Jimmy Cayne eulogises Bear Stearns as shareholder fill its grave

Jimmy Cayne finally apologises to Bear Stearns shareholders on 29 May 2008 as JPMorgan Chase took full hold of the company at its gravesite in a leathal merger which will long be chewed over for the way it was done. Yet 16 per cent of shareholders voted against merger, which is saying something since JPMorgan Chase walked into the room with 49,5 per cent. Cayne got a stone cold reception from Bear Stearns employees who lost liquidity when the original offer was us$2 a share but raised to us$10 for the buyout. [A year ago Bear's shares were selling at us$150!]. Cayne's words came too late for everyone; he walked away less a paper billionaire he once was but he and wife took us$80m or so, and two condo suites at the reburished Plaza hotel on Central Park South. JPMorgan exercised its droit de seigneur, and deflowered virginal Bear Stearns. By Monday Bear employees totalling a good 7000 or more will be pounding tthe streets for work. Outside Bear Stearns billion dollar headquarters on Madison Avenue which JPMorgan picked up for a song, a caricaturist drew a bloated face of Jimmy Cayne...any and everyone was invited to have his say around Cayne's face. And boy did they! The language is crude but fitting for a man who ruined his own bank by a bad decision, and walked away laughing to the bank. However a shareholder who voted against merger put it straightforwardly. Bear didn't deserve to be ruined for a bad decision. JPMorgan and the Gang of 4--US Fed, New York Fed, Herr Bush's man at Commerce, and Hank Paulson took Bear over without a blush in a fuzzy deal. The psychology of the takeover deserves study, and it is bruited that Goldman Sachs whom the nasty like IB flea that Bear was becoming was annoying it very much, and so GS seized the moment to kick off the rumour mill which would end up withdrawing Wall Street's confidence in the firm and lead to its takeover. As a learned rabbi once said, let the stomachs of these thugs rot for eternity! Ameen!

Bear Stearns R.I.P.

Today [29 May 2008]shareholders buried the financial house Bear Stearns. It lived a long and cutting edge of the market life till the subprime market meltdown did it in. At 85, it disappears but for the history books, and greedy JPMorgan Chase ably assisted by the Gang of 4 at the US Fed, the New York Fed, and Herr Bush buried it in a coffin of gimcrack manoeuvres.

China points the finger of blame at the US ... it's the subprime meltdown stupid!

China's equivalent to the US Federal Reserve is pointing a finger of blame at the laxness in governmental regulation of financial markets in the US. It says that the US is enamoured by the market that it lets itself lose sight that there are financial shoals beyond which trouble brews. And the subprime meltdown is one! It has sown turmoil in not only the US but in world markets, too. Why is China now so huffy puffy today? Well, Beijing has its renminbi yuan pegged to the US dollar; Washington has wooed it with flowers or thundered with menances for China to re evaluate its currency. It help up high the banner of China's self interests, and won't budge on a matter which it deemed of internal importance and told the US to buzz off in so many polite words. Now the US dollar is in a bad way which affects the reminbei yuan badly. It spurred inflation which is nearing 25 per cent, and for an overheated economy that ain't good news, coupled as it is with natural disasters which is stretching the Chinese leadership tightly and is slowing eroding its power base. So China is offering 'free' advice to Washington...out of a purely alturistic motive. If you believe that, Santa Claus will bring you a bag full of toys at Christmas. The Chinese are not good players, so now they're suffering as much as anyone else relatively speaking.

Scott McClellan kisses & tells

Scott McClellan came to Washington as Herr Bush's press secretary, a post he ably handled when Herr Bush was governour of Texas. His boyish, friendly smile graced television screens as he became at press conferences the spokesman for Herr Bush. He left the White House in 2006 after 3 years of services. Now he telling all or almost all in his memoir 'What happened: inside the Bush White House & Washington's culture of deception'. A blogger had an advanced copy, and now the news of this kiss & tell book is making the rounds globally. McClellan writes at times with a vitriolic pen and confirms what everyone has suspected about Herr Bush & his henchman. Herr Bush doesn't come off well, it goes without saying. Narcissitic [sic] and self indulgent, he lives within the world of his own fantasy. In this he was ably handled by Karl Rove who so far has escaped any criminal liability for his deceit and dirty tricks. Herr Bush set out to deceive and deceive he did. Look at the failed war in Iraq if you need any proof. Go read the book when it comes hot off the presses in a week!
McClellan is also hard on the Washington press corps who like sheep time and time again were led to Herr Bush's abbatoir of lies, swallowed them whole, and were a willing handmaiden to Herr Bush's lies, high crimes, & misdemeanours. If you want another example of the press' easy pass, go out and read 'Why the press love John McCain'.

