Herr Bush's angst--no easy solutions

At the Rose Garden press conference yesterday [29 April 2008], Herr Bush with a grim express finally fessed up to the truth that for the ills plaguing America's economy there are no easy solutions. Herr Bush has been his own cheer leader for the economy and for his policies for the last 8 years. Never has he looked at America's problems with a square eye. Instead he has engaged in flummery and boosterism and pie in the sky pap. He blamed Congress for failing America; that accusation has some truth to it, but lion's share of blame falls fully on his shoulders. He has favoured his class of coupon clippers, blood suckers, croneys up and down the line, and the burden of his tax cuts are borne by everyone not equally mind you, who doesn't belong to that golden 1 per cent of the US population. Herr Bush has succeeded where not home grown variety of Communism or Socialism has dared to go if they could have. He has successfully emasculated in one degree or another the class structure in the US but for the super rich. Little wonder there are no easy solutions for the vast majority of Americans, the advantages are for Herr Bush's industrial, military, and venal elected friends.

The reverend Jeremieh Wright--Obama's worst nightmare

The reverend Mr. Wright has taken to the airways, the highways and biways to make his case for himself. If senator Obama thought, he put this devil behind him after his brilliant speech last month, he's wrong. Wright is Obama's albatross. Shucking and jivving before the National Press Club in Washington [28 April 2008], this Church of God minister proved as the 'New York Times' media critic put it, he was in love with his own voice; but there is more to Wright's message than the sound of his voice. It is racism he hides behind the ingenuous facade of slavery, the experience of the black church, and quotations from the bible. Wright if anything is a throwback to Garveyism, black nationalism, and the extremes of demonising the world according to the gospel of Wright. He's the other side of the coin to the racist white preacher fulminating with the power of the lord. Scratch Wright's surface, you will find the racist wearing a dog collar.
Obama will suffer this cross of Wright, he has to bear. He cannot put the man behind him as the bible says, get thee behind me devil!. No Wright has joined him at his hip, and this will make many of the senator's supporter despair, and may even cost him his party's nomination for the presidency. Wright is extreme that in the end his words go full circle joining those of the white separatists. Wright is happy in a black world, no more, no less.

The Olympic flame--China's brand of Cain

Finally the Olympic flame making its way to Beijing for the summer games in July 2008 has had a reception which pleases China. Until it came to Pyongyang, like the brand of Cain, the Olympic flame lit up China's shame to the world. In North Korea, there were no protests. The flame was greeted by much fanfare and carried by a member of the 1966 North Korean soccer team which in the first round knocked champion Italy out of the World Cup games in the UK. China will reward Pyongyang for the show, the more especially famine looms large in North Korea, and food and money will flow freely to an ally. Still, worldwide protest has not earned China any boy scout merit badges, only contempt.

Are markets relatively stable?

Judging by the fierce pace at which big bracket banks are raising equity in order to cushion the billions, they're going to have to write down at June 2008's end, 18Brumaire doesn't think so. Siphoning off huge amounts of liquidity will force smaller banks either to go belly up or call upon the central government, in this case the US Federal Reserve to rescue them from themselves. The Fed is always weighing a quarter point reduction in interest rates, but that won't help since it will fuel inflation. Band aid efforts of the US Treasury and Fed won't do much even in the medium term. Sweeping reform which translates into regulating markets has to to come into play. Already the bankers and mortgage lenders are screaming bloody murder since even a hint of regulation will derail the way they do business as usual. And doing business as usual without a care in the world which brought them big gains and profits, also sired the subprime meltdown. It's time to hold these mental midgets' feet to the fire, and go about the business of real reform.

China blinks on Tibet. Jacques Rogge the timid lion roars

China blinked on Tibet. Now Beijing says, it is willing to meet with representatives of the Dalai Lama. The bad publicity its brutual occupation earned it worldwide is the cause. Global public outrage has shaken the leaders of countries where the carrying of the Olympic torch has provoked massive protests. They've urged Beijing to meet the Dalai Lama. And so commonsense has come at long last to the Communist rulers of mainland China. China's reputation has suffered much. Its 'I don't give a damn' attitude has dredged up other issues: its repression of the Ugyhurs in Xinjiang, its support of Sudan's genocide in Dafur, its arms shipment to the repressive Mugabe government in Zimbabwe, its own denial of rights to its own people, and the list goes on and on. China's but itself to blame, and what's more it's torn up the agreement it signed with International Olympic Committee's Jacques Rogge of respecting the spirit of the Olympic Games. Now it looks as though Beijing's imperial disdain has cast a large black spot on the IOC's reputation. This has prompted feckless Rogge to call upon world leaders not to let the summer games in Beijing fail. They won't, but what's certain's they're damanged goods, and that's the truth. China has much to answer for at home and beofre the court of world opinion.

Another Bush scam--Pyongyang's Syria nuclear reactor?

Herr Bush has become a born-again hardliner on North Korea. This at a time when his negotiator is engaging on 'delicate' negotications with Pyongyang to live up to the terms of a signed agreement that it would furnish a full and complete laundry list of its nuclear activities and its helping other nations with nuclear projects. Obviously the sheep's clothing is torn off the intransigent wolf lying beneath. Herr Bush has a visceral dislike of Kim Jong il; he still thinks, the Kim regime is the devil's helper. He has never given up his idea that as the devil's avenging incubus he can bring regime change to North Korea. With this as a backdrop, what are to make of Herr Bush's senior CIA emissary to Capitol Hill with the smoking gun of North Korea's hand in building Syria's nuclear reactor[s]? The CIA officier's testimony has been greeted even by hard core Republicans with some skepticism. It is a difficult pill to swallow given the unrealability of Herr Bush's propaganda machine. No one has forgotten his lying ways into the war in Iraq, nor the 'proofs' he & co. came up to push for a pre emptive strike against Saddam Hussein, nor the clients the CIA used to bolster Herr Bush's plans for war. Yet the world press is ready to gobble up this 'proof' for the sale of sagging newspaper sales. Even some CIA officials, past and present, feel the data is low profile, and what's more the more photo that Herr Bush's allowed for public view, is not a picture of a reactor at the site in Syria that the Israeli's bombed on 6 September 2007. No one in the press has put Herr Bush's evidence to the laser light of verification. Will journalists let him have yet another free ride as they did with few exceptions in the case of Iraq? That remains to be seen! No one has questioned Israel's designs in the Middle East, despite a story floated in the press that Tel Aviv is willing to come to a settlement of the Golan Heights which it has occupied for the last 41 years. So what can conclusions can we draw from the latest offensive against North Korea Herr Bush is leading. One, the hardliners have scored a point; two, Herr Bush is trying to snatch victory from the failing negotiations with Pyongyang during which he has steadfastly let opportunities for agreement slip by; he is playing switch and bait feverishly for a foreign policy 'win' which can burnish somewhat his failed foreign policy initiatives here, there, and everywhere in the world. Where will all this lead? More likely Pyongyang will dig in its heels, huffing and puffing about the uncheageable nature of American imperialism, and so as proof to Herr Bush's logic, it will again take on an seemingly intransigeant tack towards the US. And so the vicious cycle will continue and Herr Bush can talk to his gods about the righteousness of his; in truth, he's is pig headed, vain, and suffers from the faults of weak men.

