According to the IBD, the Wall Street sell-off has little or nothing to do with greedy investors trading "assets" based on crap, and it has nothing to do with the fact that our employers have outsourced all the jobs. Nope, the problem started when we elected "the most anti-capitalist politician ever nominated by a major party."
That's Obama, supposedly. His "anti-capitalist" credentials are invisible to me, but not to the eagle-eyed folk at IBD. Not only that:
The possibility of "a filibuster-proof Congress led by politicians who are almost as liberal."That is what set off the panic: The Deadly Dems. Not any liquidity problems or the deficit or the foreclosures or the layoffs or anything like that.
Hmm. But isn't the catastrophe world-wide in scope? I guess Obama and the Deadly Dems must be despised internationally, as opposed to the universally beloved G.W. Bush.
Read and laff:
Today, as the market continues to sell off and we plumb 12-year lows, we wish we had a different explanation. But it still looks, as we said four months ago, "like the U.S., which built the mightiest, most prosperous economy the world has ever known, is about to turn its back on the free-enterprise system that made it all possible."That prosperity was built by FDR, Truman, Ike and JFK, under whom we had strong unions, massive public works projects (the TVA, the interstate highway system), the G.I. Bill, protectionist trade policies and top tax rates reaching as high as 91%. That's the kind of "socialism" I wish to hell Obama would embrace.
Read more and laff more:
How else would you explain all that's happened in a few short weeks? How else would you expect the stock market, where millions cast daily votes and which is still the best indicator of what the future holds, to act when:Ah. So, the economies of Sweden under Palme, West Germany under Adenauer, and France in the period of the Trente glorieuses were all rendered illegitimate by the fall of the USSR? How?
• Newsweek, a prominent national newsweekly, blares from its cover "We Are All Socialists Now," without a hint of recognition that socialism in its various forms has been repudiated by history — as communism's collapse in the USSR, Eastern Europe and China attest.
Even so, a $787 billion "stimulus," along with a $700 billion bank bailout, $75 billion to refinance bad mortgages, $50 billion for the automakers, and as much as $2 trillion in loans from the Fed and the Treasury are hardly confidence-builders for our free-enterprise system.
• Talk of "nationalizing" U.S.' troubled major banks comes not just from tarnished Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, but also from Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and former Fed chief Alan Greenspan.
(And is it fair to say that communism "collapsed" in China? Last I looked, the state owned a huge chunk of pretty much everything over there.)
And are we to believe that the bailouts began with Obama? I seem to recall this fellow named Paulson...
And are we to believe that the bailouts are happening under the protests of the various capitalists involved? "Honest, I kept screaming at Congress -- 'Don't give us any money! We just want to die!'"
Does Irritable Bowel Daily really expect us to believe that the temporary nationalization of our near-dead banks (a step that other Western countries have taken safely) means that every church in America will soon be burnt by bearded college students carrying red flags and singing the Internationale?
Business leaders are demonized. Yes, there are bad eggs out there like the Madoffs and Stanfords. But most CEOs are hugely talented, driven, highly intelligent people who make our corporations the most productive in the world and add trillions of dollars of value to our economy.Wow. So the Dems did this? And they've been unfairly picking on those talented, highly-intelligent folk who invented the credit default swap?
They don't deserve to be dragged before Congress, as they have been dozens of times in the past two years, for a ritual heaping of verbal abuse from the very people most responsible for our ills — our tragically inept, Democrat-led Congress.
Okay, laff time is over. I draw your attention to all of this nonsense for a couple of reasons:
1. Nonsense, if repeated enough times, becomes conventional "wisdom." Once unemployment hits 15% and stays there for a while, a whole bunch of people will want to believe the kind of crap I've just summarized. Lots of people who voted for Obama -- even people who wrote crankish hate-mail to this blog -- will repeat the mantra: "Everything was fine until Obama was elected!"
2. Without government action, the entire economic system would have collapsed. Some folks may want to hasten that scenario. As Alfred says in The Dark Knight: "Some men just want to see the world burn."
Think The Shock Doctrine. If you are are among the elite, if you've been stashing billions during the era of corruption and banditry, you want Ragnarok to hit. You want to be among the last men standing after everyone else has been flattened. In the aftermath, you can buy up all of America's assets at rock-bottom prices.