Herr Bush on Memorial day 2008

Herr Bush is so universally disliked in the US, he can only speak before an audience which is duty bound to listen to him. On Memorial day 2008 he spoke as he usually does to the military. He waxed with false tears of the deeds of the fallen, of the bravery of the dead and living fighting in Iraq, a war he lied his country into. His cow of a wife had the gall to say, Herr Bush suffers terribly at the loss of American lives...he who was a summer soldier in the Texas National Guard during the war in Vietnam so he could escape combat; he spent his time drunk and rumour has it spaced out on smack and awol...he was a congressman's son after all! And Herr Bush to show the price he is paying for the dead in battle has given up golf! And the next minute you see him on a golf course. The irony is bitting and enough to make you to vomit green. Herr Bush deserves to be tried for high crimes and misdemeanors and serve a long prison time till he expires for his dark deeds, among which is the shredding of the US constitution!

Toilet bowl cleaner Alan Greenspan pontificates...again

If you thought he had silently gone into the night, he didn't. Toilet bowl cleaner Alan Greenspan's voice once again raises in forked, sybilline tones. The US is on the verge of recession, says he, at a time when it really is and can no longer hide behind the technical definition of what economics textbooks define as recession. Of course the scourer of financial toilet bowl talks of turmoil and the need to rescue the big banks that he as head of the US Fed begninly let do creative accounting to lift hefty profits out of the pockets of the poor. Of course, he is blameless and as the eternal virgin whore that he is, he can speak as though without sin. If ever a man deserves a long prison term and the penance of spreading cow shit with his hands on fallow fields, he is toilet bowl cleaner Alan Greenspan.

John McCain is forced to repudiate the Revend Mr. Haggee

McCain is a class act prostitute in politics. Hailed as a reformer at the turn of the 21 century, he has done everything to become the Republican party's standard bearer for the White House. He's the GOP's Hubert Humphrey who threw out his values with the baby in the bathwater. He actively courted Haggee who is a loud mouth evangelical from Texas with a 7000 member mega church and wide influence in right wing politics. T'ain't nothing wrong in being right wing, but Haggee is an extremist and his words are not taken out of context. He calls the Roman church a whore of Babylon; he mock turtled this by apologising when McCain forced him, but then the senator from Arizona stuck by his man no matter what. Hagge a Christian Zionist has gone on to say more offensive things. He said God chose Hitler to drive the Jews out of Europe to the promised land which is the state of Israel! or words to that effect. This broke McCain's camel's back; he needs the Jewish vote if he wishes say to beat Barak Obama whom many American Jews think wrongly is Muslim, anti Israel, pro Palestinian, too tightly close to his former pastor the Reverend Mr. Wright. And of course Israel thinks Obama is a menace and McCain their candidate of choice. However, this time McCain not only had to distance himself from the man he courted for evangelical votes in November, but repudiate him totally and reject the man's endorsement of him. A little too late, Mr. McCain who proves as a political animal he has no morals.

Dora Kwok

Dora Kwok has gone to the other side of the mountain. Her heart gave out on Monday evening [19 May 2008]. Dora is one of the legion of decent people who walk this earth, and go unnoticed. Born in Shanghai in the year of the Dog, she knew the ravages of war and exile. She came to the US more than a half century ago. Dora was the embodiment of the virtues America preaches but hardly these days do not practise.
In retirement Dora volunteered at the Caring Community in New York's centre at the Presbyterian church on lower 5 Avenue on the edge of Greenwich Village. Already in her 80's, she was a Jane of all trades. Willing to serve was her motto, for doing nothing meant to her, it seems, not being well. Well she served too well and a heart attack put an end to her days. 18Brumaire wishes to remember for her goodness, her kindness, and generosity of heart.

Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and the death of Bush's Middle East policy

Hardly 10 days ago in the Beit Knesset US president Herr Bush was greated as though he were Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, with flowers and flowery speech and much fanfare as Israel's best friend. But that was before the Arab league brokered and deal in Lebanon which allowed a new formula for sharing power among Beirut's religious groups. And thus Hezbollah Israel's bete noire to take its rightful seat at the table. Unlike Herr Bush & his useless lot in State and Defence, Israel's Kadmina led government are realists. And so acting on the newer realities in the Middle East they're ready to make peace with Syria and return the Golan Heights which for almost 20 years now the Israeli military establishment have been saying they weren't necessary for Israel's defences. No matter. By allowing Hezbollah a say in governing Lebanon and coming to peace with Syria, Jerusalem bargains that it will wean the Arabs from Iran and thereby reduce its arch enemy's hold on the region which wouldn't have happened were it not for Herr Bush's stupidity by waging war in Iraq. Israel's 'peace overtures' through friendly Turkey already shows that the kaleiscopic designs of power are reshaping not so much to Israel disadvantage but towards ending Israel's hold on territy it has held on to for far too long since the 6 day war. Agreement with Syria means lessening of tensions with Lebanon and most of all allowing for the firm establishment of a Palestinian state and it is hoped the uprooting of Jewish settlers in the west bank. Israel will go through turmoil internally because most of the settlers are rabid millenianists, so in a way Israel is reaping the whirlwind it has sown. And what's more Israel will be more secure as a state because one way or the other all the Arab states will recognise its legitimacy. And Iran who always had back door dealing with Israel since the fall of the Shah, will breathe more easily and look towards better relations with it. And so Herr Bush's road map is in tatters and it is another black mark in Herr Bush's lunatic foreign policy.

Israel, Obama, and American Jews

Recent pollsters in the US find that many people think Barak Obama is Muslim, but a confirmed practising Christian that he is, despite the brouhaha over his old pastor the Reverend Mr. Jeremaiah Wright, jr, which has not dented the junior senator from Illinois' numbers at the primaries, nor slowed his reach for the Democratic party's candidate for the White House. Yet there is another red herring. Obama's unfriendly attitude, many think, towards Israel. The word has gone amongst the 12 tribes that he is a dangerous man, harbouring inimical thoughts about the state of Israel, and fundmentally when you get down to it, he's not good for the Jews! Of course this is tosh. But for the right wing Jewish lobbists, in bed with the Bush administration, this false idea is good grist for their slander mills. For the majority of American Jewry Israel is like Caesar's wife--above suspicion. Thus anyone who dares question her purity, well...he deserves death, destruction, and the eternal fires of hell. So it is not surprising to read long articles about Jews in America who won't think of voting for Obama because he's viewed not as friend of Israel but an enemy. It makes no difference if now Israel is willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel, or that Israel engages in secret or open relations with Arab countries. What is at stake is Eretz Yisroel...the land of Israel which American Jewsry in the main think Obama is going to hand over to the Palestinians, regardless of Israel 40 year occupation of the west bank and its aggressive policies of colonisation there. American Jewry have swallowed the hokum of the Jewish zealots from Brooklyn who reclaim Palestine on their reading of the Torah that what they call Samaria and Judea belongs by divine right to them. It ain't for nothing that the most rabid anti Arab party in Israel is Kach whose founder came from Borough Park, Brooklyn, and whose ideology best mimics Adolph Hitler's. It ain't for nothing that the US not Israel is the goldene Medina for Jews not Israel, and it also ain't for nothing that America Jewry is blinded by guilt for doing little to save European Jews from ha Shoah! American Jewry is on the wrong scent in attaching Obama!

Higher Saudi oil flow for nuclear energy--Herr Bush's mad bet

If anything shows that Herr Bush is on the lunatic fringe, take his pledge to his friend King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to trade a slightly higher flow of Saudi oil for the US supplying his kingdom with nuclear power! The slightly increased oil flow will not lesson but by a few pennies the onerous charges US motor car owners and lorry drivers have to pay at the pump. Nuclear energy for a country with the largest source of oil is sheer lunacy the more especially this is the country that brought you 9/11 and through its funding radical Islam has nurtured nests of terrorists. Now this is the very same Herr Bush who fulminates against Iran for wanting nuclear power plants, and couldn't stop North Korea from detonating its own atomic bomb! And here he is giving Saudi Arabia the keys to nuclear bombs! Now if that ain't the height of idiocy, what is. If one needs proof of Herr Bush's mad worldview, this is the cherry atop of the cake of Herr Bush's failures. God or Allah or Mother Earth save us from this mad man!

Who says the subprime virus has been isolated?

