The apocalypse may be diverting your attention from the likes of Goldman Sachs. So, is it any surprise that Lloyd Blankfein's Black Amex Card was found near the broken pipe of the BP rig in the Gulf. Mo Dowd, a columnist for the NYtimes, said her sources at the White House told her that the President was really pissed about this revelation. "The President does not have a Black American Express card and he is THE Black American!" the aide pointed out.
No one seemed to care that the card was found at the disaster site. It is now pretty much taken for granted that Goldman Sachs will continue to be associated with world case calamities of all sorts well into the decade. The close correlation between government attacks on Goldman and various global catastrophes has been document by us. Haiti, the Icelandic volcano, and now the Gulf of Mexico is caput. Interesting timing, don't you think. The theological implications seem clear to me...Lloyd is doing the work of god. Lucky the Vatican doesn't have this kind of juice with the Chairman of Chairman in the shy. I may apply for a Templeton grant to work through my proof for the existence of Goldman Sachs.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
After a Long Winter's Nap
Say it isn't so! Al and Tipper are going their separate ways. Our heads spin, our hearts race...what's for dinner? Do to the miracles of public health and a healthy diet (look at Al) the Gores were in danger of mummifying after forty glorious years. There was no end in sight, no flu strain to help in the near future....They bit the bullet and separated the pets and the gold fish. Tipper gets the Pat Boone albums and Al gets the photos of himself in various phases of enlightenment. The official cover story is that they have just grown apart.
Yeah, I can buy that: as Al gets fatter and fatter, Tipper is farther and farther away. Who knew that saving the planet might require eating it a chunk at a time. The rumors about Al being attacked by a Japanese whaling ship remain unconfirmed at this moment. But, we have not seen Al in any swim suit photo ops lately. Could be waiting for the scars to heal or he is just sparring us the horror, the horror.
Well, enough of that. Oh yeah! Did you see that Dr. Krugman had himself quite worked up in his last column "the Pain Caucus"in the NYTimes.com May 30, 2010? Krugman lays out the very likely possibility for a double dip recession based upon the mutterings coming out of the mouths of various people at the IMF, OECD and other drab financiers. He can't believe his eyes and ears as there is a substantial call for putting the breaks on fiscal stimulus to fight a non existing problem at this time, inflation.
Krugman gives all the rational reasons why restricting growth now is a very bad idea for the world economy in the short and medium term. The inflicting of massive pain across many national boarders to solve a non existing issue raises the question of what is behind this rush to the edge of depression. This is an opportunity for finance capital to further weaken it's enemy the regulatory and welfare regimes of the EU, and other activist state players. The steady play on fears of inflationary pressures has produced panic in the halls of Congress and odd behavior on the part of the Germans (I guess that is not surprising) and the European Central bank. It appears that the Chinese are not playing the game that would reinforce the power of the markets to dictate terms to the EU. Still, Krugman doesn't see or he refuses to call it for what it is: financial capitalists trying to provoke a collapse of the welfare state system across the globe. The Krugman might warn them to be careful of what they wish for. Without the state in control, there is no guarantor for markets or peace. Fascinating, isn't it!
Yeah, I can buy that: as Al gets fatter and fatter, Tipper is farther and farther away. Who knew that saving the planet might require eating it a chunk at a time. The rumors about Al being attacked by a Japanese whaling ship remain unconfirmed at this moment. But, we have not seen Al in any swim suit photo ops lately. Could be waiting for the scars to heal or he is just sparring us the horror, the horror.
Well, enough of that. Oh yeah! Did you see that Dr. Krugman had himself quite worked up in his last column "the Pain Caucus"in the NYTimes.com May 30, 2010? Krugman lays out the very likely possibility for a double dip recession based upon the mutterings coming out of the mouths of various people at the IMF, OECD and other drab financiers. He can't believe his eyes and ears as there is a substantial call for putting the breaks on fiscal stimulus to fight a non existing problem at this time, inflation.