Israel takes another page out of Nazi war crimes

If further proof need be that Israel is intent in imposing collective guilt manu militari on the Palestinians in Gaza, the announcement by the UN of being thwarted in its programmes of bringing food and comfort and the bare necessities of life to these beseiged peoples, by Israel's armed forces carrying out its democratically elected policy of scorched earth, the reader needn't look any further. The Olmert government is carrying out polices which the Nuremberg tribunals judged high crimes of war against the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza. Hamas is the hair in Israel's soup of complete absorption of all Palestinian territory into its own state, that's why. And yet no one European government let alone Herr Bush has raised it as an issue. Once again these so called practioneers of democracy failed in the same way they let Hitler get away with his policy of expansion before the outbreak of world war two. Once again the so called West has turned a blind eye against the sufferings of a people wronged by a racist Zionist state which has never waivered in its goal of conquering the land of all Palestinians. Shame! is not strong enough. The US should fret since its ally Israel plants moles within its military establishment to spy and to pass on sensitive military data to build more and more powerful state of the art weaponry;
it has signed a pact with the devil when it bears the economic burden of supporting a client state--Israel--in the Middle East. But Herr Bush's war is changing the mix as the US is a declining power and is meeting defeat in Iraq. It is time to withdraw all military and economic aid to Israel. It is time to denounce Isreali methods as Nazi like and against the good of humanity. Israel by its punitive, vengeful war against the Palestinians stain the blood of the victims of Ha Shoah! As a learned rabbi once said, let their guts rot for eternity!

Israeli moles in the US

Ben-Ami Kadish a US citizen is out on a us$300.000 bail, and is charged with supplying nuclear and other military secrets to US' very close ally, the ties to which is almost incestuous. Kadish is 84, but suddenly we find out that his Israeli handler a certain Yagur skipped out of the US at the time Jonathan Pollard and his wife Anne were arrested for passing military secrets to Israel. Pollard is serving a life sentence although his friends in pro Israel circles in the US have tried unsuccessfully to have him pardoned much to the Pentagon's strong and overriding voice against it. Wife Anne is now living in Israel, and feted as a warrior hero's wife. Ben-Ami Kadish we learn, has never broke contact with Yagur, and now almost a quarter century after Pollard's arrest the FBI has taken him into custody, yet despite the serious of the crime which includes a long prison sentence and even the death penalty, he is walking the streets of his New Jersey town free. He has surrendered his passport and has to appear in court in late May 2008. What has taken the FBI so long to nab this 'spy'? Pollard had contacts with him; Kadish as a mechanical engineer working on highly secret projects, took documents to his home where Yagur photographed, and in the morning, he returned them to the proper folders. The dots were there to connect Kadish to Pollard and to their handler Yagur, so why is he arrested now? This arrest raises questions about the reliability of Israel as an ally, and a nation which the US forsaking its own citizens funds militarily and economically to the tune of billions of dollars a year, which are promptly forgiven. Washington has swept under the carpet an investigation of an Israel attack on a US ship in the Mediterrean almost 4 decades ago, which left several dead. Now with the Kadish spy case in the headlines and in the world press, it is time to re evaluated and reassess US relations with Israel and downgrade them appropriately. Israel is strong enough to defend itself without American help. Israel is a goliath today, not the weaking it pretends to be! It's a wolf in sheep's clothing and dangerous to peace in the Middle East.

The anal hairstylist Hank Paulson's reforms

We've heard much from the anal hairstylist at the US Treasury Hank Paulson of late. He has proposed wide sweeping reforms in financial markets in the US. But stripped of his highmindedness, he is letting his cronies in investment banking off the hook. In fact, it's not exaggeration to say he's perverting the rule of law for moral pie in the sky vacuity. His plans are not path to reform but to the endless cycle of ripping the public off for the private gain and wealth of his thugs of high finance!

Jimmy Carter breaks the ice!

Today's Financial Times of London [22 April 2008] had nothing but praise for former American president Jimmy Carter's breaking the ice with Hamas Khaled Meshel. In fact, in an editorial, it lauds Mr. Carter's diplomacy to the heavens, saying that his breakthrough with Hamas has probably saved Israel from itself.
Maybe so. Mr. Carter deals with both hands on the table. He requests in writing promises made to him. He did this in 1993 with Kim Il Sung which may very well stayed president Clinton's finger on the nuclear button, and lead to face to face meetings with the US' arch enemy North Korea. By talking to Mr. Meshel, he extracted again in writing a promise to safeguard the 1967 borders of Israel. Suddenly the Olmert Bush dam of stalling has burst. Nothing can and will be the same again for the roadmap to peace between Israel and Palestine. In Israel and the US the powers that be dislike with great passion Mr. Carter, but he carries on his goal to heal the wounds of war. Ain't for nothing, he was honoured by a Nobel Prize for Peace! Mr. Carter has his feet planted firmly on the ground; he's a realist, which is something both Washington and Tel Aviv say they are. They aren't and certainly they know from nothing when it comes to political realism.

Big Bracket Banks declining

Cosair is pumping billions into CitiGroup. Bank of America is looking for sell some of its share in a Chinese bank to raise capital to blacken bottom line red ink. If anything goes to underscore the role of finance capital as the determining factor in 21 century capitalism, it is the dominance of finance institutions which have done much not only to enhance centuries old trends of globalisation but raise the melting point to the dangerous degree we are witnessing today.
On the labour front an American union representing clerks and office workers and bank tellers at CitiBank is demanding a return to a fire wall between and commerical and investment banking. It is bringing the fight to CitiGroup's shareholders who will thumb their long Wall Street nose at them and left the effort die on the vine.
Somehow or the other the US government is going willy nilly to impose this iron curtain to safe America's banks.

Another black eye for China--arms for Mugabe

China's road to peace is scarred with huge potholes, many of its own making. Dafur, Tibet, Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Now the spotlight is on Beijing again for arms shipments to Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Although ordered before the defeat of Mugabe in Zimbabwe's elections, the old dictator won't go gracefully, so arms shipments drag up thoughts of turning the guns on his opponents who won the elections fair and square. Thanks, however, to South Africa's strong unions and the churches, particularly the Anglican church, China's arms are not unloaded and its ship carrying them has left port for an unknown destination. The church's and rank and file unions put South Africa's president Tabi Mbeki's role as a mediator in the Zimbabwe elections to shame. And shows him a man of small moral courage. China should shudder for its blind foreign policy which is based on its own fantasies and not grounded in the realities of the day!