Well if you thought the subprime ghost will go away quietly? Think again. It now turns out that there are unsecured alt-a bonds for borrowers with a good track record but who didn't read the finer print of what they signed. And now they cannot meet the new schedule of payments, too, even though they're trustworthy. And we know what that means. Already 2,2 million forecloses projected for 2008, and we know how projected figures have a way of ballooning in numbers. Readers of morning newspapers which report seriously on the economy have much to bite fingernails. Personal debt built on credit cards is increasing, and we also know they are subject to usurious rates of interest which can stretch out for the borrower's lifetime. We're seeing a contraction of consumerism and yes the use of motor cars for leisure driving owing to the ever rising price of motor gasoline; then there's the travel industry where jet fuel and hikes in travel fares will make vaction goers think twice about flying or going on long holidays. And then the number of unemployed keep rising. And the war in Iraq is not going away with its ever matatisising debt which mean that more and more Americans' taxes are going to pay the war profiteers & the croneys who stroke the anal hair of Herr Bush. And so the carrousel goes round and round and no one seems likely to be able to get off now. A new president hobbled with so many problems will bring a fresh perspective to the Oval Office and even a slight shift in perspective...let's us a millemetre of a turn will set us off on a new deal which will begin fighting the fungus of Herr Bush's horrible 8 years in office.

Carlyle group stretches its tentacles in US intelligence

Well it's official. The Carlyle group has bought Booz Allen & Hamilton's government operation. Booz a leading outsourcing firm for sensitive American intelligence operations is getting out of the business for a mere US$2,3bn, which will bring big smiles to Booz's partners. With this merger, Carlyle is going big time into America's intelligence operations on all levels. It is buying a cash cow, the more especially under Herr Bush's watch outsourcing has continued at an extreme pace. The tread towards outsourcing is not new; Washington's been doing it for years now, and Booz Allen & Hamilton got into the business in 1940 much to objection of a partner who thought doing the government's work not good business practices. He lost and his name is lost in the dust of memory. Oversourcing and privatising which are the watchwords of Herr Bush's messy record as president directly challenges the rule of law and the constitution by allowing such functions to be handled by private contractors who escape real, effective government oversight. And judging by Herr Bush's war record in Iraq we know what that means. Take Abu Gharib for example where private contractors have done much to sully America's high constiutional standards, or the bilking of the government for their own gain in putting Iraq back on its own two feet. And then there's Herr Bush's unconstitutional attack on Americans civil liberties. In fact what 18Brumaire is typing is more likely than not being read by the powerful computers run by these private intelligence outfits under the aegis of the NSC to ferret out terrorists. Terrorists my foot. When presented with info say about the 18 Islamic fanatics who flew aeroplanes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, Herr Bush & co. simply ignored it, in spite of early warning signals. So much for national security in this failed president's hands. Now the big gun Mitch McCall who overseas the intelligence community is a former big wig at Booz Allen & Hamilton. So what do see, the cozy tight ties that bind a band of fools who know but one thing the enrichment of its own cast of characters...and what pitiful characters they...to the detriment of America's citizenry and commonweal.

Anal hair stylist Hank Paulson fails the test again

Anal hair stylist extraordinaire and US secretary of the treasury Henry 'Hank' Paulson fails the test again. Now, Paulson is expected to be a cheer leader for the economy, but when he says, as he did very recently, the housing market is risky for the economy, he's straining our patience. Everyone, and we stress everyone, knows that the housing public has burst now today, not yesterday but almost a year ago, and this braider of Herr Bush's anal hair timorously speaks of a risky housing market, which according to the latest US statistics, is the lowest new housing starts in the US for the last 17 years. And 17 years ago puts in squarely in pappy Bush's administration. Not only that the country is suffering from too many Herr Bushes...and the financial trickery of subprime mortgages which anal hair stylist as CEO of the mighty house of Goldman Sachs helped create and package and sell salami style to greedy banking houses globally. So to say the situation is risky is an insult to the public who know better than this anal hair stylist what the score is. As people continue to lose homes curtesty of Ponzi schemers like anal hair stylist Hank Paulson, they see no glimmer of hope from Herr Bush who has rewarded the scum that is the top 1 per cent of Americans, feathering very comfortably beds of theirs, whilst letting the rest us sleep on a mattress of thorns!, but sees little need of aiding the growing army of impoverished Americans because they didn't know how to save or know how to buy. Really! Herr Bush has a liberal hand for corporate welfare and for the rich but not for anyone else. But the anal hair stylists days are numbered as are those of his master Herr Bush...let's hope they fly by quickly...so these bums can land in their natural environment which is the dung heap!

Bathroom attendent Bernanke sees the need to keep investment banks flush with more liquidity

If anything proves the very fragility of capital markets, it's the latest pronouncement of our bathroom attendent at the US Fed Ben Bernanke. Keep flushing more liquidity into big bracket banks who brought up the subprime Ponzi scheme meltdown. We've not seen the end of the crisis which is knocking the US off the top of the dung heap of power. Today's report of a blip of improvement in the housing market might shot the dow jones up but it is important to note that it's not single owner housing but the building of apartment houses which have given up this swallow of hope. Which simply confirms that single ownership of homes is beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen. So much for the wisdom of this sage of America's and some might say the toilets of finance capital!

