sparrow chat

Am I the only one to feel the hands of the powerful at work, deliberately manipulating this latest financial ‘crisis’ to their benefit – and the detriment of everyone else? Since 9/11, the Bush administration has created one crisis after another and they’ve all paid huge dividends to the wealthy few, while impoverishing the rest of us.

If this present catastrophe in the banking industry is simply the result of poor management, then throwing another $700 billion at those responsible, is merely to mimic their crass irresponsibility.

Today, in what is being called the biggest banking failure in American history, Washington Mutual was seized by the Fed and tossed to J.P. Morgan Chase, as casually as a beef bone thrown to a pet Rottweiler.^[1] It was only six months ago the US administration did exactly the same thing with Bear Stearns. JPM, it seems, is acquiring financial companies willy-nilly, with the help of the American government.

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg today, JPM has a $23 billion secured claim against Lehman Bros, who filed for bankruptcy last week with a total estimated debt of $630 billion.^[2] With such huge losses from just one bank, the $700 billion being asked of taxpayers is beginning to look like a small drop in a very vast ocean.

The question still not being asked is who exactly is running Henry Paulson and Ben Benanke? When the Secretary to the Treasury arrives at the most important Congressional Hearing of his life with only a three page document and no idea what he’s to do with $700 billion, it strongly suggests that someone else sent him in to get it. Couple that to the ‘convenience’ of a Congress about to adjourn for political campaigning, and the idea of a ‘set-up’ no longer appears such an unlikely scenario.

It’s possible that Paulson and Benanke are no more than utterly incompetent. Let’s be frank, they wouldn’t be the only members of George W Bush’s administration to demonstrate that failing. It provokes the thought that maybe the powers-that-be are deliberately choosing incompetents as front men because they make better stooges and are less likely to argue; a fact easily ratified by studying the record of the incumbent US president.

Of course, from the viewpoint of the wealthy bankers, getting their hands on $700 billion of government money is only reclaiming a part of what they’ve already loaned out to reneging tax payers, through unpaid sub-prime mortgages and credit card debt.

To their twisted logic, the suffering and strife caused by myriad broken marriages, foreclosed homes, and consequent suicides, is hardly a relevant factor.

^{[1] “Government Seizes WaMu and Sells Some Assets” New York Times, September 25th 2008}

^{[2] “JPMorgan Has $23 Billion Secured Claim in Lehman Case” Bloomberg, September 26th 2008}

Filed under: Financial shenanigans

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Or why, despite the best efforts of UK politicians, Britain will never become the 51st state of the Union:

^{My thanks to Gia’s Blog and WaterKula for the image.}

Filed under: Currency converter

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Last Sunday, September 21st, was International Peace Day.^[1]

Did anybody stop fighting long enough to notice?

^{[1] “United Nations’ International Day of Peace” U.N.special website.}

Filed under: Mind-boggling facts

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Many years ago, longer than I care to remember, I took up painting and decorating. It was desperation, really. Out of work, and with a young family to support, I lashed out on an advert in the local newspaper and waited for the work to roll in.

It did, quite a lot, in fact. I’d never hung a piece of wallpaper in my life, nor painted a ceiling, but I’d watched my parents do their home decorating and decided it couldn’t be that hard.

It wasn’t. Within two years I had a thriving business, employed four laborers, and was “le decorater intérieurs” to the upper-middle classes.

It helped that I was something of a perfectionist. When I painted a door it didn’t end up looking like this:

Nevertheless, my doors have never been hung in London’s Tate Gallery; the above abomination has, along with a large number of similarly badly painted doors.^[1] They’re all part of a new exhibition by the Jewish painter, Mark Rothko, who committed suicide in 1970. I don’t blame him. If I’d been such a bloody awful painter I’d not have had the chance to kill myself; my customers would have done the job for me.

The truly appalling aspect of Rothko’s work is the manner in which the British pseudo-intelligentsia, with their wispy beards and BMW’s, Daily Telegraph tucked under Sloane Street mackintosh sleeves, waffle mindless piffle about how ‘desperately moving’ and ‘mind-expandingly exquisite’ it all is.

It’s no good just glancing at it, say the ‘art world’, one has to “lose oneself within it.”

How is one supposed to “lose oneself” in a badly painted door?

The gullibility of the public at large never ceases to amaze. From angels on heavenly clouds playing harps, to alien invaders snatching earthlings for sex, they’ll swallow any old load of nonsense on a whim. Snake oil salesmen feast on their naiveties, and in the modern-day garrets of canvas-besmirching painters and sheep-pickling sculptors there are more than just a few of those.

I probably earned around twenty dollars for painting a door. Mark Rothko, were he still alive, would make millions from his paintings.

I guess my problem was, I was just too good.

^{[1] More Badly Painted Doors courtesy of The Telegraph, September 25th 2008}

Filed under: Expensive rubbish

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Not to be outdone by my old blogging pal over at TOB’s Place who recently graced his front page with the image of a nude lady from Portland, Colorado, here’s one I unearthed earlier:

If you’re still of the opinion Russia is inhabited with gruff, overweight, female crane-drivers in bearskin coats and smoking cheroots, this picture was snapped by a reporter from a local Russian newspaper as the lady in question was returning to her car from the grocery store.

Does the West really want a new Cold War? How about a little detente, comrade?

Oh, and yes, the car is a Ferrari.

Filed under: Russian bare

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Read the following quote carefully. Then, read it again, and if necessary, again.

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

This one sentence makes up Section 8 of the financial package presently being debated by Congress. It’s a bill to spend around $700billion bailing out Wall Street, but this one sentence means its a bill that goes much further than that.

This one sentence will pass massive power to the Executive Branch. It will allow Treasury Secretary Poulson to sit down with Wall Street executives and connive how they will divest themselves of their bad debts, at taxpayer’s expense, while ensuring their own financial futures remain secure. They can do so with no oversight authority, meaning no-one will know the details of what they decide, and even if it does become known, there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do about it.

This one sentence is yet another nail in the lid of the coffin that holds the corpse of US democracy.

Are Americans going to allow this to happen? Probably. Right now, they’re so scared of losing their pension funds and 401Ks they’ll happily agree to anything.

America, you’re about to be sold down the river yet again by a band of crooked bankers and financiers who are about to take you for seven hundred billion dollars.

It time to stand up and be counted. It time to say “NO!” to Section 8.

Filed under: Fleecing America

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