Bear Stearns another chapiter

Today's Saturday edition of the 'New York Times' [19 April 2008] ran a story on page 1 about Bear's new hires who haven't a job. Bear's new master JP Morgan Chase has announced that first year analysts can keep a us$10.000 bonus and fresh out of school mba's us$50.000, on condition they won't sue JPM. These new hires are graduates of Ivy and top non Ivy schools; they won't have an easy time finding another spot of employment, nor hope presently to ride the esculator to high salaries. And though one feels sorry for them, more oft than not, they are children of privilege and won't suffer too long. But what the 'New York Times' and other prestige press or the run of the mill journalism doesn't do is look at those without privilege or the bad hand the market is dealing them. High unemployment; outsourced jobs; dead end work; high fees for a college education which will keep children of theirs stuck on the social ladder or transform them into cannon fodder for Herr Bush's failed wars. Don't cry for the rich kids 'New York Times' yet it does for it is bemoaning the fate of their own class and the devil be damned for the rest!

Wall Street cheers when bad news isn't worse

Jittery Wall Street is living on a wing and a prayer these days. They take even bad news as a sign things aren't as dire as they seem. Yesterday the market went up almost 300 points on the strength of Citigroup's lackluster first quarter results. A loss of some us$5billion, a write off this time of us$16billion in subprime loans, and here's the good news a firing of 9000 a top of an already announced cut in staff of 20.000. Well the news was as bad as the Street expected, and so the market shot up like a small rocket reaching for the 13.000 territory. Which all goes to confirm the Rothchilds' adage that when red ink flows, it's time to make money.

Good times on Wall Street or fair weather hidding darker clounds?

Fair weather on Wall Street? One would like to think so. The markets are rebounding, it seems, on news of good or better than expected earnings for Google or Coca Cola or even debt ridden banks like JP Morgan Chase and Lehman Brothers. Wall Street is on the verge of throwing more workers out on the streets. CitiGroup is slashing another 20.000 workers; Merrill Lynch 10 per cent of its workforce or some 4000 employees, not to mention the eventual sacking of JP Morgan of some 7000 from Bear Stearns. Unemployment is rising; food prices are sparking food riots abroad and suddenly governments are prohibiting grain and rice exports to preserve stability at home. But the markets are smiling, the bankers buoyant, thinking the subprime meltdown is on the wane. Think again old cocks. John Thain ex Goldman Sachs, ex chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and now chief honcho at Merrill Lynch, says the problem runs very deep and it is a silent terror stalking world financial markets. Of course, as the Rothchilds say, during wars and economic breakdown when blood flows freely in the streets, it is the best of times to make money, and that is certainly what the plutocrats, the blood suckers on the arse of the people, and coupon clippers, and the 'magouille' are doing. They will sing and dance on the graves of the poor till the day of reckoning comes to them.

The moral cowardice of Tabi Mbeki

Tabi Mbeki would be the last to throw his weight in talking softly and quietly to the White South African government. He would laugh in one's face at the lack of courage in condemning apartheid; he would push for stiff sanctions till Pretoria threw in the towel. But today Tabi Mbeki is as docile as a lamb when it comes to Zimbabwe. He's a practioneer of quite diplomacy and don't rock the boat ism in dealing with Robert Mugabe. Mbeki who has a bad odour in his own ANC, has proven weak spined in confronting the brutual government in power in Harari. South Africa is the major power in the region yet Mbeki is unwilling to put muscle into confronting Mugabe. He has proven a weak reed and a man who uses double moral standards. He deserves strong disapproval and has proven a coward.

JP Morgan Chase's first quarter results 2008 - hope and pitfalls

World financial markets are unstable. JP Morgan Chase's announced first quarter results for 2008 spiked up bourses in New York and elsewhere. This despite a precipitous drop in profits, and an admission that 'cash rich' JPM is saddled with flabby earnings and subprime debt. Nonetheless bankers took heart from this less than robust news. JPM took Bear Stearns with the complicity of the Fed, for a mere pittance. And its CEO Jaime Diamon shown toasting South Korea's president Lee Myung-bak in today's financial pages, is set on picking up more banking properties on the cheap. Has he illusions of grandeur that JPM will become the one big bank globally? Possibly. Only time will tell. What casts a bleak pall on JPM's horizon is the slow emergence of the huge pool of subprime debt it has kept from public scrutiny, and some say is between us$150bn to us$300bn. It seems markets should be more vigiliant in cheering JPM. What is a further sign of cause for concern are the bonds which Goldman Sachs and Lehman and perhaps Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley are floating on the market at a 7,9 per cent coupon. Sounds attractive doesn't it? Indeed, it does. Whoa pard'ner...it is a hundred per cent risk bond founded on junk, the junk of subprime debt! Instead of reform these slick investment bankers are looking with keen practices to turn a depreciated Yankee dollar of profit. For how long? Caveat emptor!

Republicans up in arms over Herr Bush's blinking on North Korea's nuclear arsenal

It won't be the first time, Herr Bush has given the Texas finger to his mossback Republicans. He broke with him over North Korea, and he won't back down now that he's soften conditions on Pyongyang's nuclear capabilities. Will these dyed in the wool true believers stage a palace coup? That is doubtful. They will end up drinking bitter tea, for Herr Bush needs a foreign policy victory before he leaves office. He's failed all across the board, so he will fight for the red star which is a deal with North Korea

Bless Jimmy Carter

As a devout Christian, former president Jimmy Carter is the first to admit he's a sinner. He's a true believer in the words of the Gospels. He speaks plainly. He says what is obvious. He's in Israel, but the Israeli government won't let him into Gaza, nor with the ShinBet, Israel's CIA, guarantee his safety in the west bank. But this hasn't deterred Mr. Carter from meeting with Hamas leaders. He will meet Hamas' leader in Damascus. He also spoke the gospel truth which has sent Israeli leaders and Herr Bush running to the outhouse. For a viable peace, Israel has to deal with Hamas and Syria not only the Palestinian Authority. Bless Jimmy Carter, for he's once again put the finger of truth in the eye of Washington's and Tel Aviv's puffery, flummery, and ostrich view of the world. And in the end, kicking and screaming Herr Bush and the Zionists will have to deal with all parties.

The surge, the economy, McCain, Maureen Dowd, & the like

Well the morning headlines say it all: renewed and sustain violence in Iran has torn to shreds any pretension that the surge is working in Iraq. Rather it's an affirmation of America's praetorian guard general Petaeus' statement before the pr blitz at the Senate hearings last week. Progress is reversible, and reversible it is. US trained Iraqi troops bolted, turned tail, and ran like a bat out of hell in Sadr City. Herr Bush's Iraqi clients are no match for organised resistance, Shia or Sunni. They can claim no loyalty from a population who view these troops as puppets of the occupying power[s]. On the economic front, the news is worse. Britain's pm Brown is in Washington to confer with Herr Bush. It looks as though the UK will extend the government's arm towards nationalisating weaker banks. This solution is not acceptable in the land of winken, blinken, and nod or the US, but there can be not doubt that the federal government through the Fed will have to intervene in free markets to rein in cowboy economics, to save the banks! McCain's pitch to the hoi polloi for a summer free of gasoline taxes is just that--playing to the gallery; it's cheap and an obvious device to win him votes. It won't. What about the rising cost of food, tub boat admiral McCain? What about rising rents, foreclosures, and the growing impoverishment of Americans, old dear? Nary a word, and this fool also proclaims in the same breath, he wants Herr Bush's tax breaks for the rich to become permanent by an act of Congress. Yes, he's a lackey of the plutocracy and rotting corpse of the class that pulls Herr Bush's strings. He ain't worth a vote! Maureen Dowd has gotten on to her hobby horse denouncing her Barak Obama for his 'elitist' remarks. Really, if anyone's an elitist, it's Mme. Dowd who shots from the hip and takes ombrage when her slip is showing. Put some powder on a shiny red nose, old darling, you need it.

