The Automatic Earth - Financial Blog

[Wandering Daoist]

THE AUTOMATIC EARTH
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com

The Automatic Earth is a blog I discovered while reading Asia Times.
I have not seen any references to the blog anywhere else.

It is a must-read. Its an amazing daily reading of the financial
crisis, articles culled from everywhere and packaged in one place.

It is the 'daily' Front Row Seat to the financial crisis.

[Wandering Daoist]

Friday, September 26, 2008 The Automatic Earth
Debt Rattle, September 26 2008: Absurd Theatre

You know that you’re in deep trouble when you have no choice but to leave solving your problems in the hands of the very people who got you into the mess you’re in.

Now, you don’t get to pick the swollen fatheads that lead the private banking sector, even if you can switch banks. And you have no say whatsoever in what happens at the Federal Reserve, the private organization that happens to have absolute control over the money supply in the country. As for appointing the people who run the huge number of regulatory agencies specifically designed to check if laws are upheld, you’re utterly powerless.

What you do have some control over is the government. You get to elect the president, and the guys and dolls who sit in Congress and the Senate.

What I’m saying is: don’t you find it a little bit ridiculous to realize that the very people you have voted into their seats, are the very same people responsible for the economic disaster that has only just started and will gain strength soon and fast?

Still, when you think about it, that in itself is not nearly as ridiculous, no contest, as the fact that you now are forced to let those same very people bicker and blabber about the best way to get you out of the mess they created.

I have talked about the legitimacy of a government losing control of its economy before. As I look around me this morning, it’s getting sillier by the minute. John McCain dishes Letterman, where he announced his candidacy not long ago(!), and goes to Washington to solve your problems. He cancels a debate, and then cancels the cancellation. How flop can one man flip?

That is the same John McCain who himself just very recently stated that he knows very little about economic matters. Come to think of it, that may well have been the last honest thing he has said.

And now, with the ink just barely dry on that statement, he has become the go-to guy in the worst financial mayhem in global history? Say what? I mean, how does that make you feel?

And then there’s president Shrubmeister II. How much confidence do you have in his knowledge of, and insight in, financial matters? If you ask me, the only people who have any trust in that at all, are the ones who believe he has a reborn direct line to God. Which at last count was, what, 40% of Americans? Hey, I’ll gladly admit, with connections like that, who needs to read reports?

Obama has been in the Senate long enough to be just as guilty as everyone of his peers. I never heard him raise his voice about what was very obviously coming, all throughout his time as your representative. In a word, useless. Just like the rest of them. They are all either clueless, or born liars, and in most cases both. But you can’t get rid of them; they’re all you have, and you are responsible for putting them where they are.

And now they are sitting down with bankers, both those that actually run banks today and those that have infiltrated the government, like Paulson, to put a spin that they think you will find palatable on a plan that they claim is intended to heal you, but was never meant to do that, from a disease they themselves passed on to you.

I’ll ask one more time: what is their legitimacy? Many of them were there when the Glass-Steagall Act was murdered in 1999, and when Greenspan and Shrub actively pushed people to buy homes with rivers of funny money. Who protested back then? Who stood up and left the circus in disgust?

No, they are all accomplices. And that means they need to draw the only possible conclusion in a democratic system: they need to step down. If they do not, the system is being eaten from within. A democracy cannot function, cannot hold, if elected officials remain in place after committing gross errors. This is such a situation, and very much so. Be they errors of judgment, or of character, that's not the point.

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Absurd Theatre, a genre of plays by writers such as Ionesco and Samuel Beckett. I’m starting to think you might want to read some of their work, or even go see a performance of, for instance, Waiting for Godot. It might be the best way to get a grip on what is going on.

NOTE: Did you see what happened yesterday in the largest bank failure in history? (Weirdly underreported, by the way). Washington Mutual has (or had, or has had) $307 billion in assets, and $188 billion in deposits. Last night, its banking assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion. I told you, Absurd Theatre.

If I may simplify this somewhat (like in terms that even McCain can understand), I would suggest we use that sort of re-valuation for all so-called "assets" in all financial institutions. Now that is a plan.