Isn't that what happened in Russia?
Incidentally, why doesn't anyone ever say that capitalism was forever discredited by Russia's disastrous transition to a Milton Friedman-esque "utopia"?
9 comments:
I'm glad you're back, Joseph -- this is a wonderful post:
"1. Nonsense, if repeated enough times, becomes conventional "wisdom." Once unemployment hits 15% and stays there for a while, a whole bunch of people will want to believe the kind of crap I've just summarized. Lots of people who voted for Obama -- even people who wrote crankish hate-mail to this blog -- will repeat the mantra: "Everything was fine until Obama was elected!" "
This is so true. We already saw it when Bush's popularity plummeted.
Yes, that is indeed pretty similar to what happened in Russia, and yes the same is going to be done to America.
Mind you, there was no free auction when they bought up Russian industry at rock-bottom prices. What happened was they offered a kopek or two over the opening price, and anyone who they thought might be considering outbidding them was murdered. Paul Klebnikov describes this very well in his book Godfather of the Kremlim. (The 'godfather' being Berezovsky, and we haven't heard the end of his story yet). One element was that the authorities freed prices before they privatised. So the mafia had a lot of money (well, only a few hundred million dollars) with which to 'buy' the productive assets when the time was right and the signal given. An even more important element was that mafia bosses like Khodorkovsky were backed by, er, more 'established' global figures such as the Rothschilds. Meanwhile Popperite pap-peddler George Soros advised Berezovsky that he needed to 'consolidate'. Keep your enemies closer, that kind of thing.
Are certain interests looking beyond the possibility of wide-scale nationalisation in America, to eventual re-privatisation at bargain-basement prices? They might be. Whatever. Control is always the key, not formal ownership.
And what happens to American nukes when America "does a Russia"?
One difference, though: Russia does actually produce stuff that other countries want, for use in their own productive facilities, notably oil and gas. America produces, well, what, exactly???
You predict unemployment will stick at 15%? It was way higher than that in both the US and Germany in 1932. I'd start at 25% and move upwards.
The technological revolution that happened in the 1930s during the previous Depression was based on a real growth in productivity. This time it's different. The technological revolution is intensive only. Infotech. Genetics. Nano. Ever finer surveillance and control. Employment in the west is likely never to rise again to present levels.
"The commercial real estate collapse that’s going to happen in 2009 is going to dwarf the residential real estate collapse." -- Gerald Celente, U.S. trend forecaster in an interview with Russia Today.
I have a friend--call him Herbie--who is to my perception at least, among the world's best surfers. I'm talking real physical world here, where tons of water can slam on you and end your life.
I have a whole novel about him in my mind. It's a real "object" there that I turn to and see facets of from time to time; but it will probably never be written, or at least not for another couple of decades should I still have a life then.
Chapter upon chapter could be written on the quality of his skills and the quality of his character and the hours and days I have shared with him in my life. Were I to say that to his face, he would surely reply with a poker-faced mere glance--no wink, no hint of a knowing smile, no ego.
He can see the qualities of incoming waves way beyond the ken of other expert surfers. He just sits there and watches others... and most often, it seems, knows the whole picture of what is about to unfold. I've watched him take off (WTF are you doing, Herbie?) only to put himself in position to probably have saved the life of some stupid fuck who hadn’t developed Herbie’s situational awareness. He could get cursed for cutting someone off and few saw or commented on what was, in fact, an act of heroism. Stupid comments and threats run off him faster than water off a duck's back. He's a man of very few words. (It probably helps that his ever-present brother is an imposingly large man who is arguably one of the baddest asses on the planet--another man of few words, but legendary action.)
I once thought that Herbie was illiterate. This from the time, visiting me, he took a book from my hands, thumbed through a number of pages, and inquired to the effect of why in hell I bothered reading such tripe (it being from a library I had amassed which most would agree was of pretty decent quality--it's long gone now.) I mumbled something about my search for truth. He put the book back in it's place on the shelf, but (I noticed later) upside down. I thus wondered if he could read at all, knowing he had quit school sometime before the seventh or eighth grade. He pronounced that I need not waste my time thus, because, "There is right and there is wrong. Anyone can see it. You don’t need this shit."
