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The Rhyme of the Ancient Aviator or, The Dead Albatross Sketch

A few days ago the Idiot Decider ‘decided’ that the economy was, well, “uncertain”:

It is uncertain, there’s no question about it. Wall Street got drunk, it got drunk, (it’s one of the reasons I asked you to turn off your TV cameras.) It got drunk and now it’s got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up, and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments.

Si usted padece problemas de erección y el medicamento aliviará temporalmente los síntomas de la enfermedad, una manera de evitar esta situación embarazosa es. Para aportar Viagra para que el paciente reciba los cuidados más adecuados.

Bush at Pete Olson’s fundraiser, July 18th 2008

But who was mostly responsible for letting this fandango of ‘fancy financial instruments’ go into a wild frenzy?

Who else, but the Maestro, the Mr Magoo of Central Bankers? (“Bubble? I can’t see any bubble”). None other than the long time Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, a man who once famously assured the anxious souls in Washington that there was no need to worry, derivatives were just spreading the risk globally. This was, assured the Maestro, a good thing.

Working to a grand design, to give the US continual dominance in world markets by serving the interest of the “Money Trust” (the cabal of bankers who own the Federal Reserve), perhaps nobody had more influence on what is happening today in world markets, and for a concise summary, let’s see what F. William Engdahl wrote in January this year:

This is the true significance of the crisis today unfolding in US and global capital markets. Greenspan’s 18 year tenure can be described as rolling the financial markets from successive crises into ever larger ones, to accomplish the over-riding objectives of the Money Trust guiding the Greenspan agenda. Unanswered at this juncture is whether Greenspan’s securitization revolution was a “bridge too far,” spelling the end of the dollar and of dollar financial institutions’ global dominance for decades or more to come.

Greenspan’s adamant rejection of every attempt by Congress to impose some minimal regulation on OTC derivatives trading between banks; on margin requirements on buying stock on borrowed money; his repeated support for securitization of sub-prime low quality high-risk mortgage lending; his relentless decade-long push to weaken and finally repeal Glass-Steagall restrictions on banks owning investment banks and insurance companies; his support for the Bush radical tax cuts which exploded federal deficits after 2001; his support for the privatization of the Social Security Trust Fund in order to funnel those trillions of dollars cash flow into his cronies in Wall Street finance—all this was a well-planned execution of what some today call the securitization revolution, the creation of a world of New Finance where risk would be detached from banks and spread across the globe to the point no one could identify where real risk lay.

Ironic, when you consider that the Idiot Decider now thinks all these ‘fancy financial instruments’ may have something to do with the catastrophic state of their financial and credit markets, isn’t it?

Not only was Alan Greenspan allowing the pumping of Agent Orange by all and sundry, dispersing it far and wide with no checks on its usage, he was all the while singing its praises, even in the face of many who expressed their well founded concerns to him. Some years later, there are scorched earth losses hitting the US banks and investment houses and a lot of very sick borrowers who are pretty sure where they contracted their diseases. (Not to mention investors worldwide who are taking a severe haircut on vast tranches of this toxic subprime muck and anything else which has the label US mortgage in the fine print.)

Today, another 8,000 US householders got foreclosure notices. Yesterday there were 8,000 and tomorrow 8,000, and the day after that another lot. Pretty soon that adds up to millions and the cost to families and entire neighbourhoods is immeasurable. It’s estimated the final tally will be around 6.5 million foreclosures, but if this market really collapses, it could go much higher.

Currently there are worrying signs that the next level up from subprime, the Alt-A market, is starting to crack too. And this does not include the possible tens of millions of homes which will be ‘underwater’, with the value sinking under the level of debt being carried. People are now posting in their keys to the bank and simply walking away figuring it’s the cheaper way out. Throw the credit cards onto the bonfire as well.

“What bubble? I don’t see any bubble,” was always Greenspan’s answer.
Voters on the whole don’t know the details, but look at the polls that ask them about which way their country is headed. They point in one direction, and the mood is decidedly, well, un-American. The can-do nation is watching itself bobbing around in the can, and it’s not a national mood that sits well with them. They don’t do pessimism comfortably (they aren’t French or Russians, after all), but they’re not averse to revenge. Come November, they’ll unleash this, and it won’t be to vote for McSame…same policies, same incompetence, and same lies.

Obama set the national discourse with one word: ‘change’. And that word is getting amplified on so many levels, none more spectacular than his candidacy itself. A candidate who so defied the pundits’ paradigm of US politics that it almost universally took them by surprise. (It sure took Hillary Clinton by surprise!). How much change can he implement after nearly a generation of ‘regulatory debauchery’ is open to question, but maybe the voters will not be reading the fine print nor the arcane details, they’ll be going with their gut reaction, an aversion to what has gotten them into this mess.

Trillions of dollars of householders’ wealth is being torched in the bonfire of the inanities, and while none of this ‘had to be’, it was definitely ‘allowed’ to be.

