Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Bail?
You betcha!

We are constantly being assailed, from all sides; the for profit media, government spokespersons, the talking heads on radio, TV and the inter-tubes, that there are companies and concerns that are “too big to fail”. They are “too big to fail” because, should they collapse, the economic reverberations would be too dire to contemplate. Therefore, due to their economic and political size, if they are in danger of failing it is incumbent upon the government (i.e., the taxpayers) to bail them out.

There is an excellent article today by Dave Lindorff, “Whatever Happened to Antitrust?”. He points out very clearly how much of the problems that the economy is now experiencing comes from the relaxation and non-enforcement of many of the antitrust laws. Many of these antitrust laws date back to the Theodore Roosevelt and Taft administrations. Unfortunately, this relaxation and non-enforcement of these antitrust rules cannot solely be laid at the feet of Bush the Lesser. It was during the Clinton administration that a premier anti-trust agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was abolished in 1995.

Additionally, IMHO, the entire concept of “too big to fail” is perverted and largely an aspect of the “American way of life”. The entire idea of “mass production” has morphed into unsupportable gigantism. Gigantism, by definition, “...is a condition characterized by excessive growth...” (emphasis added). Certainly, mass production has led to lowering of price and increase of availability of most commodities. However, this very lowering of price and increase in availability has led to overproduction. For example, were we to produce fewer automobiles the prices of cars would go up. However, that would in turn mean that vehicles would be kept longer, maintained better and people would, of necessity, place a higher value on the vehicles they have. People would, in turn, stop thinking of cars as disposable commodities, hence slowing the rate of cars being junked.

Ah, I hear you say, “But! That would mean a slow down in growth! Our economy would crash!” Well, yes, the consumerist version of our economy would crash...and more the better! A great deal of our economic problems come from that self same consumerist economy. As we have become ever more a “throw away” culture, we have amped up the use of natural resources. As it is, the U.S. has only about 4% of the world's population yet we use about 25% of the world's resources! This while, all during the Cold War, we went about the world selling the “American way of life”. Now, that China and India are becoming more wealthy and aspire to the “American way of life”, one can readily see that that situation is insupportable. Were the rest of the world to adopt the “American way of life” at this moment, it would require 4 more Earths to supply the current world population! There are no other Earths out there to provide those resources. There are two and only two possible ways out of this predicament. Either the Earth's population, ourselves included, will have to drastically cut back on their consumption or drastically cut back on the world's population. Yes, neither is a very palatable choice but, that's what we are stuck with. We must go back to a time before Edward Bernays and his heirs and their public relations forced America (and the rest of the world) into our present consumerist culture, back to a pre-consumerist world. A world where a citizen's worth was not measured by their consumption. A world where one didn't discard perfectly good items simply to get the “latest and greatest” gadget to replace it. A world where items were economically reparable and where you didn't have to discard an otherwise operable item for lack of a replacement gear. Frugality is still a virtue.

Also, if we were to slow “economic growth” and bring back the idea of frugality and repairability, there would be a growth in the real economy, i.e., local appliance repair shops, local repair facilities of all kinds. Slowing “growth” is not a bad idea. Cutting back on consumption is a good idea. Promoting population control, worldwide, is a good idea. A modicum of sanity by politicians and polities would be a good idea. I fear it won't happen until material circumstances force it upon us.

Beware what you decide to believe in...

Perhaps now, with the ginned up, phony “outrage” (in many cases, paid for and subsidized by the mega corporations of the health care combine), people may understand where this commentary is coming from. Let me take, as an example, such as Rachel Maddow, who in general I highly praise and like.

OK Rachel, like many, many media types (but, especially liberals) was in full throated support of the “Iranian Twitter© Revolution”. This is understandable, Iran has a repressive, theocratic regime which, among other things, suppresses womens' rights and those of other despised minorities such as the GLBT community. So Rachel, as many other commentators, loudly applauded and supported the ongoing protests in Iran that have been Twittered and Facebooked and MySpaced around the planet. However, is Rachel aware that the mechanism used to unseat Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953 was this self same one? Are Rachel and the myriad other commentators who have loudly and strongly backed the Iranian “revolution” aware that the current demonstrations follow, almost exactly, the game plan enacted by Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. (Teddy Roosevelt's grandson) in Iran in 1953? The plot that Kermit and his CIA cronies used was to stage massive street protests (riots) by segments of Iranian society disaffected by Mossaddeq's reforms. There are now (and always will be) segments of society that are disaffected. If any confirmation of this is needed, one need only reflect on the fact that, even at its nadir, G.W. Bush and his (mal)administration garnered over 20% (>60,000,000) approval ratings. If even a sizable portion of those 60,000,000+ people had turned out in street demonstrations and those were reported as the demonstrations in Iran were reported, an outside observer, with little or no knowledge of the internal situation in the U.S. at the time, might well reason that the majority of Americans actually supported G.W. Bush, Darth Cheney and their policies. They would be sadly mistaken but that would, nonetheless, be their takeaway of such demonstrations and reporting.

