Re: In fact, it really does look as if the foundations of US capitalism have shattered. The World As We Know It Is Going Down

 



And the US Congress, who actually made all the rules that got us into
this, adjourns and slinks home, ducking and muttering "Not our
fault!".


Dennis (evil)
--
What government gives, it must first take away.

 

Dennis wrote:

Exactly, all of the talking heads love to declare it was Bush's fault,
Clinton's fault or maybe Rutherford B. Hayes' fault but Congress writes
the legislation and spends our money. It was interesting to see how
"both sides" "came together" to bail out their contributors and friends
to help the "average guy".

 




Commies, in essence.  Guv and news media controlled by a cadre of
commissars who reap huge benefits from the labor of others.
I saw Paulson all over the TV this past weekend, and not one
interviewer mentioned his $500 million in Goldman Sachs take, or that
anybody with sense sees him as a fox with chicken blood sticking
feathers all over his face as he explains how he will protect the
coop.
My main political concern used to be that guv employment would get so
bloated that those workers would control every election, perpetuating
waste and featherbedding.
But what has happened is quite different, and I watched in amazement
as it transpired.  Started with the lionization of CEO pukes like Jack
Welch on magazine covers all through the '90's.
Never could understand why accumulation of vast wealth is a desirable
trait, but it has been lately.  Maybe that will change now, but I have
my doubts.  
As long as "they" make sure "the folks" can afford cable TV and food
on the table, it won't change.  Idle hands and hunger are the mother
of protest and change.

--Vic

 



<snippage>

Of course, neither of us knows what would have happened had the 2000
election turned out differently.  But I'm not so sure that things
would have been all that different under Gore regarding the war.  Gore
was a warhawk during the first Gulf war and the dustups in Africa and
the Balkans (the latter complete with manufactured evidence of
genocide as justification).  And he picked an even bigger warhawk (and
lapdog of Israel) as a running mate.  All of the candidates were/are
in the pockets of the various power brokers.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.


Wrong bill.  Look up the "Community Reinvestment Act".  Wiki has a
nice history.  Note in particular that the regulations were relaxed in
1995 (during the Clinton administration) and, in particular, note how
the Bush administration tried to beef up regulation in 2003, but was
defeated by Congress.  At the time, none other than Barney Frank
(current chair of the House Banking Comittee) said:

"These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing
any kind of financial crisis, the more people exaggerate these
problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we
will see in terms of affordable housing.".


See above.

As I said, plenty of blame to go around.

Dennis (evil)
--
An inherent weakness of a pure democracy is that half
the voters are below average intelligence.

 

Dennis wrote:

   Hello Dennis,


  What makes the Bush approach so disastrous is that they had all the
evidence not to go to war. Instead what they did was set up their own in
house analysis (including one run from the OVP) to look for anything
they thought proved their case. It was under their own analysis that
previously discredited reports from the aptly name Curve Ball came to
dominate. But they always wanted to go to war. Bush's first Treasury
Secretary, Paul Oneal (sp?), was struck by both that and the fact that
there were no policy discussion in the White House. This was a WH that
had already made up it's mind. No other WH, of either party, has
subjugated policy to politics to such a degree. Not even Nixons.

   Then, of course, they had Rumsfeld run it with unparalleled
confidence and smugness. Cheney's hand in all this can not be
underestimated.

  Not that I believe that was the correct path, but the real problem is
what they did with these "assets". Creative highly leveraged financing
and CDO's of CDO's amongst other "creative" instruments. This is so
impenetrable and opaque that to this date no one knows what these
instruments are made of. And that is why these are illiquid. No one has
a clue what the value is. And then leverage these 20 or more times, even
a 5% loss wipes out the fund.

   Jeff