Michael Moore's revenge...T.R. Reid walking in 'Sicko' s footsteps

T.R. Reid a former 'Washington Post' correspondent in Japan, among other assignments, is walking in a path well trod by film maker Michael Moore. Reid's on 'Frontline' and is presenting his take on healthcare in 7 industrial countries--the UK, Taiwan, Germany, Holland, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan. Each with complete coverage for all citizens and at a cost lower than anything the for profit assurance companies can match in the mighty US. Why? Strict regulation of the insurance industry! Although Reid's daughter had care in a London hospital at no cost to him, a non resident with a fat cheque book, he thinks the UK model has the bad odour of too much government intervention, read the old bugaboo 'socialised medicine', which is not an uncommon attitude especially among the white shoe elitist Reid is. What he does admit however, is that all the countries he's visited, in everyone of them the government has intervened strongly and oversees the system. So isn't that a form of socialisation? Yes, it is, but not for deep pockets Reid. Nonetheless, his programme and book will help inch the US to universal healthcare. He favours Otto von Bismarck's German model which he thinks will fit America's experience. Why he left out France boggles the imagination since he readily admits it has a top notch system which will pay bills from another EU country should a French national seek healthcare there for any reason! It is useless to speculate why this wellbred American sniffs at the French. What is sure and certain, he won't get the flak Michael Moore's 'Sicko' did. Although Moore's film stated clearly and fortrightly the case for universal healthcare in the US. Moore made the cardinal sin of rubbing the US' nose into Cuba's excellent though barebones health system. Reid's discourse is more acceptable since he belongs to the old boys' network and is a Washington insider. Reid predicts the new president who assumes power on 20 January 2009 will proclaim universal healthcare. Is he too sanguine?

Bush & the summer Olympics in Beijing

Unless his arm is twisted painfully, Herr Bush is going to be present at the opening of the summer Olympics in Beijing. No Gordon Brown nor Angela Merkel nor Ban Kee Moon is he. He falls back on the fallacious argument of quiet diplomacy. We know what quiet diplomacy is. Look at the Reagan's policy towards apartheid South Africa as a sterling example of winking. Herr Reagan spoke of quiet diplomacy which didn't get him very far in leveraging the US' might on Pretoria!
Herr Bush will wend his merry way to Beijing. And you've to wonder is his strong words on China's repression in Tibet worth the paper they're printed on? Hardly, we dare say!

Washington cries uncle!

Herr Bush has blinked. He's cried uncle in dealing with North Korea. He's now willing not to press hard for a complete laundry list of Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal and stock of enriched uranium. He is going to settle for a signed statement by Kim Jong il's regime, believe it or not!
Herr Bush has little to show on the win side of diplomacy. And he's has gone so far on the road in dealing with North Korea, he cannot turn back. So he will settle for a half loaf. He has his own self to blame. He picked a fight he couldn't win, and like the bully in the sandbox, he got eyes and mouth full of sand.

Arms & the man & religion & Barak Obama

The pack of wild politicians are yapping at the heels of the junior senator from Illinois. As he put it, he didn't phrase what he said about demoralised Americans who cling to the cold comfort of a weapon or religion, things they know well enough for mean survival. America is not used to a contender for the White House who speaks forthrightly. Americans are not only demoralised, they are depolitised, and react by the instinct for survival by seeking refuge in self protection [guns], or hitting out at the foreigner [illegal and legal immigrats] or seek succor in the bible. Obama is simply stating a fact. The times are parlous; Herr Bush doesn't give a tinker's damn about the ordinary joe or jane who may very well have cast a vote for him; he has favoured his class of croneys, corrupt politicians, big industrialists, and coupon clippers. Obama simply has drawn us to the truth as the economy sinks in the west owing to the subprime ponzi scheme collapse, bad economic news, rising food prices, higher unemployment, and hardly a penny saved for a rainy day.
Mme Clinton has jumped on the bandwagon to say, oh, sweet man, how out of touch you are, how elitist, how condescending...Tug boat admiral McCain who is ever adrift in la la land joins in the tut tut tutting. The snarky William Cristol with great portentiousness resurrect Karl Marx from a deep grave, to repeat the tried but true comment that religion is the opium of the people...he who has little feeling for these very same people.
Americans have the horrible habit of not looking the truth in the face. They prefer perfumed sentiments and words; they will swallow lotuses to forget reality. And when a man like Barak Obama comes along, a man of deep religious faith, 18Brumaire hastens to add and human concern, sticks a finger in the eye of puffery, and says what is as plain as the nose on one's face, down on him comes the brickbats of pious hypocrisy. And that's the truth!

The anal hairstylist Hank Paulson's working behind the scene

The fabulous anal hairstylist and US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson is trying his damnest to calm the turbulence in the world's financial markets. He is playing with fire for he's incapable of seeing further than the tip of his high nose and his vision is hazy at best. Meeting with the big boys of powerful central banks, he kept up the stale advice Herr Bush keeps handing out. The US economy is in very bad shape owing to the subprime ponzi scheme which the anal hairstylist helped structure as CEO of Goldman Sachs, and which the toilet bowl cleaner Alan Greenspan encouraged. The crisis is spreading like an uncontrollable cancer, which Herr Bush lying through his teeth by preaching the gospel of pie in the sky economics, cannot stem. And its affecting all markets everywhere.
Enter the booming voice of Paul Volker former chairman of the US Fed, and he ain't exactly swift on his feet, yet he's had the belated courage to say, laissez faire capitalism has proven a failure. Don't take this last sentence amiss. Volker is a confirmed and reborn capitalist, but even he sees that the manoeuvres of Herr Bush and his anal hairstylist are not worth a tinker's damn. The US is already in recession which economists and lawmakers refuse to say, standing on the shaky leg of definitions. The IMF already put the bill to pay at a conservate guestamite of us$1000bn or a cool trillion Yankee dollars; growth is slowing in the vital Asian markets and that also means China, which although it has a vast internal market, its huge population cannot fuel high GDP growth alone. Credit is scare and so long propelled and sustained growth by imports of foreign capital is drying up and in spite of China's huge surplus rising fuel and commodity and food costs and dumb internal policies which are widening the gap between rich and poor will crimp China's economic expansion. Herr Bush and his lapdog at the Treasury and toiletroom attendent Ben Bernanke at the Fed are in a bind; the best they can do is to play for time and leave the whole mess on the lap of next president. Still the way hard times are coming down hard and fast on the world's markets time ain't on their side.