Another variant of this kind of flawed reasoning is displayed by many, many commentators who loudly lauded the various “color” revolutions in Yugoslavia and the post-Soviet sphere. Even such luminaries as Thom Hartmann have repeatedly lauded and noted with approval those manufactured “revolutions”, again, being wholly and abysmally ignorant of the situation on the ground. Caught up and washed over by the “news” coverage of the For Profit Media, Hartmann and others huzzahed these “revolutions” as honest reflections of the “will of the people”. What is often omitted from his and other commentators' evaluations is the fact that the “revolution” in Yugoslavia as well as the myriad “color revolutions” is the fact that they were ALL covertly (and, sometimes, not so covertly) supported, organized and funded by either the U.S. government outright or through various NGOs (“non-governmental organizations”) such as the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, to name just two. What is often forgotten is that both of these NGOs were founded under the Reagan administration, primarily to take over various formerly CIA functions such as encouraging and facilitating “regime change”. It should also be noted that the Soros Foundation also has had a hand in the Yugoslavian and other “color revolutions”. The IRI, NDI and Soros Foundations were all instrumental in establishing, organizing and funding all of these various color “revolutions”.

As was the case in the Venezuelan “overthrow” of Hugo Chavez, there certainly was a resentful core to the opposition to him. What was hardly ever accentuated in the U.S. press, this opposition was, primarily, the upper middle and upper classes who had been forced by Chavez to relinquish a tiny bit of their choke hold over the economy to the wider society. Much as was the situation in Cuba in regards to Castro, much as is the situation in Honduras with President Manuel Zelaya. Certainly, those who stand to lose power, money or position in a society are going to be upset, that goes without saying.

Again, if some outside observer, ignorant of the true dynamics on the ground, were simply to judge on the basis of “news” reports, they would have to conclude that the majority of Americans fervently and vehemently detest the very idea of change in the health care system and its delivery...and they would be very wrong!

So, this warning applies to all who rush to judgment with but a minimal, partial and/or media generated opinion, “Beware what you decide to believe!”

The Right Wing Media as Iago

Over the course of just the last year there have been 3 high profile massacres/attempted massacres/murders committed by persons having extreme right wing views. Let us give each a cursory look and see what we can divine from them.

July 27, 2008 - “...a politically motivated[1][2](emphasis added) fatal shooting took place at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Motivated by a desire to kill liberals and Democrats, gunman Jim David Adkisson fired a shotgun at members of the congregation during a youth performance of a musical, killing two people and wounding seven others.” Wikipedia entry “Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting”. When the right wing media were accused by some of having had some part in motivating Adkisson, they howled most vehemently that they were in no wise to blame. Those denials became strangely muted when, during his interview and the rambling letter he left behind specifically stated that his was a hate crime. During the police search of his home the police found:

1.Liberalism is a Mental Disorder by radio talk show host Michael Savage
2.Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism by talk show host Sean Hannity
3.The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly Wikipedia

Additionally, he specifically stated that on his wished for hit list were the Democratic members of the House and Senate as well as “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America” by Bernard Goldberg Wikipedia This hardly seems to comport with the protestations of the vehement, violent right wing talkers who say that they are innocent.

May 31, 2009 – Scott Roeder, a long time violent anti-abortion activist assassinated Dr. George Tiller at Dr. Tiller's church. Roeder had a long history of anti-government (Freemen) and anti-abortion extremism (Army of God). Roeder had already been convicted in 1996 on explosives charges (which begs the question, “How was he in possession of a handgun?”). Roeder had been reported to the FBI the day previous to the assassination attempting to glue the locks to Dr. Tiller's clinic shut. Roeder had ties (there is debate as to how close) to Operation Rescue. Wikipedia

Following the assassination of Dr. Tiller, Operation Rescue's founder, Randall Terry, had this to say (“distancing” Operations Rescue from Roeder):

“Terry: The point that must be emphasized over, and over, and over again: pro-life leaders and the pro-life movement are not responsible for George Tiller's death. George Tiller was a mass-murder and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed.