Well, he CAN read, and reads on the net all over the place. (It somehow seems more correct to say he “watches.”) He never, to the best of my knowledge, comments or posts. He’s blindingly fast with the keyboard and hardly touches the mouse (fascinating to me because I’m opposite in both regards.)
So now he tells me he sees a good wave forming; The day is ending. The people who don’t know what they are doing are going to go home soon. “It should start getting better soon.” I’m not sure if that’s referring to the content on the web or the world situation (of which he patiently listens to me expound upon, usually answering only with his eyes.) I took it as the latter, and to some degree, both.
Given what I know of Herbie, I thought this worth an attempt at sharing.
Joseph,
I haven't been by in awhile, and it's good see you're still ripping things up!
This has to be one of, if not the most asinine quotes swirling around this Masters of the Universe debacle:
The stock market, where millions cast daily votes and which is still the best indicator of what the future holds...
Immediately, the now inevitable question surrounding conservatives pops into mind: are they stupid or lying? Can it be possible that IDB people are this stupid or do you think they actually believe this? Are we to understand that the booming stock market, topping out at 14,000 not too long ago, was a signal of greater financial glory to come, or predictive of the subsequent collapse?
The stock market is most assuredly not predictive of anything, least of all the "future." Under Wall Street's guidance of late, stock valuation has had almost nothing to do with real world viability of any company. The dotcom and housing bubbles were illustrative enough of this. The fact that these bubbles, and previous ones too, burst while Wall Street acknowledged that, yes, a bubble bursting is inevitable, but we didn't see this one coming -- honest! They never seem to see these collapses coming. If the "market" were as predictive as IDB laughingly claims, we all should have been well prepared for the fall.
who is John Galt?
So as we're all being dazzled by the Market Theatrics, what happens when everything fails and our economy crashes to a halt? Already the Military is progressively gearing up for Martial Law aren't they? Already Military Check Points are in operation out west and more are expected to pop up elsewhere.
Many earlier post of mine explained that I was in a family for more than 26 years who are directly involved in today's crisis however their link is with the Banks and others who have been causing all the trouble. I was told in the 90's about how our economy was being setup to collapse following "when something big" was to start it all. "Something big" is 911 for those who don't know.
For some time, there have been private investigations underway looking into the huge Drug Flights linked to a fleet of more than 100 planes involving the CIA and others. Included in this mess is Clyde O'Connor who happens to be my ex-sister-in-law's brother and her husband is my ex-wife's brother. I met Clyde while he attended a family gathering at my house in the 90's. It was there that both Clyde and my brother-in-law openly discussed in front of me an interest to start their new shipping business in Florida. As this has turned out, Clyde has made International news with his bust in Mexico more than two years ago with 4ton's of Cocaine. To this day, Clyde is still at large proving that being a CIA Asset helps keep you from being prosecuted which is what the family bragged about all the time.
Watching the economic collapse unfold in front of us should encourage us to look beyond with what other plans they have had for us. Considering this, remember the Detention Camps only when I was told about them in the 90's they were called Prisons. There are a few other special surprises waiting for those who haven't woken up yet.
Marty Didier
Northbrook, IL
As a poorly-off tenant with few reserves, I'm wondering what position my family and I will be in if the (local) financial system melts down. First off, we won't be able to get cash or access to bank accounts and therefore we won't be able to pay the rent. The landlord will probably have members of his own family who are also hit hard, and is bound to want his house back. The house that we're living in, and won't be paying the rent for. We'd be out on the fscking street quicker than you can say "Jack Abramoff". Now as ever, it's best to own at least a small amount of land! (which we don't).
That America is going to "do a Russia" seems to be an idea that's already sinking into various people's heads. See here for Arundhati Roy's take. Ditto, the West is dead, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn took for granted 35 years ago. He was right.
b
PS Gary, fellow non-TV-viewer mate, what are you meaning to say when you go on about "Herbie"?
The West is dead. Something that's becoming ever more widely recognised.
And this is the reason why Islam has won so many converts in places like Britain and America. Because, ever more visibly, all of the West's social promises are lies. The building's falling down.
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