear, we are talking about MAJOR abuses of civil rights. Again from Greenwald, "the extent of the abuses disclosed here is substantial — “hundreds of Americans”; journalists, Red Cross and aid workers; military officers speaking to their friends and families — these disclosures are from only two relatively low-level individual NSA linguists at one NSA facility in Georgia. If just these two individuals are aware of this level of abuse, just imagine what the true extent of the abuses is — both quantitatively (how many innocent Americans had their conversations eavesdropped on?) and qualitatively (who, beyond journalists and aid workers, were listened to?)."

I think if the Democrats want to earn their seats in Congress they have to stop acting like little Neville Chamberlins and more like an opposition party. Their failure to act to stop the dismantiling of the Constitution will not be kindly remembered by history.

Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum(b)

No mystery why our two contenders for the Oval Office voted Yea on the bailout:

Top 10 Corporate PAC Contributors to OBAMA:

Goldman Sachs $739,521
UBS AG $419,550
Lehman Brothers $391,774
Citigroup Inc $492,548
Morgan Stanley $341,380
Latham & Watkins $328,879
Google Inc $487,355
JPMorgan Chase & Co $475,112
Sidley Austin LLP $370,916
Skadden, Arps et al $360,409


Top 10 Corporate PAC Contributors to MCCAIN:

Merrill Lynch $349,170
Citigroup Inc $287,801
Morgan Stanley $249,377
Wachovia Corp $147,456
Goldman Sachs $220,045
Lehman Brothers $115,707
Bear Stearns $108,000
JPMorgan Chase & Co $206,392
Bank of America $133,975
Credit Suisse Group $175,503

Quiet Riot

As bad as the bailout was, perhaps worse was the spectacle of the Democrats and Republicans laughing and backslapping as the bill was signed. If this bill was really necessary to save the economy from imminent collapse, one would think a sense of quiet decorum would have prevailed at the signing. Instead, Congress celebrated like it was 1929. Here's a quote from a first hand observer, originally posted on Salon:

"A couple of hours later, upstairs in Republican whip Roy Blunt's office suite (in the middle of which the House, for some reason, has nestled the workspace for magazine writers), staffers cracked open cans of Heineken and blasted "The Final Countdown" and "Cum On Feel the Noise" ('80s music being the natural soundtrack as $700 billion prepares to leave the U.S. Treasury). And a cloud of cigar smoke hung in the air. It was the smell of a victory for Wall Street -- but, if the dire predictions of economic collapse were right, maybe not a loss for the rest of us."

California asked to borrow 8,000,000,000 from the feds so they could make payroll, but hey, at least Goldman Sachs will get to issue bonuses this Christmas. We were just sucker-punched, bigtime.

Tar and Feathers

Well, they went ahead and passed it, like we all knew they would eventually. The Congressional “mutiny” over the bail-out bill was quelled by the addition of several tons of pork which rendered the odious document greasy enough for the House to swallow without further dissent. Highlights of the newly larded bail-out plan include money for American Samoa, a repeal of a tax on wooden arrows designed to be used for children’s toys, and, in a blatant attempt to secure the pirate vote, a rebate against excise taxes charged on rum imported from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

It’s almost a relief to see that Congress has reverted back to its usual way of doing business. I was getting concerned that people were starting to think that by voting down the bill on Monday, the House was taking a principled stance against bailing out Wall Street on the backs of taxpayers. How comforting to know that there are no principles left in American government. Speaking of a lack of principles, I would note that Senator John, “Maverick” McCain voted for this bill after promising throughout his campaign that he would veto any bill containing pork that came across his desk in the oval office. Wall Street money talks, doesn’t it senator?

As for the rest of us who aren’t drinking rum in Samoa and shooting arrows at each other, the bill offers nothing except the banker’s hand in our pockets and the taxman at our doors. Apparently some Democrats also wanted to amend the bill to add an extension of unemployment benefits, but that change would also have required additional Senate action and it was deemed unlikely to pass. Unemployed voters don’t donate as much campaign cash as Wall Street bankers, I suppose.