Q: So who is responsible ...

Terry: The man who shot him is responsible ...

Q: ... because that makes it sound like you were saying that he [Tiller] is responsible.

Terry: The man who shot him is responsible.

Q: What did you mean by "he reaped what he sowed"?

Terry: He was a mass-murder. He sowed death. And then he reaped death in a horrifying way.”

“Terry Declares That Tiller "Reaped What He Sowed”

June 10, 2009 – James von Brunn walked into the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. with a .22 caliber rifle and shot and killed a security guard. Again, as in the case of Scott Roeder, von Brunn was a convicted felon so the question must be asked, “How was he able to be in possession of a firearm?” Von Brunn had, in 1981, entered the Federal Reserve building in Washington, D.C. and taken people hostage at gunpoint. He was tried, convicted and imprisoned for that crime. Von Brunn had a long history (after all, he was 88 years old) of violent anti-social, anti-Semitic, anti-racial activity. He was motivated by the likes of George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party.

Please be advised, the above is merely a cursory glance at the information available on all these incidents. I urge each of you who read this to bestir themselves to do some surfing of the net to get more details on all the above.

The main point of this piece is this: “Does the violent right wing Wurlitzer (Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, etc. ad nauseam) bear any responsibility for these and similar acts?” Let me put it this way, was Iago responsible for Othello's murder of Desdemona? If you are asking, “Did Iago murder Desdemona?” of course the answer is “No”. However, if you frame the question as “Did the act of whispering vile calumnies about Desdemona into Othello's ear cause the death of Desdemona?” the answer would have to be an unequivocal “Yes!”

Were the depraved howlings of the right wing Wurlitzer the proximate cause of the deaths above? No. Did their invective laden scream fests, broadcast to millions of people, many on the very knife edge of sanity, lead to those deaths? I ask, you decide!

STOP BLOWING BUBBLES!

Time for Obama to tell his economics team to “Cut the crap!”

“You say you want a revolution?”

Einstein once famously said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Starting with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and FED chair Ben Bernanke and now continuing to Bernanke and new Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, all have repeated explicitly that, in their efforts to resuscitate the economy, they want to “re-inflate” the housing bubble! Think about that for just one moment. These “Masters of the Universe” want to commit us to the very self same path that has brought us where we are today. By Einstein's definition, this is the very definition of “insanity”!

One of the major problems that has led to the crash and burn of the worldwide financial system and, probably the crash of our domestic economy and, maybe even a Depression, is the series of “economic bubbles” that have been encouraged and grown by such as former FED chairman, Alan Greenspan. Greenspan was responsible for inflating the dot com bubble and, when that collapsed, for inflating the housing bubble. Greenspan was also highly in favor of the myriad “innovative financial instruments”, all of which were completely unregulated (by design) and with no oversight whatsoever!

This whole idea of economic “bubbles” is based on the idea of increasing lending which leads to increases in investing and, especially, increases in spending. As Paulson and Bernanke and Geithner and a whole myriad of other economic “bright boys” have said, “We need to get credit flowing again!” There's only one problem with this, to have lending you must have borrowing. The public has borrowed itself out. Borrowing means, to the individual, debt. As it is, the vast majority of credit worthy borrowers have maxed out. They are carrying as heavy a debt burden as they can. And, lending to the not credit worthy was what the whole charade of the “NINJA” (No Income, No Job, No Assets) loans was about. When you lend to people who can't pay back those loans, the loans go bad. When the loans go bad, the various “bundled debt instruments” built upon those debts go bad as well.

Loans are still available for credit worthy individuals, it is just that they are not borrowing anymore. As the old saw goes, “You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.” The borrowers aren't drinking anymore.