Jimmy Carter sails into rough waters

Former president Jimmy Carter is never one to shun controversy. This time, he's preparing to meet in Damascus Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. The US department of state is urging him not to. But Carter will not listen to them, for he is an equal opportunity listner, and is more interested in calming the waters of rising tensions than mouthing the old, dry platitudes of Herr Bush and his Israeli praetorian guards who keep yelling 'terrorists'. It is quite telling that the US government values little the great service Carter has already rendered his country and its people. America's collective memory has the life span of a firefly. It flickers brightly one moment and the next it dies. Doesn't anyone recall how in the early 1990's Carter went to Pyongyang, met with Kim Il song, and through his negotiations stayed president Clinton's hand on pressing the nuclear button. His trip ushered in an era of direct negotiations with North Korea until Herr Bush broke them off. Carter has of recent date been in the eye of a storm which Israel and its acolytes in America have fanned to great intensity. He had apartheid in his title of a book about coming to a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine. Had anyone bothered to read the book, he would've known from page 1 of Carter's deep and personal commitment to the safeguarding the Zionist state. Yet he is critical of Israel's policy to reduce Palestinian territory to bantustans which have the sour odour of South Africa's apartheid policies.
Carter is an arch realist. There can be no progress between Israel and the Palestinians unless they engage Hamas which Israel is loathe to do. No one really cares in Isreal or in Washington to stay Israel's open warfare against Hamas in Gaza. It is not in Israel's interest for Hamas is the bone of contention which sticks in the Zionists' caw and delays plans to complete and total annexation of all Palestinian territory it covets, leaving small islands of Palestinians hemmed in an open air prison. Israel little realises that by absorbing the lion's share of the west bank conquered territories it is in the process of destroying the Jewish state, for it will have more Arabs than Jews. So much for the plans of the mice in Tel Aviv who will live to see the day they destroy the so called Jewish homeland.
It is much to Carter's credit in face of stormy political weather, he is ever ready to venture forth in his mission to bring peace and do it non violently. The man deserves our thanks and wishes of good luck.

Bush's authorian rule

Nothing will dilute the deleterious reign of Herr Bush during his two terms in the Oval office. He has ripped up constitutional authority and imposed his own rule of weak tea fascism. His new attorney general Mukasy says the US military has the right to disregard the average American's civil liberties; Herr Bush circumvents advice and consent of the Senate on foreign matters by a sleight of the tongue making Orwell's 'newspeak' look like a kindergarten exercise. And yet the American public who poll after poll suggest are not happy with Herr Bush's rule remain as placid and calm as sheep being led to slaughter. Such is the result of progressive defanging of politics in the US, and the rule of the corporate and military and yes their hired hands in Congress who perpetuate an authoritarian rule which is impoverishing the country and turning the clock back to the mean days of 19 century America.

Tibet, Beijing, the Olympic flame...chapter 3

The heavily guarded Olympic torch has come to Buenos Aires, Argentina. China has sent its praetorian guard to watch over it along with 3000 Argentine troops and numerous police. Argentina's Sra. Kirschner will allow pro Tibetans protesters to demonstrate but with a caveat not to try to extinguish the Olympic torch which has taken on mystical qualities. Yet Argentinians have shown not much enthusiasm for the torch although Argentina has the signal honour of being the only Spanish speaking country the flame of 'peace & friendship & love between the brothers & the sisters' will dash through. Turbulent times of London, Paris, and San Francisco will not be suited to the fiery temper of Argentina's government. A respectful protest is what it has in mind. Nonetheless, it is very telling that Beijing the summer games sponsor has had to sent paramilitary troops to save face. It deserves all the attention and condemnation it is getting owing to its horrible colonial rule of Tibet. It has not grasped victory out of the jaws of public humiliation but has compounded it thrice over. Jacques Rugge the mealy mouth OIC president has come begging to the Communist government in Beijing to do something to lessen the world anger against Beijing. But Beijing will do little to appease the sorry man. Now Ban Ki Moon the UN secretary general says he will not attend the games opening. China in a weak rejoinder to Mr. Ban's absence has come up with a kid in the sandbox reply, 'more world leaders will come to Beijing for the inauguration than at any other time in the Olympics' history'. So what, that doesn't detract from Beijing colonial crackdown on Tibet, and we shouldn't also forget the Ouighirs in Xiajiang aka western Turkmenestan who suffer from the same iron fist[t]ed colonialism as Tibet. China is caught with its pants down and there is no way it can escape the world's contempt and condemnation.

Tibet & the Olympics...more commentary

The ruses San Francisco's mayor had to use, to let the Olympic flame run through the streets of his city, has drawn attention to the inanity of the moment. China's repression of Tibetans [let's leave aside the Ouighars in Xiajiang for the moment], challenges the stupid old men who run the OIC, and has made Jacques Rugge its president scurrying to Beijing to plead with the Chinese to make a goodwill gesture towards the Dalai Lama. Rather than hold Beijing's feet to the fire of promises that it made when it won the OIC's nod to hold the games in Beijing, they are nickelling and diming, scrambling for a way out of the impasse. China won't give the slightest millemetre. The carrying of the torch brings to public knowledge that it is a ritural of recent vintage; one Hitler's Germany created to tout its strength as a prelude to the 1936 summer games in Berlin. Beijing has simply adopted Nazi tactics but they have backfired. Maybe it's time to withdraw the games to Greece once more? In any way shape or form, the Chinese have given the Olympic games a big, black eye. And no amount of propaganda will turn the world's eyes on their brutual colonial policy in Tibet! Alas the world media have missed a great story by not exposing China's equally brutal policies in Xiajiang which are the same they use against Tibetans, to turn the Ouighars into ersatz Chinese.!

World bankers get religion...but not all of them

The world's bankers had sworn off demon debt. They have witnessed that they are responsible for the credit crunch and the ills in the market place. They are reborn, they like to believe! But not all bankers feel that way, especially the toiletroom attendent Ben Bernanke who continues to shout and sing that the US economy is robust and will rebound within the later months of 2008. This flies in the face of the IMF's assessment that the mortgage meltdown has sown havoc conservatively to the tune of us$1000bn or us$1 trillion Yankee dollars. IMF forecast a growth rate in the US of 0,5 per cent which is hardly enough to sustain the world's leading economy whereas the Americans put it at 3 to 4 times superior. What is certain is that the US is not only in recession but is stagnating. [The Japanese must be tut tuting since the US won't take the medicine it forced down their throats when Japan Inc.'s bubble burst 18 years ago.] Washington believes China's rising middle class with save them from steep down turns. Silly boys! The Chinese haven't the clout to propel consumer spending a l'americaine in a manner that would provide US markets with a soft landing, let alone shore up international markets. So we're at a time when the US is engaging in flummery and kidding itself to a Panglossian idea of the future as the US slides down the numbers to a second rate power. Herr Bush's idea of a powerful America, one who call make others jump to Washington's tune, is like Coleridge's Ozimandis...ruins in a desert of dreams

Obama and Iraq and Iran

Barak Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, in his questioning of general Petraeus [what a nice sounding Latin name raising visions of sugar plum visions of the might of the Roman Empire] on America's policy in Iraq, pinned the tail on Herr Bush's donkey. Obama is quite conservative but he is bright enough to see that the hand of Iran will steady and yes save the failed US occupation of Iraq. He simply asks that if Maliki the US front guy who is heading the Iraq government can welcome and talk with Iran's president without feeling any discomfort, why cannot Herr Bush? A sensible, straightforward, realistic question to which he got a chuckleheaded answer. What is certain today is that Herr Bush's occupation of Iraq which is following by the numbers occupation by any colonial power of yore, has not only increased Iran's influence in Iran but has turned the Islamic Republic of Iran into a major player in the Arab world. And that's the truth! Obama recognises this reality and wants the US to begin from there arranging something which would extricate Washington from Herr Bush's mess. We know Herr Bush is playing for time...simply listen to the wooden answer Petreaus and the US ambassador to Baghdad Crocker spat out before congressional committees. In brief, we shit on our parade, now you the next president, clean it up!