Herr Bush stirs old Munich chestnuts again

Peorating before his Israeli clients who threw palms before his feet as though he were the prince of peace coming to Jerusalem, Herr Bush fulminated against those in the US [running for the presidency] who wish to sit down with terrorists and talk and might resolve peacefully conflicts. That was too much for Tomahawk war president Herr Bush. Like his neo con followers, he brings up Munich which gave away Czehoslovakia piecemal to Hilter and thus launched the world on to the second world war. The analogy is false the more especially since it doesn't apply. But in Herr Bush's sick mind it does, and his war in Iraq is the result of misreading of history. Herr Bush may admire Churchill but he ignores the grand old blimp of UK history who thought jaw, jaw, jaw was better than war, war, war. Herr Bush simply reverses this advice and advocates war, war, war...in this sense, his denunciations of Obama for that was whom he was criticising not so obliquely strike the right chord in the perpetual warfare state which is Israel, America's client state and Trojan horse in the Middle East. Obama has struck a sensitive nerve. His suggestions that as president he would talk with the very people that Herr Bush is threatening with invasion...viz. Iran...seems words of utmost sanity and commonsense. Herr Bush is a blockhead; his sense of history is off; he's deaf and dumb to history...yet he does respond to force...look how he caved in to North Korea who detonated an a bomb to show Herr Bush that he is the paper tiger that he really is. January is not too so the sweep this terrorist from power!

Israel fluffs Herr Bush's maniacal ego

According to the Gregorian calendar, today, 15 May 2008, marks the 60 anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. And Herr Bush is there to celebrate the event in his quick sweep through the Middle East as though he is the prince of peace descended from on high to heal the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Don't you believe it! In a silly speech before the Beit Knesset, Herr Bush puffed up his own persona, praised to the high heavens his closest, dearest friends in power in Israel, and hardly said two words about Palestine. In fact, he has not intentions of setting his foot in the land mine that is the west bank, let alone Gaza. Israel has pulled out all stops to fluff Herr Bush's ego, to drown him in fulsome pride, for they know as long as he sits in the White House they can do what they want with impunity. But for how long? Herr Bush will talk to Abu Mazan or the head of the Palestinian authority, head of Fetah only in Cairo, surrounded by the full presence of Mosni Mbarek and under the intense pressure of Egypt to give him up and down the line to Herr Bush's and his Israeli mafia friends' demands. Herr Bush's propaganda arm says he already meet Mohammed Abbas or Abu Mazam in Washington last week, thereby cancelling any quick media advantage by going to the west bank. Eyewash! Herr Bush is afraid to go there; the demonstrations against him would make front page headlines and destroy the manicured image of his so called peace mission. Herr Bush backs the Israeli thugs to the hilt so why pretend otherwise. Yep, he won't see a peace treaty. But in his mind's eye, he has accomplished peace. Peace through war that is...the old Nazi dream! Olmert & his gang of 40 thieves are more than happy to play along, to stroke Herr Bush's ego which is ever in need of affirmation, and which is pathalogically gargantuan, that it has to devour itself. According to the latest polls Herr Bush is the most detested president in US history. To curry favour he has to venture towards a client state which depends hand and foot on US largesse to bailout year after year a state which would collapse were it not for American aid which the US always forgives. Israel is a warfare state as were the Crusader enclaves which fell to the conquering sword of Salah ad din...and sooner or later Israel as a Jewish state will fail for by its own blind policies will absorb millions of Arabs thereby diluting the purity of Jewish blood...shades of Hitler and fall back into being a Levantine state which it is but always denied. And as for Herr Bush, he will go down in history as the black prince and arch villain.

The bathroom attendant at the Fed says markets are calm but trouble percolates underneath

Ben Bernanke is trying is damnest best to soothe jittery markets. He says, at present, the waters of past turmoil, are calm. But all indices point to a steady erosion. Investment banks are writing off more and more billions as they must owing to the subprime Ponzi scheme chickens coming home to rest. Fuel prices keep climbing higher and higher; food and commodity prices, likewise. Standards of living are deteriorating even in the first world; political unrest is increasing; and the effects of global warming are striking dangerously close to the heart of the nations. The US dollar is so weakened that countries with useless dollars are creating sovereign funds, in order to buy up the crown jewels of America's industries and buy influence in its big bracket banks. It is a sign of the times of a declining US behemoth which has accelerated under Herr Bush's watch. Not only that liberal free market economics is suffering a backlash...remember Napoleon's crusade to bring the virtues of the French revolution to Europe and elsewhere; it had the effect of stimulating local nationalism and this precisely what we're seeing today. Little wonder, the bathroom attendant at the Fed has cause to worry.