More than anything else, the government needs to:

1. Stop throwing good money after bad! The Wall Street banksters have become incredibly wealthy by gaming the system. Wall St. has, for at least the last decade, been running the market like a casino. Well guess what? They've bet badly and lost, badly. The government should NOT try to “save the Wall St. banks”. If the Big Boys (AIG, Goldman Sachs, BoA, etc.) are broke, they should be taken over (gasp, Nationalized!), restructured, broken up and, when they are made sound again, privatized. After all, that's what we have an FDIC for, right?
2. Get rid of the thieves! It is more than high times that all those “bright boys” that have led us to this dismal place take their medicine. Those who knowingly, willingly skirted the rules should be prosecuted, ala Bernie Madoff. ALL the boards of directors of all the Wall St. banks MUST be fired. They are all criminally incompetent or simply criminal. Either way, it's out on their ear with them!
3. Investigate, prosecute, jail. It is well past time to investigate those governmental agencies and officials who were tasked with monitoring the banksters and yet somehow managed to miss every single red light on the board. There are rare exceptions. Sheila Bair, Chair of the FDIC, has for years been pushing for more stringent oversight. Oddly enough, under the Bush administration all her pleas fell on deaf ears. Once the investigations have been completed, those officials and ex-officials who allowed the shenanigans that felled the financial system should either be prosecuted or fired or both. And, those found guilty of collusion with the Wall St. banksters must go to jail. And not Club Fed either. I mean federal penitentiary, with bars and big, bad, nasty boyfriends.
4. Stop blowing bubbles! Stop trying to maintain the broken system that has gotten us here! No more “bubble economics”. If we are to persist with a capitalist economy, let it be a true capitalist economy. You invest in companies because you believe in the service/product and expect to gain from the success of that venture. If you guess badly, poof! there went your money. No more of this insanity of capitalist socialism! No more “privatize the profits but socialize the losses”!

Sit down and STFU already!

Enough already! Time for the progressives and Democrats to stand up and clearly tell the regressives and Republicans to “Sit down and STFU!” in no uncertain terms.

On all the talking head shows for some unknown and unfathomable reason there are far more Republicans and reichwing ideologues being asked for their opinions on the current stimulus package and, predictably, they come out spewing the old (and discredited) bromides about “tax cuts” (for the wealthy and mega-corporations) and cuts in increasingly frayed social services for the rest of us. ENOUGH! The last 28 years (yes, I'm including Clinton's 2 terms because many of his policies sprang from the same éminences grises that got us where we are today!) where the political and economic center has been violently wrenched to the right of center and the very economic policies for tax cuts for the rich and service cuts for the rest, HAVE been implemented. Look where it has gotten us. Greater concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of a tiny minority with the attendant pauperization of the majority. With the greater concentration of wealth into fewer hands, political power has also been concentrated in fewer hands. With our political system the way it is, once a senator or representative is elected to office, the majority of their time is subsumed in fundraising for the next election. Many, if not most, legislators don't even have time to do the job they were elected to, they usually don't even have time to read the bills they vote on, much less examine them carefully and think about how it will affect their constituents. These mundane duties are delegated to their staff. Even in those rare cases where the legislator may not be compromised by moneyed interests, often times their staffs are.

With the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the moneyed interests, the interests of the vast majority, i.e. the public at large, suffer. While the moneyed interests virtually dictate legislation beneficial to themselves and their interests, the public interest is forgotten. For example, when the credit card companies essentially rewrote the bankruptcy laws to their perceived interest, the ability of the common citizen to get any true debt relief was essentially stripped away. However, interestingly enough, were the same bankruptcy rules to be applied to the Wall St. banksters who have gamed the system and become monumentally rich in the process, all of Wall St. would have crashed by now, all their company and personal assets would have been liquidated and all the Thains and Madoffs would now be residing under bridges. Obviously, this has not and will not happen because we do have a two-tiered legal system; very harsh treatment for the common man and extremely lenient treatment for the wealthy and powerful. Imagine, if you will, that you had embezzled say $25,000. Once the theft were detected, you would be taken forthwith to the jail to await trial. If you can afford to do so, you may be able to bond yourself out until trial. Once convicted, off you go for a lengthy stay at a state or federal penal facility. Now, look at Bernie Madoff. Certainly, he has posted an immense bond (but he had stolen an immense amount of money). Pending his trial he is under “house arrest” at his luxurious Manhattan penthouse. Even if he should be convicted (after all, he can afford to hire the best counsel money can buy), he may well be sentenced to a minimum security facility, maybe even one of those Club Feds where you pick up trash in the morning and play tennis in the afternoon. In addition, if you (a common peon) are accused of a variety of offenses, all of your assets are seized, even prior to trial, making the task of defending yourself near impossible. See the difference?