A us$1 trillion subprime mortgage bill to pay

The International Monetary Fund have come out with a ballpark figure of us$1 tillion as the bill to pay for the subprime ponzi scheme collapse. This is a conservative guesstimate since no one but no one really knows the extent and the depth of the mortgage fallout. And now the toilet bowl cleaner Alan Greenspan who is responsible for his lazy oversight of the US financial markets fesses up to the open secret that the US is in recession; oh cock, it's not only the US, the recession is infecting the whole world financial markets. This recession will be long and wreck havoc especially among the lower and poorer classes...it will mean a slide down the social scale of the middle classes but the super rich will somehow survive the fallout since it is they who pull the strings. Already food riots have broken out across the globe, mainly in what is euphemistically called the developing world, but the spike in food prices is tightening belts in the first world or developed economies. If this subprime virus does not lead to a depression it won't be from trying, but from the hit and miss policies of the oligarghs [sic] who are at the levers of command of the economy. At such times without a political movement which can challenge market fundamentals and offer a credible alternative, we are stuck with the old, tried, and true and exhausted solutions which won't do the trick. That and waiting for the rising and the ebbing of the serious repression. Out of desperation, the masses will look for a saviour on a white horse...a dictator who won't improve their lot one whit.

Another round of jaw, jaw, jaw at the 6 party talks in Beijing

Chief US negoticator Christopher Hill wears a weary smile these days. At the upcoming 6 party talks in Beijing, he sadly expresses doubts that talks with North Korea will progress a millemetre towards resolving the nuclear standoff. The war of words between Seoul and Pyongyang contribute to North Korea's foot dragging. That, let's us remind our gentle readers, is of recent date and is not at the root of Pyongyang's delay in furnishing a fuller if not complete laundry list of its nuclear arsenal which it says it's committed to scrap. Pyongyang acts in quid pro quo negotications; if it promises one thing, it expects the other party to live up to the bargain North Korea struck with it. The US has engaged to do something, which owing to bad reporting, we have a hazy idea of. It has stalled in fulfilling its part of the handshake in November 2007. In consequent, it should surprises no one--but the Candide's of Herr Bush's administration, that Kim Jong-il's government has dug in its heels on furthering fruitful talks with Washington. And thus the standoff. The new president in Seoul's Blue House Lee Hyung-bek's heated, tough buy rhetoric is not helping matters either. He's posturing is but a thin paper mache parrot of Herr Bush's 'axis of evil' chucklehead diplomacy. If Washington wants a deal, it better hurry up and live up to its responsibilities. And ain't that the truth!

Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston is dead. The black publisher's ink is flowing mightily. At the time of his death at the age off 84, Heston had come to identify reaction and a break with America's progress. He embraced the mossback standpoint of the National Rifle Association, and believed in the right of men and women to bear arms, under an amibiguous reading of an article in America's Bill of Rights. He felt proud as a white man as to how the whites had forged a mighty nation like the US, forgetting the minorities, slavery, indentured servitude, etc. He last appeared in Michael Moore's 'Bowling to Columbine' which plumbed the depths of guns in the hands of the young [or old] who go on a shooting spree. Critics went after Moore with hammer and tong for questioning a frail old man, albeit courtly, who had alzheimer's. Anyone seeing that sequence will rightly note that Heston had all his marbles and defended his reactionary stance with now his dead hand! Heston may have had some talent as an actor but he should better be remembered as a spokesman of black reaction!

The subprime meltdown has provoked a worldwide crisis

Dominique Strauss Khan the chief pooh bah at the IMF is calling on the world's central governments to intervene strongly into world financial market. Thus, he acknowledges the breath and depth of the subprime ponzi scam perpetrated by the mighty US banking sector here, there, and everywhere in the four corners of the globe. They have to. They've no choice. For the simple and plain truth is that no one, but no one has the foggiest idea as to how far and how deep and to what extent the meltdown has affected world financial markets. Just to give you a taste of the problem, click on fmcenter.org. It will send you shaking in your boots, for it documents that at the height of the housing bubbles new mortgage borrowing, that is in the last quarter of 2005, the total outstanding mortgage debt rang up at the cash register a whooping us$8,66 trillion, which is equal, they say, to 69,4 per cent of the US GDP. Is the US already not only in deep recession but on the slippery slope of bankruptcy? The toilet bathroom attendent Ben Bernanke has had to intervene in the market place and make the already drunk with debt American economy the lender of last resort. Last resort, 18Brumaire repeats! Little wonder Strauss Khan has rung the tocsin alerting the world of the tilt towards panic and tumult in world financial markets places. No one but perhaps the big banks who know had to funnel bad debt to others will escape the consequences, or maybe they won't for the practice of greed of theirs. Yet the new powerhouses of the global economy, read, China and India won't escape the fallout. We are witnessing a wrenching of the soul of capitalism and a crisis which is leading to stagnation a la japonaise and a long trek in the desert before it is all over.

New Zealand signs an FTA pact with China

New Zealand is the first first world economy to sign a Free Trade Agreement [FTA] with China. The FTA will banish import fess to the Greek kalends. China has fuelled unprecedent growth of Austral Asia, it goes without saying. A rising but limited middle class in Mao's kingdom and its growing power of the purse have boosted the quality of New Zealand's citizen's lives. Wellington is also encouraging emigration of Chinese to its shores to fill jobs that go begging in an economy with about 3 per cent unemployment. Some may say, it is allowing the Chinese Trojan horse to enter its wall, since Chinese immigration will remain fiercely loyal to Beijing and not to New Zealand. But that's another story. What is significant is that the once mighty and proud White industrial nations in Austral Asia has now fallen into China's sphere of influence, and so like the older states of east Asia and southeast Asia, it will pay the price the imperial court will exact. An annual tribute and kowtowing 8 or 9 times at the feet of the Communist government in Beijing.

The Clintons' tax retunrs

There is no denying the Clintons have ascended the ladder of the wealthy by revealing tax declarations of the last 7 years. On a scale of 1 to 100, they are fairly low on the rungs of millionaires. Had the press cleaned out clogged ears or opened blinkered eyes, it might recall that Bill Clinton publicly put it this way: Herr Bush's tax cuts and legislation benefitting the well heeled had made him a richer man. The media should look at the horrible impoverishment Herr Bush's war against one and all but the rich has weakened the US. Yesterday's publishing of a poll saying 81 per cent of Americans think Herr Bush has led the country down the mulberry path simply confirms that. But since the media are in the hands of the super rich conglomerate who control sources of news, little wonder we don't read nor know about that. Little wonder news has become newspeak or idle chatter. And the US is sorrier for that.