I would like to formally inform my representative Gary L. Ackerman (D) NY-5, who supported the bill on Monday and voted for it today, that he will not be receiving my vote in November. He is also attempting to keep that vote a secret from his constituents. His web-site’s “press releases” for today make no mention of the bail-out vote. In fact, the bail-out package isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site. If our representatives thought this was such a good thing for Main Street, why are they hiding their positions. Oh yeah, right, I forgot. What this country needs is a good old fashioned revolution, because it seems like the only thing Congress would understand. If we let them get away with this, they will be able to get away with anything.

A Modest Proposal

It looks as if the House’s defeat of Paulson’s Raw Deal Wall Street bailout package on Monday afternoon was just a bit of theater to set let the market soften us up for a retry tomorrow. I read the new bill-it’s still horseshit. How will injecting cash into a bankrupt system ease credit and save us? Most Americans have car loans, mortgages, student loans, and credit card debt to the point where they have nothing to save. America's total debt, consumer, state, local, and federal is estimated to be over $50 trillion and this bill will do NOTHING to ease the debt burden on the average citizen.

Sorry, but I still smell a rat. This financial crisis has been a decade in the making, but we have to act on it in a week? We are being stampeded into supporting a plan that benefits few on the backs of many by fear mongering of the worst sort. No facts, no detailed analysis, just panic driven hyperbole. But don’t take my word for it, I’m not an economist. But hey, this guy is: Nouriel Robini, a professor of economics at NYU said that “[t]he Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown. It is pathetic that Congress did not consult any of the many professional economists that have presented - many on the RGE Monitor Finance blog forum - alternative plans that were more fair and efficient and less costly ways to resolve this crisis.”

If the government really wanted to help out Main Street they would also stop fighting tooth and nail against any of the bankruptcy reform being proposed for inclusion in this bill. Why is Congress resisting changing the law that would enable judges to work with people in bankruptcy to avoid defaulting on their mortgages? This is a simple solution that -- while not perfect -- would shore up some of the base of the problem (defaulting mortgages) and would cost tax payers nothing. Guess who would stand to lose money under this scenario? Bankers. Wall Street. Thus, it’s a non-starter. But Congress cares about Main Street? Ha!

I’d like to put forth my own modest proposal. I say we give every registered voter in America $1,000,000. This would cost much, much less than the proposed bailout and allow countless Americans to pay off their mortgages, eliminate their credit card debt and at the same time, pump large amounts of money into the economy that would eventually trickle up to the banks. If secretary Paulson wants to discuss the plan with me I’m ready to take his call. But I’m not holding my breath.

Robber Barons

Congress is about to give away my son’s future so their banker friends on Wall Street get to keep their houses in Greenwich. There is simply no other way to explain what is happening down in that cesspool at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Our politicians should be drawn and quartered for this and their bodies hung from the Treasury building. The bailout is unnecessary, unamerican, and it will likely be ineffective. The whole thing has been pushed forward with a manufactured urgency backed up with lie upon lie.

The best lie came from the Democrats: "All of this was done in a way to insulate Main St. and everyday Americans from the crisis on Wall St." (Nancy Pelosi). Insulate? Then why no bankruptcy reform? Why no money for investigators and auditors? Why no commitment to reform the way the street does business? Why no credit card reform? Why no automatic way to restructure the mortgages to make the (presently worthless) derivatives worth more to the taxpayer? Why? Because they are lying to you. This has nothing to do with Main Street.

Virtually no professional economists were invited to comment and testify on this plan, or appear to have been involved in coming up with it. Virtually all of the people involved, including those in Congress who are voting on it, are millionaires who have major investments in the markets. Especially Pelosi, who appears to be the ringleader. They all stand to make millions and possibly billions. Paulson owns $600 million in Goldman Sachs stock alone.

The fundamental principle of this bi-partisan plan is a $700 billion dollar tax shift from Wall Street to Main Street. That's just a fact. Any possibility of taxpayers recouping their losses on those worthless credit derivatives would depend on the housing bubble re-inflating. If it does, God help us, it will only be brief before it bursts again. Talk about voodoo economics. This is the economic equivalent of using leeches to cure cancer.

200 economists wrote to Barney Frank and Co. urging them to wait and study alternatives and they were ignored, as were the millions of Americans who wrote to their representatives screaming with fury. Every single one of those fuckers who vote for this bill, Republican or Democrat, should be held accountable.

What really speaks to how inept and corrupt Congress has become is the fact that if anyone were to ever introduce a $700,000,000,000 bill geared towards tackling our crumbling infrastructure, educational system, or healthcare problem they would be laughed out of the building. If the government is too "broke" to finance Medicare and Social Security, where is this money coming from? It’s all about priorities……….and you are not theirs.