If all of this financial meltdown wasn’t enough ballast for the good ship McCain, he’s still desperate to tell his story, and clutches the albatross he calls the ‘surge’, imploring anyone still listening, and tries to convince them it’s working. (He decided that telling voters the economy had made progress under Bush was not going to sail in the face of the shocking reality.) But it’s too late now because the voters hardly care anymore, they just want out, and so does Obama, and so does al Maliki, and nearly all the Iraqis who aren’t dead yet, or haven’t left the country (or what’s left of it). It’s a dead albatross, but it’s nearly the only thing he has, and he’ll go on wearing its bedraggled corpse until November, for all the good it will do him.

The death of the US dollar hegemony? Even the death of Reaganism?

Uncertain? Well, it’s quite possibly both.

But one thing IS for certain: that’s a very dead albatross that old guy is wearing.

“Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.”


(Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”)

For those with a Monty Python bent (and those terms go together so well!), perhaps they could try a variation on the famous Dead Parrot Sketch, with McCain as the storekeeper and the irate voter demanding a refund for his now very defunct albatross. Perhaps the bird was called Serge, and the confusion begins right there… over to you!

428 replies on “The Rhyme of the Ancient Aviator or, The Dead Albatross Sketch”

jen at 198,

Who ARE these people at Starbuck’s?!……..

Don’t they know how to take a hit or two in a globalized marketplace?……….. Pussies.
Havn’t they been blooded enough on the financial strangling of generations of family coffee merchants?
Star-Freakin’-Bucks!
Milquetoasts the lot of ’em.
Carrying on like a mob of bloody bean counters they are!

Johnny Bomb-Bomb’s gonna need a monster circuit-breaker (with muchos fear and loathing) to chime in with the usual surge of post Olympic jingoism to have a genuine chance of rattling a campaign as good as this.
By attempting to swiftboat a package so well crafted, McCain’s proxies will self-neuter.
The nastier they get, the more it will “blowback”.

“Bonnie Fuller on Team Obama’s Tabloid Strategy
Portraying Barack and Michelle as Brangelina Is Working

It’s official. The Obamas are just like us. With their latest PR move — being photographed as a family for this week’s People magazine cover story titled “The Obamas At Home” — it’s apparent that Team Obama has a clear and clever presidential marketing strategy: present Michelle and Barack as the beloved Brangelina of the political world………
He and his wife are telegraphing in a brilliant marketing move that like Brangelina — with their ubiquitous kids in their arms — they are hands-on loving parents and devoted partners who live in a traditional all-American-style house, and yet are deeply concerned with the serious issues that affect you, the American voter.

Now who wouldn’t vote for that!

http://adage.com/campaigntrail/post?article_id=129913

LOL EC
(BC:wink:)
ouy are sooo right. And the coffee is crap anyway. Whoever heard of caramel flavoured coffee??

It’s back to instant coffee around here – tastes roughly like detergent, but you can grow to like it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=a42pQ51PkF0E&refer=home

Keep an eye on China, where….

“Weakening export demand because of the U.S. housing slump and an international credit squeeze has stoked concern that growth may slump in the world’s fourth-biggest economy, costing jobs and leading to bad loans and sinking profits. Government options to stimulate the economy and protect exporters include loosening bank lending quotas, boosting government spending and restraining gains by the yuan.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1Mh08xR4FJA&refer=home

And be attentive to Japan, where…

“Japan’s unemployment rate rose to the highest in almost two years in June and household spending fell, adding to signs that the economy’s longest postwar expansion may be coming to an end.

The jobless rate climbed to 4.1 percent, the statistics bureau said today in Tokyo. Economists estimated the rate would stay at 4 percent. Household spending declined 1.8 percent from a year earlier, the fourth monthly drop, the bureau said.

More women entered the labor market or sought higher paying jobs to supplement household incomes squeezed by the fastest inflation in a decade, the government said. Weakening consumer spending and exports probably caused the world’s second-largest economy to contract last quarter….”

Meanwhile downunder, the NAB is having trouble borrowing money:

National Australia Cuts Bond Sale as Investors Balk (Update2)
By Laura Cochrane and Stuart Kelly

” July 29 (Bloomberg) — National Australia Bank Ltd., the nation’s biggest by assets, slashed a planned A$850 million ($812 million) bond sale by two-thirds after credit-market losses triggered a three-day, 19 percent slump in the stock.

The Melbourne-based bank cut the planned sale of June 2011 bonds by almost 70 percent to A$260 million after some investors “elected not to proceed with the subscription,” it said in an e-mailed statement today.

Provisions for Australian banks’ delinquent loans may deter overseas buyers from buying debt and force them to pay more for funding. Most investors pulled out of National Australia’s bond sale after it last week increased provisions for mortgage-related losses fivefold, the company said.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAnGV32vGNdI&refer=home

Glenn Greenwald spells it out for those who came in late.
Will the Pinko Poodles hunt out them full-bellied Blue Dogs come September?