Armed humanitarian intervention in Myanmar

Invading Myanmar has taken hold of senseless minds these days. The Burman generals simply refuse to let in foreign aid workers and organisations in order to bring relief to its suffering people orphaned by a terrible cyclone and then washed out of home and hearth and some drowned by a huge tidal wave which swept over the Irradawi delta. One such humanitarian warriors is Robert D. Kaplan who beat the drums for Herr Bush's war in Iraq. For him, and even France's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, founder of Medicins sans frontieres and overseer of the UNO's consulship in Kosovo, think threat of war will make the Burmese junta shake and tremble and bend a knee to allow western aid to flow unrestricted and directed by foreign NGO's. Think again, old darlings! Kaplan's grasp of Burmese history is superficial at best. Inspired as he is by America's virtuousness, he sees war or the threat thereof a solution to the human drama which the Burmese generals care little about. It boogles the mind what Coxey army. Kaplan & co. will rise up to throw the Burmese rascals out of power. If Herr Bush with all his resources can not subdue a long drawn out bazaar war in Iraq, how does Kaplan expect the US and a coalition of the willing can dislodge the Burmese generals. After all, the Burmese army is a well seasoned force of 60 fighting its own ethnic minorities, and fiercely nationalistic, to boot. Once again the fuzzy thinking of Kaplan comes into play, and once again he is wrong.

Herr Bush's hejira to the Middle East

At the twilight of his presidency Herr Bush is setting off on a pilgrimage to the Middle East. First to Egypt to confer with Hosni Mbarak, the aging sphinx who will bring him up to snuff with his talks with Hamas which are not going anywhere fast. Then to see his old friends of the Bush tribe, the Saudi king Abdullah who may with haughty authority allow more oil to flow to relieve the suffering American motor car owners at the pump, but don't count on it without Herr Bush selling the country's jewels. And finally to Israel to celebrate the eternal warfare state of Israel's 60 year of existence. There at least he will be equally celebrated as Israel's best or bestest friend in the short life of the Zionist state. And he is, the record is there to confirm that. During his jaunt Herr Bush will spout nonsense about Hezbollah and Syria and Iran. A hollow drum he since he's constrained by his own stupidity in Iraq and Afghanistan from intervening yet again in the Lebanon's internal wars. A quick teach in here. Americans might not remember that this internecine and byzantine warfare is traceable partly to Eisenhower's meddling in the Lebanon by sending in US troops in 1958 to save his pal Michel Chamoun, at a moment when the shift in confessional balance of power would tilt towards the Shiites. And then there was Herr Kissinger's touch to soothe Syria for its lose of the Golan Heights by ceding Syria's overarching busy hand in the Lebanon. And then there's Israel mindless policy of waging war in the Lebanon ostensibly against the PLO but in reality for setting up a buffer zone in southern Lebanon for 18 years with his Christian allies, and which had the excellent result in strengthening Hozbullah which fought tooth and nail against the Zionists intervention into the Lebanon; in sum stoking the fires of heated nationalist which Iran greeted with a clam smile. So now Herr Bush is in the same continuum. He's a tin ear for foreign policy to say the least, and what's more he's pigged headed enough to commit the sins of the Bourbon kings who knew nothing and learnt nothing. Herr Bush is lucky enough he's leaving office with his head attached to his shoulders, and his brass balls greatly diminished.

A new Karl Rove?

A new Karl Rove? Don't count on it. It does show that criminality and low standards are the meat and potatoes of today's American journalism. The august New York Times has an article on this archvillain of Herr Bush's White House, long implicated in Palmegate, who goes unchallenged in crime and punishment. He will turn up as a commentator and advisor to candidates, Republican or Democrat, in print or on the air waves, and a mentor in dirty tricks. He's no one's friend but his own. Yet in the American scheme of things, villains and failures get an easy pass. Why do you think disgraced politicans like Douglas Feith, convicted felon that he is, is now an esteemed [sic] professor at Georgetown University, for example? And now villain Rove who has a column in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal will spew his mischief on FoxTV which is having financial trouble. Rove's new career is a case for arguing that the state of journalism in America has fallen even lower when you might think that it had already hit bottom. Don't count on it! We've not reporting but gossip and glamour and titillation in non news scandal. It is a sign of the depth of this country's decadence and further proof of dumbing down. American political illiteracy is legendary even in this scoundrel times of Herr Bush's reign. Some say that the American people know the score, it is simply necessary to allow them to connect the dots so that they can draw the right conclusions. Maybe, yes. Maybe, no. But with the bleating voice of a Karl Rove don't count on it. He's the magician in Thomas Mann's Mario & the magician, awaiting to be exposed, shamed, and driven from the public's eye.