Load the Rifle

It is interesting to watch the reactions of my fellow citizens to the Congressional wrangling over the capitalist system bailout. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the New York Times letters section for a few days now and what stands out to me is the apparently genuine confusion shown by many writers about the fact that their representatives are going to issue Paulson and the rest of the thieves at Treasury a $700,000,000,000 blank check when polls show the American public squarely against the plan. They profess to be shocked, shocked when their elected officials bend over backwards to save the asses of Wall Street titans but can’t muster enough votes to expand children’s healthcare by an amount less than two days funding of the Iraq war. Is anyone in this sorry excuse for a democracy really so naive as to think that the people in Washington are nothing more than paid lackeys of their corporate masters? How else to explain the intense effort to bail out the crooks on the backs of the middle-class?

And can we please stop calling the bailout socialism? Socialism would be if we took the people’s confiscated labor (that's what taxes are) and widely distributed it to the people in the form of social programs. In the bailout scenario being discussed in Washington we would be taking the people’s money and redistributing it to the upper class. That sounds more like fascism to me.

Even as the economy crumbles around them, the fat cats are still finding a way to hold onto their money while they try to steal yours. The Times story about the take-over of Washington Mutual by the Feds had this little gem of a sentence buried way down deep in paragraph 13: “Mr. Fishman (WAMU’s CEO), who has been on the job for less than three weeks, is eligible for $11.6 million in cash severance and will get to keep his $7.5 million signing bonus.” The audacity! Even as the lobbyists for the banking industry, and by that I mean Congress, haggle over the size of their piece of the bail-out pie in Washington, their masters are still stuffing their pockets with ill gotten lucre.

If the elites on Wall Street and Washington are worried about the people’s reaction to their massive attempt to loot the treasury they aren’t showing it publicly. They may, however, think that some behind-the-scenes preparation might be necessary if things start to get ugly in the heartland. From Glen Greenwald’s blog on Salon: “Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities. They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control (within the United States)… [W]hat possible rationale is there for permanently deploying the U.S. Army inside the United States -- under the command of the President -- for any purpose, let alone things such as "crowd control." Any guesses? I’ve got a few ideas.

Time to stock up on canned goods and load the rifle kids. Things are looking bleak out there.

There You go Again

So I’m watching Bush, who looks slightly hungover, read a speech off the teleprompter which proports to explain the financial crisis. Seems like the same scare tactics that the administration trotted out to support the invasion of Iraq. I just don’t see the urgency here, especially in light of the fact that Goldman Sachs was able to raise 7.5 billion dollars without any government intervention. There is money out there. What the government wants to do it to transfer the risk to the taxpayer. This, in and of itself might be acceptable if the crisis is as severe as it’s been portrayed, but the fact that the administration is still fighting against any curbs on executive pay and really fighting tooth and nail against any citizen participation in the buyout, I have to wonder about their motives. After eight years of consistently lying to the American people on every issue their credibility here is nonexistent. Perhaps Bush don’t seem to realize that people trust the government less than Wall Street.

What Bush is proposing is the greatest intervention in the economy since the great depression with absolutely no benefit to the average American. Bush just engaged in a defense of the capitalist system on national television without offering one reason why the American taxpayer should give the treasury secretary unfettered power to fuck with the banking system without judicial review. I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it not because I don’t think there is a crisis. I don’t buy it because I fail to see the wisdom of giving $700,000,000,000 to the former CEO of Goldman Sachs when it was he and his cronies who got us into this mess in the first place. If the Democrats cave on this then I’m voting for Nader.

First Count

The old carnival hucksters liked to say that the person who got "first count" of the day's receipts always made out pretty well, since he skimmed a bit off the top before handing it over to the next in line. The carnival hucksters had nothing on Paulson and the rest of the carnies over at the Treasury Department. I'm not feeling too creative today so here's something from Joe Bageant's web site (link at right):

"I never make predictions, but now I'm willing to guess that it's going to take a genuinely brutal collapse, one in which our citizens cannot get even the most basic necessities of life before the spell of American exceptionalism is broken. And even when that happens I have no doubt the citizenry will be provided with some appropriate scapegoat abroad, most likely a Muslim or Russian one. Hell, they are already ginning up the case against several suspects.

