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| 28 Apr 2009 01:39:06 am |
 Coincidencia |
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What a coincidence! Another one in a row. As I said earlier, I’m a Coincidence Theorist. Just about the time that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo accuses the Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, and former Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, of demanding that Bank of America CEO, Kenny Boy Lewis, cover up huge losses at Merrill so the deal can go down, lo and behold there’s a pig flu outbreak in Mexico. Suddenly the whole sordid deal is swept out of the news cycle and it’s flu pandemic twenty four seven. We have two oligarchs who control the money, one appointed and the other not, forcing a supposedly free market corporation to do something illegal, a law dog gets the scent and look out, poor brown people start to die. The link to read is from Bloomberg
One oligarch to another – “bread and circuses ain’t gonna make this one disappear.”
With Cuomo by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the bugs of flu. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : cassandra |  Comments[42] |  Trackbacks [0] |
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| 21 Apr 2009 01:21:20 am |
| República bananera |
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Was it mere coincidence that the big banks all posted a profit shortly after the accounting rules were changed from “mark to market” to “mark to make believe” ? It looks like the market answered today with a big no. I was going to propose that we all get out of this recession with creative accounting. You, me, and everyone else simply values our assets at whatever we wish they were worth and, whoa la, we’re all millionaires, or trillionaires. Kind of like the recent La Cumbre de las Américas en Puerto España, where our lideres agreed to reduce pobreza by 50%, eliminate HIV, make water flow uphill, and turn lead into gold. We should all be like the big banks. I’ll sell my toxic assets to you and you sell your toxic assets to me at what we wish they were worth. Then we’ll say they’re actually worth that much because that’s what we sold them for, and of course we’ll lay the debt on the guy down the street and all those other poor suckers, I mean taxpayers.
There are a lot of theories – hypotheses more correctly – about why dear Barry seems more like Dorothy, we’ll shut our eyes tight, click our heels together, and we’ll be back home in Kansas. I’ll get a second mortgage and granite countertops while you get a handful of new credit cards and head off to the mall. There’s the incompetence theory that was popular for the events of 2001/09/11. They were asleep at the switch. Then there’s the just can’t believe it’s happening theory – throw money and hope for the best. This is kind of a faith healing theory. We’re the greatest nation on earth so all we have to do is believe. Then there’s the conspiracy theory. This is deliberate larceny on the grandest scale in history and the gang, you know who they are, you see them every Sunday morning on the talk shows, have their getaway jets fueled. We’ll see. One way or another the wealth of this richest country – fattest hog waiting for slaughter – on earth is disappearing fast. One good thing about climate change, maybe, is that bananas might grow better in Texas. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : cassandra | Comments[60] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 14 Apr 2009 12:23:03 am |
| Robaderas y transas |
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| What would you do if one day you realized that a cabal of oligarchs was systematically looting this country? Would you send email to all your friends, text message everyone with BOY R WE FCKD, or maybe write an obscure blog? It should be obvious by now, to everyone paying attention, that the latest alphabet cereal, TARP, TALF, PPIP following on the last bowl of CDOs and SIVs is a guaranteed transfer of wealth from the many, the poor suckers – I mean taxpayers – to the few, the wealthy, and the powerful. In other words, to the oligarchs. It’s like that poor sap, the taxpayer, has a credit card with no limit. Except he can’t charge anything to it. Only the congress critters, the political appointees, and the bankers can charge to it. And charge they do. I read that something like 13 trillion has already been committed to bailing out the banks and “kick starting” the economy, although no one has any idea how much a trillion really is. It does look like the new administration has a plan. It looks a lot like the plan that Dubya’s people had – transfer as much wealth as possible to cronies as fast as possible and load up debt on the taxpayer’s credit card. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Why are they doing it? Because they can. What would you do for a trillion dollars? And they won’t get caught. How could they? They’re doing it in broad daylight with the full backing and support of the federal government. They won’t be punished for it. After all, they are the government. How can you keep track of who is a banker and who is in the executive branch of government when the revolving door is spinning so fast? It looks to me a lot like a gigantic Ponzi scheme. It will end only when it can no longer take in new suckers. And when that day comes, the oligarchs will have so many trillions of dollars that they can buy an army of mercenaries to crush the people like bugs if we happen to get pissed off enough to try something. How does it look to you? Do you see a different reality? Do you expect to look back on this some day like the Savings and Loan scandal of the Reagan era as you retire to travel the world on your 401K? If so, then you’re probably watching Jim Cramer on CNBC. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : cassandra | Comments[41] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 05 Apr 2009 01:38:31 am |
| Qué pasa en la frontera |
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There’s a turf war going on about 200 miles south of here. It seems like a different version of the free market economics that’s supposed to be a good thing. Rather than gain market share by selling better products at lower prices, everyone sells the same products and you gain market share by killing your competitors. The products are exclusively alkaloids of coca, derivatives of the opium poppy, and flowers of Cannabis species. Two other essential commodities are cash and guns.
What do you see when you take the lid off a can of worms? Well, a lot of worms. That’s why reading thoroughly researched literature on conspiracies is so tedious. It’s just one worm after another. And since I have neither the time nor interest to delve into the triumvirate of cash, drugs, and guns in that much detail, I’ll simply point out some interesting analogies.
The U.S. invaded Afghanistan seven years ago ostensibly to capture one man. Never mind that it would have been a lot cheaper and easier, and more successful, just to buy him. Second lieutenants and right hand men of Osama’s were paraded in front of the television cameras one after another. Now Obama plans to escalate our involvement there with no mention even of Osama. Meanwhile Afghanistan has regained its rightful place as the world leader in opium production – a position it had lost under the regime that the U.S. invaded and displaced. It’s a big cash cow. And where does all that cash go? Well, to the banks of course, probably through middlemen like AIG. Those executives do something to earn those big bonuses.
Now we see top drug barons one after another paraded in front of the television cameras with no effect at all on the overall situation. Because none of the players in this game have any desire for the situation to change. Like the good entrepreneurs that they are, the narcotraficantes merely supply demand and strive for a greater market share. The consumers, and consuming is what norte americanos do best, want a regular supply of high quality product at low prices. The cops on the north side get ever bigger budgets to fight the “drug war” and greater leeway to kick down doors. Have you ever met a cop who argued convincingly for the fourth amendment? No, all searches and seizures are reasonable. Plus there are the property confiscation laws. Every time there is a big bust the department gets a big pile of loot. The cops on the south side of the border can work for a few pesos a day and risk their lives. Or they can work for a big payola and risk their lives less. All that cash goes back to the banks. Probably many more would go under without it. And the U.S. Government works for the banks. So the situation is likely to continue as long as there are consumers, suppliers, and the U.S. and Mexican governments. Likely one or the other or both of the last two will end first. Meanwhile the U.S. has a lot of high citizens paying high taxes, the narcotraficantes who manage to survive have enormous cash reserves and a lot of practice winning gunfights, the arms manufacturers make money, and the banks get much needed cash flow. Probably the fight will move north to places like Los Angeles. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : cassandra | Comments[26] | Trackbacks [0] |
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