Has China lost the mandate of heaven?

It may seem that China's lost the mandate of heaven. Let's look at the year 1976, for example. In that year Mao died, but his death was a sign of heaven's disfavour. A severe earthquake caused severe damange to northeast China. It signalled the end of the rule of the Gang of 4, and the rale of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. 2008 has begun badly for Beijing. One the quiet protests in Lhasa denegerated owing to the ironfirst of China's imperial rule of Tibet, into violence and death and a spreading of the protest and rise in Tibetan nationalist feeling within neighbouring provinces with large Tibetan communities. China then suffered vilification in the world press and condmenation by world leaders and a call for the boycott of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, which China was showcasing as a window on a dynamic China with a human face. That image is gone for good now. Its support of Sudan in its non ending warfare in Dafur which strong voices in the world community have dubbed 'genocide', has earned the Chinese authorities friends. Rising oil and food prices are stirring opinion globally, rightfully or wrongly, against China for its gargantuan appetite for oil and food. Now, yesterday, in Sichuan province's capital Chungking a powerful earthquake has caused great damage. Readers of cow bones will surely see in these events following one on the other, cause for great concern and a portent that heaven is not right with the Chinese government.
On that tack, China's full support of the Burmese generals is also troubling given the way the Burmese junta is dealing with the dire aftermath of the cyclone which has hit Myunmar's tidal basin leaving hundreds of thousands death and millions injured, uncared for, and homeless. China's other friend Sudan has seen this past week that the Dafur rebels have brought Sudan's war to Khartoum. A 24 hour curfew obtains, since the Sudanese government fears infilitration of a 5 column who will stir up trouble within its our ranks. Despite China's us$9bn concession it got from the Congolese government, it might find that it has bit off more than it can chew in its unsatiable hunger for raw materials. So overall 2008 has not brought Beijing much comfort nor peace of mind. Is it an omen of near future catastrophes? Time will tell, and the 2008 Olympic Summer Games will look more like a prison lockdown than an example of peace and friendship.

JB Jeyaretnam -- the rise out of Singapore's ashes of a fighter for reform

JB Jeyretnam, the man from Anson, is back at 82 to fight another day in Singapore. The bete noire of senior mentor minister Lee Kwong Yew and the People's Action Party which runs Singapore as though it is and literally it is, it's private fief, has risen from the ashes of debt to challenge, some might say tilt at PAP windmills. The New York Times has seen fit to devote its Saturday [10 May 2008] profile to this indefatigable fighter for Singaporeans' civil liberties which are tightly under wrap in the land of the PAP.
JB stares the PAP devil in the eye and won't blink. Anyday of the week at the exit of the MRT station at City Hall, you may find him hawking his book of speeches which have caused no amount of anguish and let flow the PAP's bile and court suits against him. Seth Mydans who wrote the New York Times profile let slip how a single man with good lawyerly skills forced the then prime minister Lew Kwang Yew to descend into parliament's well to debate him, and ultimately through some tightly written law bring him to justice for deformation which drove him out of office and into bankruptcy. But let's return to that by election in Anson where JB won handily. [It is no longer a circumscription for Anson was for those who know Singapore a stronghold of opposition to the PAP, but one now incorporated into a larger voting block which has overwhelmed that opposition by those with little stomach to challenge the ubiquitous PAP.] A single MP with guts made the pillars of the Leninist like PAP quiver like a bowl of jelly. Which goes to show how existentially shaky the pillars of the PAP temple. JB is no Samson but he is a lion in his own right, and one with grit and determination who will fight for reform and for his fellow citizens right to think, say, and do what they like in a free, democratic arena, even though they accept the heavy hand of the PAP government which fair to say has brought them housing, prosperity, and life in a gilded cage. So good cheer and long opposition to JB who has emerged from bankruptacy to fight another day. He knows that his nemesis the PAP will try to silence him and try to impoverish him again with court fees and a long trial for defamation, but like the mighty warrior he is, he shall fight on!

