Zoltan, the reason I said we Aussies play a fools game with Wall Street is that we are just guessing what might happen on Wall Street tomorrow, as ever. I wouldn't get too excited about Asian markets being uppish right now, particularly given that this is still (see e.g. my earlier posts) a peculiarly US problem.

Here in Australia, for example, we are welcoming investors who are fleeing the US market and looking for somewhere comparatively safe to park their money. The reason our market is attractive is that we have had genuine regulatory controls in place for over 15 years.

This crisis could well end up engulfing more countries, but at this stage it's your problem much more than ours. Personally, I will be quite delighted if the USA no longer has the money to wage wars abroad, and bully foreign governments with threats of economic sanctions, etc.

A blogger at Conde Naste (of all places) makes a good point. There is widespread consensus among bloggers that Paulson's plan sucks. Even top economic bloggers seem to be united against it. And one major reason is that Paulson has never bothered to even try to explain it, or the reasons why it's necessary.

I mean, if you want Joe Public to pony up another trillion dollars, you should at least have the courtesy to explain why you need it.

We've seen ashen-faced Senators staggering out from behind closed door sessions muttering darkly about how you could hear a pin drop when Paulson spelled out to them the USA's current predicament. But nobody has told the US taxpayer what that predicament is.

Now, I am guessing that would be the President's job, if Paulson hasn't got the balls to do it.

And I am guessing that the "predicament" is exactly what I've been saying it is: the USA is indebted up to its eyeballs and debtor nations (including esp. China) are just NOT going to pony up any more money. The party's over.

Who's gonna tell Joe Public the bad news? Who's gonna put their hand up and take responsibility?

The buck has stopped.

But where is it?

According to the BBC:

The move ... will also give them access to Federal Reserve support.

Can you spell "cynicism" kids?

From a London Banker's blog, via a commenter at Atrios:

Every now and then I have enjoyed reading Karl Denninger's Market Ticker on current events. His most recent video, which he warns may be his last, warns that the line crossed by the Treasury and Federal Reserve in creating new money to bail out Wall Street will - if unchallenged - lead to the political failure of the United States and its constitutional government as a representative democracy. He makes some very good points.

Unlike most people, I knew in 2002 and early 2003 that the United States was determined to attack and occupy Iraq because I have a long memory for bank failures. I knew that Ahmad Chalabi was the same forger, embezzler and fraudster who had looted Bank Petra of $300 million before fleeing Jordan, almost causing the collapse of the Jordanian economy. Since all the intelligence fabricated for the war emanated from Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, I knew the whole thing was being orchestrated by authorities.

I get the same queasy feeling today about events on Wall Street, and like Denninger, I wonder what the plan really is for the nation as more and more lines are crossed with extra-legal executive authority. I did not expect in 2002 and 2003 that war for oil in Iraq would lead to black sites, renditions, torture, Blackwater deployed in New Orleans, and other proximate results of a lawlessness and unaccountability that remained unchallenged and unchecked. I do not know what to expect of the USA in the years to come. That worries me deeply.

Link at my sig has the URLs.

So here is where we stand. Pass this Paulson Plan, elect McCain, and you have just become a Fascist state. The world will treat the USA as a hugely dangerous pariah, just like 1930s Germany.

An illuminating quote from Ed Morrissey at his old blog, Captain's Quarters, October 4, 2003 7:18 PM:

I would just like to let y'all know that I wear a 7 5/8 hat size.

And here's a pic to prove it: click my sig.

Guess who was a guest blogger on Ed Morrissey's Captain's Quarters blog back on October 10, 2006? Senator John McCain, letting the faithful know that even talking to North Korea was a dangerous policy:

"The worst thing we could do is accede to North Korea’s demand for bilateral talks...

This isn’t just about North Korea. Iran is watching ..."

Meanwhile, the Chinese government has employed an estimated 300,000 "50-cent posters" to spread government propaganda through online forums:

In this regard, the campaign is not all that different from some of the political techniques utilised outside China. McCain's presidential campaign recently attracted criticism when it emerged that volunteers were being offered prizes in exchange for seeding comments and messages supplied to them. The rewards on offer - books signed by McCain, a ride with the candidate on his campaign bus - tap into the mix of profit and politics alluded to by Lam.

Link at my sig.