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=or0eZYbvHiU

The linchpin for that destructive strategy is uncritical progressive support for congressional Democrats. That is what ensures that Democratic leaders will continue to pursue a rightward-moving strategy as the key to consolidating their own power. Right now, when it comes time to decide whether to capitulate to the demands of the right, Beltway Democrats think: “If we capitulate, that is one less issue the GOP can use to harm our Blue Dogs.” And they have no countervailing consideration to weigh against that, because they perceive — accurately — that there is no cost to capitulating, only benefits from doing so, because progressives will blindly support their candidates no matter what they do. That is the strategic calculus that must change if the behavior of Democrats in Congress is to change.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv90QzhegTw

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/07/29/blue_dogs_die/

Chris at 175

After digging around a little to find out some more on the Gallup/YSA Today poll of likely voters showing McCain ahead at 48% to Obama’s 40%, I came across this article at the Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/28/two-gallup-polls-one-day_n_115473.html

Over on the playground page I quoted Mark Twain with the phrase “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable” – which leads you to wonder what he would have said about polling results.

195 codger

Hmmm… a bit of weird rant actually Codge, since he’s really talking about the American class system surviving the recession, and yes, but so what? His notion that it’s somehow within the bailiwick of Europe to keep the world financial system (ie US hegemony going) is unfathomable. Strange argument, that one.

Let’s see: the US is borrowing over $1 billion a day to keep it’s economy running. They get this from the Chinese, the Japanese and also some recycled petro-dollars. This amount is growing and the foreign lenders are getting twitchy as they see US inflation eating into their returns. They’ve started asking for a better return and this means US rates must rise. No European controls this.

Meanwhile US banks are in dire straights through their own gluttony and near criminal carelessness. (If any idiot thinks a tranche of sub-prime loans had a one in ten thousand chance of serious default levels, then they should not be responsible for a chook raffle, let alone billions of dollars of shareholders’ equity).

To say it’s all the result of ‘human nature’ (as your author virtually does) is correct, but my question is always “which humans?”. And so his rant both lacks moral specificity, and analytical detail.

Don’t worry, quite a few ‘high fliers’ (serious large and hitherto ‘surging’ hedge funds for starters) have done the Icarus dive, and many individuals have been wiped out. But sure, the ‘old money’ (as I like to say: long enough for the blood to have to been washed off it), the elite class, will survive, some will even prosper, but that’s little consolation to those waiting in line and wondering what the free soup du jour will contain.

Jen, normally, righteous folk would let a thing like this go without sinking the slipper just one last time like The Joker. As creatures we are weak as well as strong; bursting with the complexities, as is any sentient being subject to the human condition on full throttle. For some this was just another stock market showboat dashed upon the rocks of mendacity and greed. Just another corporate franchise collapse like the rest of ‘em. A little bit of bad luck, poor management and container ships loaded like sky-scrapers with low-rent roasters ready to churn what the discerning buyers from Pablo and International Roast wouldn’t touch.
But for me, this whole sorry saga goes way beyond a few lousy coffee beans. These Starbucks swine launched well orchestrated mediocrity at outrageous prices upon the tastebuds and aesthetic senses of untold millions of decent law-abiding men, women and working teenagers!
For this abomination alone, a little more reflective time may well be in order and indeed, may prove instructive to any and all who would dare charge top dollar for a dud cup of coffee.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cagle.com%2F

http://www.politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/e83af3d5-fc97-42fa-97c3-7ab514ee9b80.html

http://www.politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/b051314b-1728-49df-813f-713e339a1d22.html

186

Will your nearest friendly soup kitchen have a menu that changes with a sufficient frequency to meet the exacting demands of society’s busy, new Jane and George Jetsoms?

and as the greedy mortage holders move in and foreclose on them and turf them out of their cocoons, they suck on the pumpkin soup without seeds as they slowly and painfully morph from yesterdays Jane and George Jetsoms into tomorrow’s Jane and George Flotsams in a gutter near you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKQZqGiiu54

None of us really wish this on any of them and hopefully things will pick up again and they are able to hit the road again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DjRJ9ubbJQ

Ecky and Blinder:

I’ts one of those quirky coincidences that the NAB CEO shares his name with one of the sharpest American satirists, namely John Stewart. (OK, he’s got the New rather than the Old Testament version, but you get the picture).

So his interview with Alan Kohler on last Sunday’s ABC business show was quite comical if you kept his moniker in mind!

It was a strange act: how could he sound seriously prudent on the one hand and justify having bought a billion bucks worth of what he was now declaring worthless paper?

Imagine the contortions required and the comic effect. Kohler looked like a stunned mullet as Stewart assured him that it was a sensible thing to do, in fact their very duty, to buy these ‘securities’ and they’d do it over again because, hey, who could have possibly foreseen the consequences?

Euphemisms abound: “securities”, “Triple A rated”, “investment grade’…..blahblahblah.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, knew it was a game of Russian roulette, and all the players hoped that their chamber wouldn’t go bang, and that some other suckers would cop it in the head.

It was insane gambling with 6 live rounds, a fully loaded barrel.

But there’s no ‘nice’ euphemism for this kind of recklessness, is there?

As another CEO said recently when asked what his greatest mistake had been, and he replied without hesitation: “not retiring last year”.