Again, we have had 28 years of essentially, Reaganomics i.e. massive tax cuts for the wealthy and mega-corporations. So, what hath these failed policies wrought? Immense concentration of existing wealth into the grasping hands of the greedy, massive destruction of wealth for the lower and middle classes. Near total neglect of the public infrastructure leading to increasing failure of that infrastructure. The outsourcing of most of the American industrial base to low wage foreign countries which has also helped wreck the unions in the United States. The massive pillaging of the Federal Treasury by private interests has left the United States, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt.

So, in conclusion, each and every time one hears the standard Republican line of “tax cuts” to remedy our current troubles, one must be very careful to say “Sit down and STFU!”. It has been tried, for 28 years running, and has directly led us to the disaster we find ourselves in today. Remember, Republicans, “STFU”!

Lieberman? Rahm Israel Emanuel? Democrats?

Change? We can believe?

The American electorate, in numbers too large to ignore, voted for Barack Hussein Obama II and his slogan, “Change We Can Believe In”. So far, the Obama pre-administration has shown little if any change from the staid and rancid ways of Washington.

Yesterday the Senate Democratic Caucus, with the encouragement of Barack Obama, voted to allow the former Democratic, now Independent Senator, Joseph Lieberman, to retain his Chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. This after the “Independent” Senator Joseph Lieberman (2000 Democratic Vice Presidential candidate) deserted “his” party (Lieberman caucuses with the Democrats) to campaign vigorously for the Republican Presidential candidate, Senator John S. McCain and other Republican candidates in various other races!

In the meantime, Barack Obama has appointed Rahm Israel Emanuel (remember, Israel is my middle name!) to act as Obama's White House Chief of Staff. It would be well to remember that Emanuel was Bill Clinton's senior advisor in the White House from 1993 to 1998. After resigning his position as Clinton's advisor, Emanuel became an investment banker earning $16.2 million in 2½ years which provided the wherewithal for his bid for the 5^th District U.S. House seat. (Wikipedia)

Sigh! This is change? We can believe?

The Democrats have remained true to form. At the very least, the form they have shown for the duration of Bush the Lesser's administration and especially since their victories of 2006 and 2008. Just a day after the 2006 elections in which Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives, new Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi

“House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi promised Wednesday that when her party takes over, the new majority will not attempt to remove President Bush from office, despite earlier pledges to the contrary from others in the caucus.” ~ NYTimes

And, let us remember, Nancy Pelosi has stood by her pledge to keep “impeachment off the table” despite vigorous agitation by the progressives who were instrumental in helping the Democrats regain the House.

Democrats? Change? To use these words in a single sentence seems to be an oxymoron, much like the idea of “military intelligence”! Granted and acknowledged, it was of utmost importance to remove the Republicans from Washington's levers of power. However, the “hope” of “change” the people are investing in Barack Obama and the Democrats would seem sadly misplaced.

As I noted in a piece I wrote immediately following the 2006 elections:

“Granted, it is vitally important that the incoming Democrats do not immediately institute comity and the sense of bipartisanship. It is vitally important that the Republicans be treated under the very rules they themselves promulgated and instituted against the minority Democrats, not so much in the spirit of vindictiveness but as an object lesson of why comity and bipartisanship are irreplaceable and necessary facets of proper and fair legislation. It is fit and proper for the Republicans to toil in basement meeting rooms; that they suffer the indignity of having their lights and microphones arbitrarily cut off; that they not be notified of hearings on bills and are forced to search Capitol Hill for the location of the hearings…from which they will be summarily excluded.” ~ “Which way you goin' Billy? Can I go too?”

The Democrats did nothing to make the Republicans pay any price whatsoever for the egregiously uncivil and undemocratic behavior they demonstrated toward the opposition when they were in power. Now, that the Democrats have increased their margin of majority in the House and are within a loud shout of 60 votes in the Senate, the Republicans (and the great reichwing Wurlitzer) are bleating piteously that the Democrats are bound to demonstrate “tolerance” and “bipartisanship”. Bipartisanship? Just how much more “bipartisanship” do the Republicans want? The Democrats have been shameless in repudiating their own constituencies and seconded virtually every demand of the Bush (mal)administration and the Republicans! The Democrats have backed every Bush era ravaging of the Constitution, from the gutting of FISA and retroactive immunity for the telecoms to “enhanced” interrogations. Just how much more “bipartisan” do they want the Democrats to be? The only possible increase in “bipartisanship” the Democrats could demonstrate would be for all the Democrats to simply become Republicans.

