More on the financial problems, by Dr. James Glenn at www.financialsense.com
Just when you think you’ve seen it all friends, the world, and the US Fed, and financial markets, surprise you. Recently we Americans have been treated to a veritable cornucopia of fraud, malfeasance, and deceit, the likes of which surprise even me, a hardened veteran observer of Wall Street, and central banking shenanigans. The rhetoric flying from the lips of Paulson, Bernarke, and Bush over the last month would make even that hard bitten cynic P.T. Barnum (of “there’s a sucker born every minute”, fame) blush with embarrassment, and recoil with horror. They really must think we are all suckers.
How else can you explain the ludicrous assertions by our aforementioned fearless leaders that the nationalization of Freddie and Fannie is not likely to run over 25 billion, when anyone with a scintilla of sense, or a clue of the facts, knows the real estate losses carried by these two behemoths alone could, and will, run anywhere from 300 billion to 1.4 trillion (with a T friends). Does this sound suspiciously like, “The war will pay for itself”, will “only cost 30 billion”, and “be over in 3 months or less?” At the time I wrote a piece decrying the slippery slope the nation had embarked upon invading Iraq, and estimated it would cost 2 trillion before all was said and done, and be one of the worst foreign policy disasters in the nations history. I was a little too conservative then, and am probably too conservative again. 1.4 trillion is likely to be the tip of the iceberg, what with Lehman, Merrill, GM and Ford lining up behind Fannie and Freddie for treasury bailouts. Paulson was given a blank check after all, so line up! All this money will have to be borrowed, or created out of thin air by the FED and loaned to Uncle Sam, and added to the 10 Trillion we already owe………….
How did the nation of “Free Market Capitalism” as touted by Kudlow daily on CNBC and The Wall Street Journal op ed page, get to the point where we privatize profits, and socialize losses?…..for corporations that is. Isn’t that fascism according to Webster’s? How did we get to a point where thrift, saving and frugality are punished, and speculation, fraud, mismanagement, and bald faced lying are rewarded? How can the country stand mute while we the taxpayer, foot yet another bailout for big business and Wall Street, at our children’s, and their children’s expense? How does anyone with a conscience, or in command of the facts, justify the current state of affairs, unless they are part of the gravy train? Socialism for big business, but God forbid we should have socialized health care or education for the working men and women of this country! That would be communism! Do those people supporting this current state of affairs not see the hypocrisy in their position, or really believe these bailouts, this financial denouement, amount to anything more than pandering to Wall Street elites, and big business, care of your tax dollars?
Good questions. The rich look after their own, and have brainwashed the rest of us to see that that is right, how the world should be, or even the only possibility. It isn’t.