Ah, a soupçon of honesty.

‘Risk management’ is my newest definition of an oxymoron, and it’s right up there with ‘religious truth’, a combination of zealous belief in the patently absurd.

Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee are expected to unveil a $20 million investment in Hispanic voter mobilization Tuesday that targets most major battleground states.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said the sum is unprecedented for a presidential campaign and represents a show of Democratic confidence that Latino voters could prove pivotal in states including New Mexico and Michigan.

Although Republican rival John McCain represents Arizona, a state with a strong Hispanic presence, Dean cited a poll last week by the Pew Hispanic Center showing Obama’s approval rating with registered Latino voters at 66 percent nationwide, compared with 23 percent for McCain.

Registration required for the Washington Post political section.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/28/AR2008072802786.html

“It was insane gambling (Russian Roulette) with 6 live rounds, a fully loaded barrel.”

Makes a bloke grateful to be given the chance of playing the game with only minor obstacles like loaded dice and stacked decks against him.
At least you can walk away with yer arse afterwards.
—————————

Great riffing Gaffy, the raw precision and power of flotsom and jetsom to the cozy, cool dad-rock of those Wilbury boys. From a bang to a whimper as it were:)

I just watched the Star Trek episode The Drum Head. It has parallels with Bush, Guantanamo and as well as McCarthyism.
Scary isn’t it?

Buffett joins Obama to solve economic crisis.

Barack Obama was joined by the world’s wealthiest person, Warren Buffett, and a number of entrepreneurs, economists and union leaders for a summit in Washington yesterday to find ways out of America’s economic crisis.

Obama, who returned to the US from a 10-day overseas visit on Saturday, sought to switch yesterday from foreign affairs to the economy, the issue that Americans tell pollsters will determine their choice of the next president. “People are worried about gas prices, they’re worried about job security, they’re worried about their retirement fund as the stockmarket goes down,” Obama said before the summit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/barackobama.uselections2008

220 Enemy Combatant

Just two snippets from a fine mind and wicked tongue:

Drugs? Folks like getting out of their gourds on occasion, and some Methodists don’t like the thought that people anywhere might be having fun. Since people who want to interfere in the lives of others can always find a sympathetic ear amongst politicians, we now have a multi-trillion-dollar War on Drugs which enriches a criminal class and impoverishes the most miserable in society. Despite massive expenditure on interdiction, the street price of hard drugs declines. The rate of opiate addiction in 2007 is almost exactly what it was in 1907… about 1.5%. Well played.

Poverty? The supposed raison d’être for a government is the correction of market failures; chief among these is the provision of public charity (welfare) as a cure to the under-provision of charity in an unfettered market. Income transfers – funded by progressive taxation – are supposed to do the trick. Despite massive increases in the per capita tax take, and the ratio of tax to GDP, inequality has increased and is now at levels previously seen during the so-called Gilded Age of the Robber Barons… i.e., before the rise of the welfare state. Well played.

http://marketrant.blogspot.com/

…you’ll enjoy the rest, guaranteed.

That Johnson article is a good read Ecky, and his last paragraph distills it nicely:

Nonetheless, the current situation represents the worst of all possible worlds. Successive administrations and Congresses have made no effort to alter the CIA’s role as the president’s private army, even as we have increased its incompetence by turning over many of its functions to the private sector. We have thereby heightened the risks of war by accident, or by presidential whim, as well as of surprise attack because our government is no longer capable of accurately assessing what is going on in the world and because its intelligence agencies are so open to pressure, penetration, and manipulation of every kind.

…and haven’t we witnessed exactly that, on several fronts, eh?

McCain’s No “Boy Wonder,” but Holds His Own on the Web.

When it comes to technology, the popular perception of the two presidential candidates could not be further apart. While John McCain is seen as something of a Luddite — he admitted in February that he does not know how to use a computer — Barack Obama is embraced by the tech community as a new media Boy Wonder, whose campaign has revolutionized the way political figures interact with supporters online.

But an analysis of the technology spending on new media by the campaigns shows that the two candidates are not all that far apart in the strategies they are pursuing. The key difference between them, rather, lies in the execution of those strategies.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002928031

CQ Politics’ Top 10: Democrats Dominate Best-Funded Challengers.

One reason why Democrats are expected to make gains in the U.S. House in the November elections is they are fielding a number of well-financed challengers to Republican incumbents.