All I can say is: "Place not your faith in princes."!

Crash and Burn
(or, the ruinous end of the Empire of Dunces)

Though it is to be expected, the pandering For Profit Media is leaving the American people a thoroughly uninformed and, even worse, a hoodwinked one. This will lead to horrendous results with the present and upcoming Crash of the American Empire.

Even now, as the end of the reign of the American Empire swiftly encroaches, most Americans remain cocooned in their comforting blankets of ignorance. This is easily seen in the espoused world views of such as “Joe the Plumber” as well as the vile howls issued by various attendees of many McCain/Palin rallies. Their videotaped inanities show various degrees of: misinformation, brainwashing, illogic, ignorance, hatred and simple stupidity raised to the nth degree. Though the amateur reporters/videographers sometimes attempt to correct the misinformation espoused by the shrieking Know Nothings, rather than reflect for even one moment on such information, these obviously hateful knuckle draggers simply spew more bile and vitriol.

How does this all connect to the topic of the crash and burn of the American Empire? Most of what these benighted dunces spew are outworn paeans to American “exceptionalism” and reflect their completely distorted view of America's present condition and position in the world. These dunces still see America as the undisputed “leader of the world”, a “beacon unto the world”, an “example to the world”. It is past high time that we, as Americans, come to grips with the fact that we are not now, if we may well have been, any of these.

Since 1971, when Nixon scuttled the Bretton Woods System (which had been specifically crafted to give the U.S. unquestioned financial dominance in the post W.W. II world), by severing the dollar's convertibility to gold, Nixon essentially simultaneously opened the door to turning the dollar into the world's “reserve” currency while turning the dollar itself into a fiat currency. As long as the underlying economy of the U.S. was sound, this was a quite advantageous situation for the country. As long as the U.S.'s real economy was relatively sound, this was a wonderful idea; the dollar's status as reserve currency created a huge demand for dollars essentially acted as a massive subsidy and support for the U.S. economy.

However, over at least the last 30 years, “conservatives” and Republicans (far too often with major support of many “Democrats”) have been busily at work, hacking away at the very essence of America's “real” economy. As they steered America further and further away from a “real” economy and toward a financialized economy, through a wide variety of Randian, “free market” manipulations, more and more of America's real economy, actual manufacturing, has been increasingly offshored to low cost labor markets. What this has meant is that America's productive economy has been hollowed out, those higher paid jobs going offshore, replaced by much lower paying service jobs. In tandem with those losses we have had a shift into “financial” jobs, i.e., non-productive speculation.

With the rise of the financial sector the “Whiz Kids” on Wall Street have created a myriad of “financial innovations”, such as the now evident vaporware such as CDOs, SIVs, etc. In addition to creating these vehicles of their now revealed Ponzi scheme, the Wall Street sharpies went around the world, selling what they knew to be worthless scraps of paper as “solid” investment vehicles. As the underlying bad loans started to sour, the Ponzi scheme was exposed and the entire financial deck of cards began to crumble.

With exposure of the underhanded double dealing of the fat cats and speculators on Wall Street, the U.S. has lost what vestiges of legitimacy it had. The U.S. now stands naked before the world, the world's biggest debtor nation, it's financial markets shown to be all flash and no cash. The situation has become so bad that there is serious talk in international financial markets of abandoning the dollar as the reserve currency and turning the yuan into the new reserve currency. Before you scoff at the idea, it would be good to remember that China now has the largest reserves followed by Japan. Again, it is good to remember that the U.S. is now the world's largest debtor nation. To put it bluntly, we are bankrupt and China and Japan are our biggest creditors.

There is a very good reason why snake oil and patent medicine peddlers were “traveling” operations; you had to peddle your nostrums quickly and be off...before the local yokels either became sickened from the garbage you peddled them or found out that the “medicine” was worthless! Wall Street and the U.S. have peddled their sickness inducing products and now that the world economy has fallen deathly ill from this financial toxic waste, they are looking accusingly at the peddler and are quite irate. The pitchforks and torches are out and the tar and feathers are being brought to the fore.

It will be a quick, inglorious and disastrous fall!