Krugman gives all the rational reasons why restricting growth now is a very bad idea for the world economy in the short and medium term. The inflicting of massive pain across many national boarders to solve a non existing issue raises the question of what is behind this rush to the edge of depression. This is an opportunity for finance capital to further weaken it's enemy the regulatory and welfare regimes of the EU, and other activist state players. The steady play on fears of inflationary pressures has produced panic in the halls of Congress and odd behavior on the part of the Germans (I guess that is not surprising) and the European Central bank. It appears that the Chinese are not playing the game that would reinforce the power of the markets to dictate terms to the EU. Still, Krugman doesn't see or he refuses to call it for what it is: financial capitalists trying to provoke a collapse of the welfare state system across the globe. The Krugman might warn them to be careful of what they wish for. Without the state in control, there is no guarantor for markets or peace. Fascinating, isn't it!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Sky is Falling!
As the nation sits transfixed by the disasterporn coming out of Haiti, the facts on the ground here in the good old USA aren't too good either. Still, one can always say that Americans are so much better off than, say, Haitians. No argument there. But we aren't a third world country, with some exceptions. The New Orleans fiasco was a major embarrassment and still goes on....but it's not Haiti. Bob Herbert in the N Y Times, January 22, 2010 quoted a Brookings Institution study that points out that 30% of the population of this blessed nation lives at less than twice the poverty level for a family of four...$21,834. The fastest growth area for poverty is in the suburbs. What about Ozzie, Harriet, Rick and Dave? Forty thousand lives are lost each year due to lack of health insurance, and our infant mortality rate is that of Albania's. Still, we are not Haiti!
The recent decision by the Supreme Court to allow the outright buying of candidates by coroprate America will further reduce the risk of popular government's becoming a reality anytime soon. The marvelous legal fiction of the corporate person's free speech rights will most likely kill any attempts to stay the buying of the political system. Not since the Gilded Age has the prospect of wholesale political corruption been more likely. Where is Upton Sinclair now that we need him?
Poor O-man, he tries to save the elites from themselves and they don't get it. The last shreds of legitimacy of the political system have been buried by the supreme irony of the Supreme Court's enabling the corporate elites to bury the notion of a level playing field in terms of political contributions. This may have the beneficial effect of allowing the peasantry to suspect both major parties of being the same...bought. It now becomes a question of how to maintain the fiction of voter and citizen input into the process. O-man seems to perceive the threat of mass disaffection on the part of the voters, and he is rapidly mobilizing the circus team that got him elected in an effort to make it appear that he is ready to stand up to the malefactors of wealth...like the guys in his cabinet and at the Treasury Department.
The problem that O'man has is reality: the unemployed and the mortgage foreclosures and the lack of job creation and the wars and the corporate bonus pools announced by his friends on Wall Street and in hedge fund land. Still, it isn't Haiti. I feel so blessed that I am not in....
I am gratetful to the Urban Dictionary for the term Disaster Porn.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/opinion
The recent decision by the Supreme Court to allow the outright buying of candidates by coroprate America will further reduce the risk of popular government's becoming a reality anytime soon. The marvelous legal fiction of the corporate person's free speech rights will most likely kill any attempts to stay the buying of the political system. Not since the Gilded Age has the prospect of wholesale political corruption been more likely. Where is Upton Sinclair now that we need him?
Poor O-man, he tries to save the elites from themselves and they don't get it. The last shreds of legitimacy of the political system have been buried by the supreme irony of the Supreme Court's enabling the corporate elites to bury the notion of a level playing field in terms of political contributions. This may have the beneficial effect of allowing the peasantry to suspect both major parties of being the same...bought. It now becomes a question of how to maintain the fiction of voter and citizen input into the process. O-man seems to perceive the threat of mass disaffection on the part of the voters, and he is rapidly mobilizing the circus team that got him elected in an effort to make it appear that he is ready to stand up to the malefactors of wealth...like the guys in his cabinet and at the Treasury Department.
The problem that O'man has is reality: the unemployed and the mortgage foreclosures and the lack of job creation and the wars and the corporate bonus pools announced by his friends on Wall Street and in hedge fund land. Still, it isn't Haiti. I feel so blessed that I am not in....
I am gratetful to the Urban Dictionary for the term Disaster Porn.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/opinion
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