Democrats comprise nine of the 10 most cash-rich challengers to incumbents of the opposite party, according to a CQ Politics analysis of campaign finance reports that were recently filed with the Federal Election Commission. The large cash-on-hand totals posted by these Democrats are one sign party officials are hopeful of a number of seat takeovers in November.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000002928033

The Office of the Inspector General has issued a 140-page report clearly stating that Monica Goodling, a former senior aide to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, repeatedly broke the law by interrogating prospective judges and other federal employees to see if their views on abortion, gay marriage and other political subjects were compatible with the administration’s. Such political tests are expressly forbidden by law. Other Justice Dept. officials were also implicated. The report gives examples such as a prosecutor who got rave reviews from his superiors being passed over for a counterterrorism slot in favor of a inexperienced Republican lawyer beause the prosecutor’s wife was active in Democratic Party politics. Other examples include a lawyer getting good marks because he held “correct” views on God, guns, and gays. This report will undoubted give the Democrats more ammo for calling the Republicans corrupt in the Fall. It is a slow news day so the story is being played big everywhere.

http://www.electoral-vote.com

A FORMER Pentagon adviser who was an early advocate of invading Iraq has been looking into entering the potentially lucrative oil business there, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

Citing documents outlining a possible deal and people close to the negotiations, the Journal said Richard Perle has been looking into drilling in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, near the city of Erbil.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24098119-23109,00.html

Does this make anyone else vomit?

The ‘marketrant’ link @223 is a good read ,hits the spot and entertaining into the bargain.

229 Possum Comitatus

Richard Perle has ALWAYS made me vomit Possum, and this is just another retrograde bolus inducing bit of neocon scumbuggery.

228 megan

Dr Alex Wodak (amongst many other fine folks) has been banging on that harm minimisation would not only save us an absolute fortune, but it would save lives into the bargain.

But the moral cripples who defend the indefensible with the notion that there’s some absolute moral purity to be attained by victimising the victims really are the dangerous ones.

It’s interesting to compare the ‘drugs took our child’ parents with ‘the system took our child’ parents. Listen closely to them, and then decide which ones are talking up a smokescreen and which ones have really gone through grief to the truth.

possum, Perle is utterly disgusting. Here was I thinking that piracy had been wiped out in the 19th century. How wrong can you get: Bush has restored it. What a disgrace.

228 Possum Comitatus Another poll issue. This one actually helps prove the reason for the invasion. MoveOn.org will have fun with this one.

KR @ 218, this would have to be one of NAB’s darker days: their bond issue failed. In another era, this kind of event would spark a run by depositors. When the country’s largest lender can’t raise a few bucks, you’d have to say the markets agree with Alan Kohler. Who’d have thought the NAB would get the bum’s rush!

“Chris B
The Office of the Inspector General has issued a 140-page report clearly stating that Monica Goodling, a former senior aide to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, repeatedly broke the law……”

These guys obviously haven’t watched The West Wing. Don’t they know they could be forced to move in with Toby Ziegler for this sort of thing.

D’accord Possum, Kirri et Bo-Bo, Richard Perle is spewsville on the skids.

Yes megan, Kirri’s linked rant from author(s) innominate was a pearler. Astute and colourful econo-political writing is in devilishly short supply in these dastardly days of institutional fiscal irrectitude.

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/07/29/tomo/#

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/56886

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/56887

235 blindoptimist

It’s gobsmacking BlindO, as you rightly point out. It shows the kind of punishment being meted out and can mean only one thing: higher rates for debt.

Guess who gets to pay for all this folly?

It won’t be the John Stewarts of this world. Oh, maybe a few less options in the kitty at Xmas, but basically they won’t suffer more than an awkward interview on TV and some very testy shareholder meetings.

It’s a shame ‘public stocks’ don’t still come in wooden models in the town square anymore isn’t it? LOL

232 megan

that’s quite OK Megan, I understand how easy it is to get irate about the incredible stupidity of it all.

It reminds me of how people think the markets are somehow rational! Well, as we can plainly see, they ain’t! From costing risk to assuming that carbon dioxide is not part of the cost structure of human existence. Irrational belief systems abound in all human behaviour and it’s constant vigilance and striving for a better world, or succumb to loony toons who demand we genuflect to their crackpot ideas.

Well KR, you can be sure that if public humiliation was still permitted, somehow or other the Stewarts of the world would have the lock and keys. The history of Australian banking is not so glossy. There have been plenty of failures as well as some very near misses – including among the 4 pillars – so what we’re seeing is not new. But we’re very unaccustomed to these scenes of genuine doubt about the safety of our banks. I think our 19th century ancestors would be less surprised. It does make me wonder what APRA have been doing with themselves. Do they do anything at all? Or just tick boxes and nod among themselves?

megan, I read the rant too. I felt assailed. The ranter reminds me if a some kind of Survivalist brawler of the bourses. Perhaps he has a stash of Treasury Bonds, a safe half-full of bullion and a pallet of scotch in his garage? How’d he get into such a rage? Maybe he saves stamps?

Chris B
236 blindoptimist Watch Bill Maher on Monica Goodling. Very scary…..
…….
terrific video, CB.

If I remember correctly Possum, it was Perle’s mate Wolfowitz who first claimed that invading Iraq made sense economically because hey, the Iraqi’s liberated oil fields would easily fund their reconstruction costs.

Hey. we are doing the world a favour guys! Perle and his cabal of neocons were so keen to promulgate this claptrap…and now we can see why:

Wednesday, November 28, 2007;

Two top Kurdish leaders are a long way from the mountains of northern Iraq this week.