China once again drops a big rock on its toe

You cannot but feel sorry for Beijing's rulers. They have the knack of making a bad case worse. Take the recent crack down in Tibet, it has largely turned world opinion against it, tore to shreds its choreographed campaign to bring peace and harmony to the world through the Beijing summer Olympic games, and torn off the mask of a rising world power albeit nominally Communist, but with a human face, soul, and feelings. Well all that's gone! In spite of harsh repression in Tibet and neighbouring provinces with large Tibet populations, it has not quashed the will of Tibetans for freedom and affirmation of who they are, and this despite more than a half century of Beijing's trying to turn Tibetans into ersatz Chinese. But Beijing's woes do not remain in Tibet. The oppressed Muslims in China's Xinjiang or Western Turkestan have taken to arms against the central government, and now Beijing admits, Muslims have begun taking to the streets in protest. Although we're not witnessing the spark that caused a prairie fire, to slip into the Leninist imagery, we're on the other hand, witnessing the faltering power of Communist rule in China. We won't examine the growing social and class tensions within the majority Han population, nor the struggle of intellectuals calling for a more open society, nor the daily confrontation of the destitute peasants in the neglected Chinese hinterland with local leaders who represent Beijing's central, stifling, oppresive rule. The Communsits are heirs and prisoners of China's past...they react in the same way towards discontent in the same way that the emperors did. And with brutality. Some may say in a traditional way, the mandate of heaven is slowly slipping away from Beijing, this in the face of unprecedented economic expansion and growing world status of China. This said, to hold on to power, Beijing will not hesitate to wage full and open warfare against its own people, and such a policy will further weaken its grasp on power.

Had Alan Schwartz played Liar's Poker

As Brumaire18 earlier showed how the Gang of 4 killed Bear Stearns, poor Alan Schwartz Bear's beleagued CEO caved into blackmail, in the extreme hope his 14.000 employees won't be left selling apples on street corners when JP Morgan's Jaime Dimon radically changed the terms of a us$25bn loan...from 28 days to 24 hours. Had Schwartz told Dimon to shove it royally up his arse, what would the Gang of 4 done? They would've rescued Bear Stearns without blinking, for the very simple reason were Bear to fail, it would bring down Wall Street. Oh were Schwartz a practioneer of Liar's Poker, for then he and his bank would be still in business instead of being raped by a JP Morgan takeover. Nice work anal hairstylist Hank Paulson!

Dumbing down America 101

Syms an American clothier have a wonderful tag: 'an educated consumer is our best [customer]'. In 7 little words, it says it all. An educated consumer is a buyer bewared. But tell that to the media who are slashing at large hachet swings news reporting. Little wonder the average American lives in a la la land of glitter and vacuity which passes for news. Little wonder America's children cannot even locate American cities on a map. Little wonder...indeed! A dumb America is easier to control, and the ruling class knows that full well. They make sure the gnats they spawn have full and complete access to the best education so as to perpetuate a class of bloodsuckers and hanger ons and croneys, and sponges, and nasty people who believe they're to the manor born. In a sense, they are, but what they have is not a right nor a privilege...oh where are the common men and women to rise up and overthrow this class of man eaters who feed on the body America? They are here and there and everywhere but know not their strength, nor have they coalesced yet into a powerful army to overthrow Herr Bush & his ilk...

More thoughts on the Gang of 4's killing of Bear Stearns

As was to be expected 3 of the Gang of 4 appeared before Congress' banking committee to justify the massacre of the investment banking house Bear Stearns on 16 March 2008. The apologia pro sua vita Geither and the toilet attendent Bernanke pleaded following the well worn scenario found in endless, idle chatter in the media. [The big enchilada anal hairstylist Hank Paulson was in Beijing, stroking the Chinese silken anal hairs for a big handout to help steady US financial markets!]. The real meat of testimony came from Alan Schwartz the beleagued CEO of Bear Stearns. It was hardly commented on. Jaime Dimon of JP Morgan who will devour Bear Stearns lock, stock, and barrel, had agreed to a loan of us$25bn for 28 days, thereby giving Bear breathing space to raise monies to stave off failure. This was on Friday 14 March, but on Sunday 16 March, he rang up to say it was not a 28 day loan but a 24 hour loan. At this point Schwartz threw in the towel for there was no way, he could in a day raise the money. As the 'New York Times Dealbook' [2 April 2008] reported, the anal hairstylist was on the telephone that weekend twisting arms to kill Bear Stearns, and he did out of rivalry or revenge for Jimmy Cayne's refusal to help bail out a hedge fund 10 years earlier, or as a way of tough love messages to the industry? or perhaps all three and many more motives yet to come to light. Rumour has it Goldman Sachs began bruiting stories about Bear's solvency, which spread like wild fire; traders began selling short...and we know the rest. Now the SEC are looking into insider trading charges and Schwartz spoke the obvious that had Bernanke opened the window of opportunity that he did for Lehman, Bear would still be in business. To put the nail in the coffin of Bernanke's disingenuous testimony, the SEC agree.
The Gang of 4 thought they had brokered a done deal, but have they without fallout. Hardly! The world markets shook within the very hour the toilet attendent announced the offering up on the altar of greed Bear Stearns, and in spite of the smoke and blue mirrors of Bernanke and the fancy braiding of anal hair by Paulson the markets remain fragile at best and we're now witnessing at roaring speed the US slipping into recession. More later...

The toilet attendent Bernanke let's the cat out of the bag

Toilet attendent Ben Bernanke has let the cat out of the bag. Yes, the US is in recession. He kept the open secret under his cap until events in the market place, read subprime meltdown, rising food and fuel prices, inching up unemployment, and the inability of the government to regulate and control an economy which has spun out of control, owing to the rule of laissez faire capitalism more commonly known as free trade and limited, very limited government.
He will do what little he can...he will ride the back of this bull till it throws him off. The crisis is here for a long spell, and neither Bernanke nor his gang of thugs, nor Herr Bush can nor are courageous enough to take bold measure to tame the unbridled, feral horse which is private business. How can they? The private sector calls the tune, and not one is brave enough to be a traitor to this class of thugs and blood suckers and croneys, and stand up for the little man or woman. Ultimately they will either have to institute authoritarian rule or cave in to the rising anger across the land to aid and succour the citizenry.

The anal hairstylist Hank Paulson in Beijing!

