Letters to the Editor
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yeah, right.
"The events of the past few months should be lesson enough. But we'll have to wait until November to see just how many Americans are paying attention."
How about, "...how many Americans are capable of paying attention"? This is the most seriously undereducated population in the western world. Mention depression to most of them and they'll probably toss you a Prozac.
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Those who do not read history...
Just this evening I was talking to a relative who complained about the endless layoffs at her company, the rising costs of health care, how her salary was stagnant while the CEO got rich, etc.etc.etc.
I said: "Good, you finally get it. The Republicans are ripping us off with their lying and unnecessary war to make a few filthy rich."
Her answer: "Good God! The Republicans are the only thing that save us. The Democrats would have driven us into the ditch by now."
You can't stop a train if you haven't a clue what an engine sounds like.
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unemployement
Reasons to believe?? "In 1933, 24 percent of the work force was unemployed. In February 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.8 percent (though there are reasons to believe that number significantly underestimates the true picture)."
There are statements of fact. Unemployment--along with inflation--is one of many tortured statistics employed by the Gov, and especially the Fed. Real inflation is more likely 11-15% so we are not as far off as people think.
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Swell
Anybody want to bet the election turns on Chelsea's reaction to Lewinsky questions? To quote Clay Davis, "Sheeee-it!"
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Oops
Meant "These" instead of "There" and "unemployment" instead of "inflation." DOH!
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The Article Asks the Wrong (and Outdated) Question
Monday, March 31, 2008
Capitalism Gets Its Biggest Overhaul Since The Great Depression, And Republicans Are Going To Do It
An article in the (London) Telegraph by its financial editor indicated that the Bush Administration, led by Treasury Secretary Paulson, and the Federal Reserve Bank, led by Chairman Bernanke may soon propose the nationalization of the United States banking system.
Huh? Yep, those free market in the pinstripe suits and power ties are certainly thinking the unthinkable, and very well may act on their thoughts.
THAT'S HOW SERIOUS THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS IS!
Talk is that the model being considered for emulation is Norway's, when that and other Scandinavian countries found themselves in a financial quagmire produced by private enterprise in the early 1990's. Reportedly, the actions then taken proved efficacious, in contrast to the drip-by-drip approach taken by the Japanese in the 1990's when their economy imploded. That approach still has not brought Japan back to where it was economically before the implosion.
Already here in the US, the Fed has opened its borrowing window to Wall St. "Investment Banking" firms for the first time since the Great Depression, at least; and, perhaps, for the first time ever. The Wall St. firms have not hesitated to that counter and borrow.
The Administration has released initial drafts of new regulatory powers that they propose the Federal Reserve System be given regarding Wall St. This would have been unimaginable even 3 months ago.
In short, while the mass media covers every detail of Hillary's ensemble of the day and Barack's reason for leaving "Barry" in the dust and McCain's confusion regarding four-letter words beginning with an "I" and others starting with the letter "S," the entire centerpiece of our capitalist economic system is about to undergo its most significant--and traumatic--overhaul in 80 years, all with less media coverage than Britney gets if she puts on or takes off a pair of dirty panties.
Finally, the Norway model mentioned earlier ensured that shareholders of the nationalized organizations came away with nothing, zilch, zero, unlike the Bear Stearns bailout,where those responsible still walked off with their pockets bulging, thought the bulge was much smaller than they expected.
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what makes it worse
Is that McCain is going to be the next President.
Obama and Clinton are both hamstrung already and the nominee hasn't even been picked yet.
How do I know? I saw the cover of Newsweek today. A funereal blank white page with a small senior high school photo of Obama sporting a 'fro, followed by a caption, in deadly serious small font black letters, which read, "How Barry became Barack".
The allegation of the cover, and remember most people who see it will not buy the magazine and read the article, only a small minority will, was that "Barry" had undergone some kind of Black Panther radicalization a la Malcolm X and emerged reborn as "Barack".
In other words, he's toast. Toast, toast, toast.
Clinton is toast for all kinds of well known reasons. Above all, she can't escape her gender, and accompanying complaints that she is bitchy and shrill.
McCain was fellated lovingly on the previous cover of Newsweek with a photo of him in his young days, handsome and in full uniform. It was overlaid with a very cropped picture of him in the present day that basically only showed a serious, glaring eagle eye--in other words, he was photographically represented to be about 1,000 times more intelligent than he is. Warm tones, no sinister empty spaces. The headline, "The Making of McCain". Ooooh, baby. Like he's Robocop or something.
In November McCain will be elected. It's already been settled.
And then we'll have our great Depression.
However, it will be the last time the Murdoch dominated media will decide an election. People will be too poorly off to let dumb shit on the television make their decisions for them (right now they are still too comfortable). There are still too many elderly racists and evangelicals alive. The younger generation is not as hampered by these prejudices, which this cycle will still sink Obama and the adulterous Clintons.
Then we'll have an election in which the Democrats will win or the fraud to keep them from winning will be so evident that people will take to the streets. Then Blackwater will be called out, and the fun will begin.
I hope to be gainfully employed abroad by the time all this happens. And I do believe it will happen.
But the depression? yeah it's coming, once oil is traded in Euros it'll pretty much be here.