On Monday night, Omer Fattah Hussain was the toast of a dinner held at the 10,000-square-foot McLean mansion of Ed Rogers, a Reagan White House political director and current chairman of the lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers. In an opulent living room just off an art-filled entryway with a curved double stairway, the deputy prime minister of the Iraqi Kurds’ autonomous region mingled with such luminaries as former assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle, former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and former White House press secretary Tony Snow.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/27/AR2007112702356.html?hpid=topnews

…Scooter and Perle, nice.

But Ed Rogers outfit is something else again, and even had (have?) the ex Iraqi PM Allawi as one of their clients, and were rumoured to be behind some destablising of al Maliki last year. This outfit is staffed with some senior ex Bush appointees.

What a party that must have been eh?

242 blindoptimist

He’s a sharp dude BlindO, and has a well developed distrust of the BS governments of all persuasions feed us.

BarryO sure knows how to pull a crowd.

But just imagine the crowd a public lynching of a creep like Perle, and the rest of his PNAC cronies, would bring to Times Square.

If only the plebs knew…………..

US occupation responsible for more death in Iraq than Saddam Hussein

By Gary Cohen – July 28, 2008, 5:10PM

According to most reputable sources, including the WHO, it’s estimated that more Iraqis have been killed during the last 5 years than during the entire 35-year reign of Saddam Hussein. (only the conservatively calculated Iraq Body count death toll credits the occupation with a lower annual death rate.)
This is only one of the sobering statistics published in a March 2008 article in the Guardian.

OK, follow the money and the timeline:

Hunt Oil (Ray L Hunt BIG Bush family sponsor, also on Board of Halliburton, mate of Cheney) sign the first US deal with Kuridistan to develop fields that actually lie OUTSIDE the currently accepted regional boundaries of the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government). This is politically HOT for a number of reasons, both in Iraq and the US.

(see: http://www.al-ghad.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/071011-interview-with-issam-chalabi-on-krg-hunt-oil-mees.pdf)

But just a week or two earlier, a “powerhouse Republican lobby firm”, Barbour Griffith & Rogers, starts a campaign of aggressive attacks on al Maliki. Funny, but Dubbya has been singing the man’s praises. So the Whitehouse denies it’s involved, of course.

Interestingly, a National Intelligence Estimate comes out at the same time as BGR is trashing al Maliki. ( BGR say it’s because Allawi is their client…yeah right, he’d spend money in Washington to push out al Maliki?) and the NIE surprise, surprise, expresses no confidence in al Maliki.

Now, given you’re being attacked on two big fronts in Washington, and you’ve just had the KRG go feral and start handing out oil contracts in territory they don’t hold, what would you do?

Shut your mouth? Nup, “Al-Maliki also said he would “find friends elsewhere” if he was abandoned by the United States.” (CNN) And promptly calls the KRG deals illegal.

This whole episode smacks of a tactic they used just prior to the invasion of Iraq. Richard Perle gets some obscure academic to prepare a paper for his Defence Policy Advisory Board on why the Saudis are NOT Americas friend, and why the US should invade them! Diplomatic hissing went over 140 dB and lo and behold, the US got fly-over rights to wallop Iraq within the month after previous adamant refusals.

Deft and subtle huh? And note the use of the “Advisory Board” technique which can be disowned as ‘not the government’.

Oh by the way, Ray Hunt sits on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the whole thing has a distinct insider smell to it. Here’s an excellent article about the geopolitical ramifications of this bit of gazumping by the KRG and Hunt Oil:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/102107dnintkurdoil.3850ac1.html

I’m angry.

Larry King does a pitch with John McCain and he starts of the interview with an email from someone asking why John McCain has defaulted on his promise to not engage in negative adds.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2008/07/29/lkl.mccain.time.cnn

John McCain kicks of the response with the classic “I admire Senator Obama ….” thing but what really raises my angst is the fact that Larry King seems to have lost any testicular fortitude. John McCain failed to anser the question and Larry King failed to the critical tests “John – you didn’t answer the question”. There was a time when I had respect for Larry King, I remember his news reports from the top of the hotel in Baghdad during Desert Storm. What is it with the American media? Does Larry King need a prescription for Viagra? It would appear that Larry King is ready willing and able to accept a “difference of opinion” as a substantive argument as a counter to the question of John McCain laim attempt to vilify Obama on the Obama-does-not-want-to-do-a-wounded-troops-thing when all of the facts on the ground are against him.

Larry King – there was a time that I gave you credit. Something has changed because you may have lost what it was that made you what your are. But perhaps the more important thing is that what you are doing today may potentially undermine what it is that made you what you were.

Kirri,

As I was putting the kettle on this morning,your term “neocon scumbuggery’ surfaced in my early morning fog. They really give me the creeps.

Possum,

at least after vomiting ,one can usually sleep afterwards.
However,these neocon weasels are the stuff of nightmares.

At what point does capitalism slide into fascism?

Ecky @238,

You’re no slouch either when it comes to throwing a few words together, Ecky. Funny that I should be so rapt in a pseph blog when it’s the different styles of writing and exchange of ideas that have me hooked,not the numbers.
And ofcourse the toons!
Looking forward to your next ‘editorial’ 🙂

Cat@251,

Doesn’t it do your head in? But the big question is why, and why now. Have watched him on and off since the early 90’s and always felt he was even-handed and doggedly stuck to the issues.