I find it amazing that after the highest rolling scam artists are given a walk for their theft. Our government is now letting the collapsing industries consolidate and actually own thousands of banks at the local level. I suspect that having raped the public for fees and having exhausted all the other mortgage racket scams, they now want to get closer to the pockets of the people and "get first count of the dough," as the carnies used to say. He who gets first count always makes money in the carnie world.

Another local citizen I talked to said: "Well, it's all more complicated than we can understand. You have to leave it to the experts." As if "the experts" somehow are not human beings prone to greed or other human folly. That people can watch such a disaster happen before their very eyes and somehow not relate it to their own lives as Americans boggles the imagination. It goes beyond apathy and into the realm of learned helplessness. Complete helplessness in the face of the corporate state. Complete reliance upon unseen "people in high places" who somehow know what is best for the rest of us, and belief these people will act first in our interests instead of their own.

I fear for this country's fate. I really do."

Kleptocracy

The fuckers are actually going to do it. Bail out Wall Street while the rest of us struggle under credit card debt at 30% interest, onerous mortgages, $4 a gallon gas and rampant increases in the cost of goods. A kleptocracy is a term applied to a government that extends the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats) at the expense of the population. Our government has abandoned all pretense of being interested in the welfare of the people. If the government has the resources to assume the cost of billions of dollars of bad debt from financial institutions and manage these investments, then the arguments against socialized universal healthcare seem a bit specious, don’t they?

The architects of this disaster should be arrested and sent to prison, not allowed to retain their stature in finance and hoard their ill-gotten lucre. Why the hell is the government using my tax money to bail out private companies? Is there no way to stop this? From what I understand Congress has to sign off on the bailout and I am going to send my senators a copy of this post and let them know in no uncertain terms that I consider this vast transfer of wealth from the workers to the super-rich as nothing short of treason. And why does the government only nationalize the companies that lose money by the fistful? I think if they are going to start seizing corporations why don't we nationalize a few of the big profitable corporations as well? Exxon would be a good start. They seem to make a decent amount of money.

As a letter-writer to the NY Times succinctly put it, “A bailout like this is anathema to those who responsibly sat on the sidelines while avaricious moneylenders and their debtors made wildly risky bets that have now gone terribly wrong.” I say it again, if we can nationalize" our most hallowed financial institutions with no debate and no public discussion, why can't we nationalize health care and energy development in the same way?

Down the Rabbit Hole

"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies ... If the American people ever allow the private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”-Thomas Jefferson

I think the most interesting thing about the economic meltdown in the financial industry is how little immediate effect the crisis is having on Main Street. People are somewhat nervous but they really aren’t sure exactly why. I know from looking at my 401k that I have approximately half the money I used to six months ago and I am one of millions. One thing is clear, by bailing out AIG and others of its ilk while leaving their shareholders twisting in the wind, the government has made its position quite clear: socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else. The last 10 days have seen the most intense period of government intervention in the financial system since the Great Depression. If this was the 1930s, Wall Street would be flooded with angry investors brandishing pitchforks and demanding the heads of CEOs but, alas, this is not the 1930s. The idea that this sick society could produce the likes of an Emma Goldman or John Reed is laughable. The government has successfully brainwashed the radicalism out of the people by giving them an endless parade of consumable goods and low-cost flat screen televisions. Food is also cheap enough that the government won’t have to worry about mobs of unemployed hungry people roaming around committing devilish acts of anarchy. Hell, most of us are so fat we couldn’t get off our couches to load our guns even if we wanted to. Let’s not forget that over the last seven years the totalitarian state has implemented mechanisms of control like surveillance and the abolition of the 4^th amendment, and the police are well armed.

It is going to take a lot more than shrinking retirement funds to get the populace out into the streets, but something tells me that a lot more is coming. I have this strange feeling that with one swift kick the whole shitbox will come crashing down around us. At some point it is going to dawn on people that there is an inherent unfairness to punishing the taxpayers while reckless financiers get to walk with their golden parachutes more or less intact. This kind of thing wouldn't happen if we extended capital punishment to white-collar crimes of sufficient gravity. My personal belief is that all the robber barons should be lined up against a wall and offered a last cigarette. A good old fashioned blood sacrifice is just the catharsis this country needs.