US secretary of the Treasury and anal hairstylist supreme is in Beijing. If we believe the headlines, which are suspect, he gave Hu Jintao a talk on the need of China to respect human rights! Don't you believe that for a moment. It's a smokescreen. You've to ask why in the midst of a financial crisis of global seriousness and at a time of shaky American financial houses, should the man at the frontier supposedly of major, some say, revolutionary, change, is in Beijing musing on China's woefully deficient report card on human rights? Well, as if we didn't know the answer! Since 'getting the government off our backs' thus spake the American Zarathustra Ronald Reagan, the US has espoused the gospel of the free market, thereby instituting run amok reign of laissez faire capitalism, by favouring the rich and impoverishing everyone else. So we see the brutal reign of the private sector unfettered from the chains of state regulation, resulting in the state's inability to collect or levy taxes to pay for its maintenance whilst putting into the hands of the bankers, corporations the run of the country. Out of this lunatic philosophy has arisen the subprime ponzi meltdown, shaking to its fundamental the financial structures of not only the US but the world banking system. The Bear Stearns rape brings to light the weakening of American hegemony as a world superpower, who is now kicking and screaming giving millemetres of ground to a rising and opposing superpower who is China. China hold trillions in US debt which is sustaining an ever weakening dollar. Now, we see why the anal hairstylist Paulson is in Beijing. He's there with his fine tooth comb to stroke the anal hairs of the Chinese to help rescue the big American and European banks beset by dire financial misery caused by the subprime meltdown. In brief, he's come as a beggar...how humiliating for Herr Bush whom the 'New York Times' asserts today [3 April 2008] is quite distant to the machination in the financial market place. This is pure unadulatered bull! So now the mighty Herr Bush has sent his lackey to Beijing kowtowing to the celestial kingdom for aid and comfort and at a price it is willing to pay, and ironically willing now to dance a little to the Chinese erhu and pipa and shao! How the mighty stoop so low!

Modesty doesn't become the rich investment bankers

Whereas the anal hairstylist Hank Paulson is trying to bring a semblance of order in rocky and turbulent world of high finance, reform or acts of contriction of the super pooh bahs of America's finance capital are coming up short. Look at Blank[en]fein who took over from Paulson at Goldman. He plonked down us$32m for an apartment at 15 Central Park West, where Sanford Weill lives. The disgraced Jimmy Cayne took his ill gains and bought two apartments at the refurished Plaza Hotel on Central Park South. The average joe and jane are told to rein in expenditures and change poor buying habits, but not the bloodsuckers whose very banks brought us the subprime ponzi scheme and subsequent meltdown and set the global financial markets and world economies a shaking. Once again we have a corrupt, syphlitic ruling class who preach do as I say, but not as I do. And we end up paying dearly for their incompetence, greed, vices, and economic veneral diseases.

The anal hairstylist's saga--another chapter

Anal hairstylist & US secretary of the Treasury Henry 'Hank' Paulson is busy as a bee these days. He's drawing up plans to change the way non commerical banks or investment banks and hedgefunds and quite, but esoteric financial instruments are regulated. He commands the heights of the braided hairs of anal banks and high finance but he ain't the master of all he surveys. Why? Globalism has cut the ground from under his feet, for no matter how hard he tries to cling the slippery pole, he's bound to glide right down to the ground in utter frustration. He may ring up a central banker here, a central banker there but the subprime funds say have been sliced and diced and peddled to all four corners of world finance, which he as CEO of Goldman Sachs helped to propagate, nurture, and hawk globally.
Paulson may try to do something in the US, but even that will in some measure not quite the restive financial markets worldwide. The crunch on liquidity is planetary, and that ain't hay. So like the Red Queen in Alice, he has to run faster and faster to stay in place, but sorry anal hairstylist the ground keeps slipping from under his big feet.
Today's 'New York Times' pullout 'Dealbook' [2 April 2008] tells a little more on the sad fate of the failed Bear Stearns. Jimmy Cayne's baby, it says, according to Paulson & fellow conspirators had an exposure globally of us$2,7 trillion! Well, here's a quick question: if Bears' exposure was so mind boggling, were other banks including Goldman, to throw open their books completely, that number would rise exponentially, and cause a tsunami of runs in the financial markets here there and everywhere. Little wonder Bear was scape goated and massacred on 16 March 2008, and even then, this 'victim' caused great panic in the market place.
Yesterday's 300 point spike in the Dow Jones average is a sign of wishful thinking: UBS may raise us$17bn and Lehman us$3bn in equity offerings but that won't chase the big bad wolf of the subprime ponzi fallout from the door. It is especially significant that the 'Financial Times of London' wrote about the hemorraghing of billions in world equity markets. So with smoke and mirrors and economic voodoo chants and what Hobbes would call empty words, the anal hairstylist Paulson is trying to introduce a new style of regulation, which as we all know will leave the banks and hedgefunds doing badly what they're already doing. He's going by the simple rule of thumb, if you're in for a penny, why not go for a pound of pain and suffering. Sorry to enlighten this silly man, the world is going through not growing pains but a long, painful, chronic illness of laissez faire and run amok finance capitalism.

China & Tibet

A quick observation. Tibet is more than a thorn in Beijing's side. Its brutal repression on protesters in Tibet, Gansu, Yunnan, and Chinghai have aroused a feeling among China's rising middle class that it hasn't acted forcefully enough. China didn't count on Tibetan nationalism nor the firestorm its repression has fanned outside China, challenging its holding of the 2008 summer Olympic games in Beijing, its complete support for the Sudanese government's genocide in Dafur, its threats against Taiwan. The Chinese Communist rulers have planted seeds of doubt among its citizenry as to its ability to rule. These doubts will germinate and ultimately nuture a challenge to central authority. Which is and was the last thing Beijing wants. Tibet has shown China's Achilles heel, and the slow decline of the Chinese community party.

Anal hairstylist Paulson's proposals are almost dead on arrival

Wall Street is giving a hearty clap on the back to the anal hairsytlist Hank Paulson, one of their own, who happens also to be the US secretary of the Treasury. Herr Bush's flunky has come up with a barrel of dead fish of proposals on how to square the circle on the subprime scam which has set the Street shaking with a low intensity 4 on the Richter scale of earthquake strength. Hank as he likes to be called is watering more Wall Street's wine by relaxing the minimum of regulations and allowing investment banks to regulate themselves. Now ain't that a joke! The problem is that they have been regulating themselves with one view in mind to maximise profit and get away with fraud, ponzi schemes as in the subprime markets, cheating clients, so on and on. And here the stroker and weaver of bankers anal hairs is letting them to continue doing what they best at doing which is defrauding the rate or taxpayers, being a burden on society, and devil be damned with the consequences. We know what the consequences are but alas have little power to stay Herr Bush's course which is to enrich his class of blood suckers and ravenous pimps of exploiters who will go to any length to further their class interests, be it war for oil in Iran or reviving the cold war in Europe or waging open, brutal class war against Americans.
Had Hank opened the morning's newspaper, he'd have much cause for alarum. UBS is writing off more billions; its CEO has resigned; the 'venerable' house of Lehman is trying to raise us$3bn in new equity at a time when the money is even fleeing equity markets. [Have we another Bear Stearns on our hands?] The fire bells are ringing loud and clear but Herr Bush's flunky Hank blithely goes on offering pie in the sky and paper hats as storm clouds gather announcing bad news for Wall Street and us...let his innards rot forever!