Maybe it is the age factor- sympathy for a fellow oldie competing with the hip new kids on the block, and struggling.

A ‘there but go I’ moment.

Felt a similar disappointment with the David Brooks I thought I knew….

Andrew at 246

McCain tells Larry King he would support a 16 month withdrawal timetable for Iraq. Isnt this a MAJOR MAJOR BACKFLIP????

No, not at all.

John McCain would sell his mother providing it met conditions on the ground. That’s the difference between Obama and McCain. Obama would stand on principal and tell the generals that his mother is not for sale. Problem here is that Obama will get criticized for putting his mother ahead of the American people while McCain will be held up as a national hero because he’s willing to sacrifice his mother for the security of the nation.

Go figure …

This certainly buggers up his election campaign.

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate, has been indicted for making false statements concerning gifts he received from an oil-services firm, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Stevens, 84, was indicted by a federal grand jury on seven counts of making false statements on mandatory financial disclosure forms he filed between 1999 and 2006, said Matthew Friedrich, acting Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gchIXqzz_SOCwD3-Bd-EL-XCqV7A

Cat,

Would miss their ablution services however,while travelling in uncertain parts of the world.

Their large ‘M’ is so much easier to spot than discreet ‘wc’s and their local equivalent.

Now that codes are required to unlock doors,I buy the cheapest thing available and ditch. Saves a lot of hassle.

Morning,Jen……

while there is a mess on the ground, the sun is still shining.

Loved a quote by Bruce Shapiro, LNL’s US correspondent to Phillip Adams last night – something about ‘….. intellectual scepticism but optimistic will …….’.

A balance I need to keep in mind as I swing from hope to despair some days.

Didn’t write it down so will check the podcast.

Hi there ladies –
have to agree Megan re The Golden Arches- hate the imperialist american thingy, but love thier clean toilets. And keeps grumpy kiddies happy on long journeys. Also does employ and train lots of yoof, so I guess there’s that.
As for Kirri’s dire and frightening predictions … they appear to be coming to pass even faster than he indicated. Feels like the avalanche is rapidly gaining momentum (according to the JWI that is – can’t undersatnd all the technical anaysis stuff) 😥

259 megan

I hope you don’t flush your Happy Mac (or whatever they call their ‘food’! LOL) down the toilet! LOL

Then again, it might be where it belongs. (I’ve eaten exactly one half of Mac burger in my entire life. The other half went in the bin.)

Having to go to MuckD’s is a penalty the kids choose when I lose a game –

they know how to play dirty!

And before you ask Jen, no the kids have never eaten MacDonalds and in fact both prefer sushi or noodles or even a good salad. Our youngest (4.5 yrs) was shovelling down some sushi in a foodhall one day and this elderly Chinese woman came over and said he looked like he was really enjoying it…and he was. I sometimes joke he’s an albino japanese! LOL (Platinum blonde and very fair)

Just for the record,Jen,

It is the ‘in’ joke …we don’t go there, but my expression of distate and horror is enough to make them laugh.

The Japanese would be thrilled to see him,Kirri-they just love blonde hair and with little ones they like to touch the fine texture.

Sorry folks, strayed right off topic there!

Oh, here’s a neat and tidy description as to why the US housing market is still nowhere near the bottom:

For example, assuming that most loans start as a vanilla conforming mortgages, with 20 per cent down, and next that house prices fall by that much, you’ve now eaten most of the owner’s equity. Most loans are non-recourse, so this is where people start to think about walking out – and if they do, it costs you about 20 per cent of the loan, on average, to foreclose.

The May Case-Shiller house price index, out last night, showed that prices were -15.78 per cent year-on-year, and about 18.4 per cent below their top, so as far as I can tell, we’re on the precipice of trouble – which, if you think about it, is why the GSEs had to be bailed out. The leading house price data got worse in July, and I think it’ll get still worse, as the architecture of the mortgage market is crumbling – so we can easily drop another 10 per cent off the average price of homes. This, to me, means that we’re not at the end of the mortgage problem, even if most of the sub-prime is off the books.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/SCOREBOARD-Prime-crisis-GZT6T?OpenDocument&src=sph

…and he also mentions Starbucks (the canary in the coffee cup I’d say), and says when the consumer starts pulling back on coffee you know we’re headed for tight times.

Dead Parrots/albatrosses, and now a canary floating in your morning coffee. Is there a theme here? LOL

Kirri,

Sushi,noodles, anything but fast food with me, Kirri !

The penalty is also a game- a joke !

Alaska used to be a safe conservative seat. According to Votemaster is weak Democrat. I should be safe Democrat now. It means that the Democrat won’t have to spend quite as much money and can use this corruption issue along with Monica Goodling and a few more they will dig up along the way. We can throw in a few sex scandals as well. 😆 😆 😆

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Senate/Maps/Jul29-s.html

270 megan

Or maybe you could go and see how many Big Macs it takes to block the toilet? A competition would add enjoyment! LOL

I think that’s 3 major sex scandals, the one in Iowa where the moralist was picking up in the toilet 😆 Then there is Elliot Spitzer. Next another moralist on his way to see his daughter he fathered while having an affair 😆 As well as drunk driving. Mark Foley is still simmering in the back ground. He’s the guy picking up male intern’s. Hold the front page, there’s this, in EXTREMELY conservative Alabama. Headquarters of the KKK. 😆 That’s 5 😆

Alabama Attorney General Troy King found himself in the midst of a gay sex scandal last week after reports began to circulate that he was busted having sex with a male assistant by his wife, Paige King, in the couple’s own bed. Now to add fuel to the fire, King, the chairman of John McCain’s Alabama Leadership Team, has been removed from the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s website.

http://www.gaywired.com/Article.cfm?ID=19587

All these would make great video clips on You Tube. Let alone the great time comedians will have.

Let’s see, how do the top five issues shape up now. These can be rearranged according to your beliefs ie if your a Christian fundamentalist, put moral bankruptcy number one.

Economic bankruptcy

Corruption

Moral bankruptcy.

Iraq war

Stupidity

275

Roubini calls it a potential wipe out:

“The losses for the financial system from people walking away could be of the order of one trillion dollars when the entire capital of the US banking system is only $1.3 trillion.

“You could have most of the US banking system wiped out, so this is a total disaster.”

…and it’s certainly growing according to the anecdotal evidence.

It does not look good for them…or ultimately us.

277 Chris B

If you wanted to be sarcastic you could say to the Republicans:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

(but maybe they wouldn’t get it! LOL)

Chris at 273

Clearly the Alabama Attorney General was on a fact finding mission as part of an ‘in-depth’ evaluation of the potential impact of the repealing of the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy.

This is not just going to be a Tsunami, it will be an absolute massacre. I think we will have to get the war crimes tribunal in after this election. The only state looking to be safe till now is the Mormon state of Utah.

Chris:

I give you my top three issues that I think will play a role in this election:

* Racism
* Xenophobia
* Ignorance

(or am I just in a bad mood this morning)

🙂

284 Catrina Judging by the three big by elections the Democrats won, they will run them, but no one will listen.

* Ignorance You can’t run with this one Chris, but judging by the polls under thirty percent think Bush is doing a bad job. That is not an issue.

It would be very, very easy to run some ads in You Tube for the moralists to find regarding #273 This would either make them vote Democrat or stay away in their droves.

A couple of OP-ED articles worth reading. The first “Can Obama Run the Offense?” from Bob Herbert looks at what may be coming from camp Obama on the economy offensive. The second article titled “Did Obama Overstay? is basically an attempt by Dan Schnur (McCain’s ex. 2000 national communications director) to put a negative spin on Obama’s trip. But what is more interesting is the 150 odd comments on the article – but be warned, the comments themselves do not make for pleasant reading.

There has now been more people killed in Iraq since US liberation than under Sadam, conservative figures. More people killed and injured than Vietnam. (the injury rate is much higher than in Vietnam) in fact it is more than the Vietnam death rate. As opposed to a very low injury rate in Vietnam. The Iraq war has run longer than the Second World War. Both the U.S. Second World War, which starts with Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the official World War Two, which starts in 1939.

Monica Goodling had a great run over the last few days. Now we have Ted Stevens hitting the headlines.

Alaska Senator Is Charged With Failing to Disclose Gifts.

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest-serving Republican senator in United States history and a figure of great influence in Washington as well as in his home state, has been indicted on federal charges of failing to report gifts and income.

Mr. Stevens, 84, was indicted on seven felony counts related to renovations on his home in Alaska. The charges arise from an investigation that has been under way for more than a year, in connection with the senator’s relationship with a businessman who oversaw the home-remodeling project.

Registration required for the New York Times political section.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/washington/30stevens.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

OK Kirri and Megan – before you lose all respect for me there was a time when I would get the kiddies chips (i mean Fries) at Maccas (and sneak a few myself), however with no prompting from me thay have banned the place because the food is so goddamn awful. Discerning young people I am raising. 😀
So Kirri do you agree with my well thought through and informed economic analysis that Starbucks going under is a salutory moment, or is just that everyone has woken up to the fact that the coffee is crap?

A new book and it’s already out of date. But it’s sure to be a best seller, corrupt politicians.

Watergate. Billygate. Iran-Contra. Teapot Dome. Monica Lewinsky.American history is marked by era-defining misdeeds, indiscretions, and the kind of tabloid-ready scandals that politicians seem to do better than anyone else. Now, for the first time, one volume brings together 300 years of political wrongdoing in an illustrated history of politicians gone wild—proving that today’s scoundrels aren’t the first, worst, and surely won’t be the last….

http://www.amazon.com/Almanac-Political-Corruption-Scandals-Politics/dp/055338435X%3FSubscriptionId%3D1A8N7Y3AN7BDVATH0382%26tag%3Dyouwonnowwhat%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D055338435X

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