Hedge fund vultures circle Africa

Everyone's talking up Africa as the last frontier for capitalist exploitation. China a country which calls itself Communist, but is a capitalist wolf in Maoist clothing has made the west's old colonial power look with a fresh eye at the rich pickings the dark continet offers by the way of commodities and untapped mineral wealth and points of retail ventures. Well now a consortium of Anglo American hedge funds has coughed up a paltry us$125m or us$150m to invest there. By any standards, this is chicken feed, but it is a sign that no matter how promising the big money is hardly expected about throwing good money after bad on countries with high corruption, gross inefficiency. So let's say timorously this consortium is daintly testing the African waters. Let's face it, with instability, coups, insurgencies, mad hatter dictators like Mugabe, imploded states like Somalia where anarchy and death and war have ruled the roost for the past quarter-century, investment outside big oil and mining hardly offers the prospects the hype of the last frontier least inviting. Added to that, the army or civilian leaders have large extended families to feed, which feeds endemic corruption to put say a nephew in a high government post even though he's utterly not fit for the post. Tribal loyalties, family ties, famine, pent up resentments, land grabs, you name it may very well explain why so modest the size of the fund. The vultures may circle cautiously but are waiting for the bodies to pile up before the big feast begins.

The anal hair stylist Hank Paulson gets it wrong and the rise of Goldman Sachs imperialism

Just when you thought it was time for caution and a tightly closed jaw, the anal hair stylist and US secretary of the treasury Hank Paulson tells us the worst is over, and like general Moreland saw in the Vietnam debacle, yes, little Virginia, there's is a Santa Claus and in his bag he brings us the gift of light at the end of the subprime meltdown. Well, fools are born every minute, and the anal hair stylist Paulson is baptised in the waters of his own delusions and is a reborn fool. You wonder how this flunkey ran Goldman Sachs well? The market drops 200 or so points in New York [7 May 08], the boutique investment banking house Legg Mason reports its first loss in a quarter century, 500 houses a day are foreclosed in the state of California alone, a California city government is filing for bankruptcy, and the price of oil continues to climb higher and higher, the average household incomes strains to meeting rising fuel, food, and is borrowing heavily on credit cards with attendant usurious interest rates...and this fool says he sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Is he superman with x ray vision with superhuman powers to see light years into the future? Don't think so! And he is aided and abetted by reactionary Republican dominated higher courts which make it harder to sue the anal hair stylists mates in investment banking houses, the ones responsible for the subprime ponzi scheme. And what's more Goldman Sachs alumni like John Thain at Merrill are in key positions to consolidate the rise of the imperial house of Goldman on world financial markets...oh yes a Goldmanite is governor of the bank of Canada and another holds sway over the bank of Italy. Added to this is the troublesome statistic that finance capital makes up around 34 per cent of America's GDP. America is a parasite on the world's financial body...it manufacturing section has gone to waste to state the obvious. And yet fools like anal hair stylist Paulson blithely put the interests of a few over those of the many. Let them eat dirt, he might as well say. One way or the other he is creating the ground swell which overthrow his class of coupon clippers, plutocrats...let their innards rot for eternity!

When you're told by the pundits the worst is over in the subprime meltdown, it comes back to bite Wall Street in the arse

Well, the financial pundits' weather vane is spinning wildly and out of control. UBS is going to write down more billions whilst lopping off 5500 heads in its staff count, and this mostly in the US. Legg Mason, a small house which safely thus far, has been out of harm's way, reports a loss for the first time in years, and thus is obliged to go out with a beggar's cup to raise equity for a billion dollar writedown. Citibank is at the top of the list of writedowns. As of two weeks ago, the New York Times puts its loss owing to subprime write offs at 40 odd billions, with UBS a close second. And so it goes, the ancients bequeathed us the word 'abyss', and the subprime meltdown aka as a supreme ponzi scene is a bottomless pit. By the time things get straightened out, if they ever will, more than a trillion Yankee dollars will have be stricken from the books, resulting in poor quarterly returns, and legions on the breadline. And still the US' GDP is consumed by almost 34 per cent by finance capitalism, and as long as that brahma bull is not roped, hogtied, branded, and tame, the agony will go on and on and on and on...

Laura Bush, so passionate about Burma, mute as a carp on New Orleans

Herr Bush's frau, Laura is passionate about Burma [aka Myunmar]. She launched her barbs at the military junta there lack of respect of Burmese civil rights. She shed tears for the victims of the cyclone which devasted coastal Burma causing a high number of deaths, injured, and homeless. She got hubby Herr Bush to donate triple digit millions in aid to its victims. The energy she has shown for the Burmese is in sharp contrast to the diligence she has shown for victims in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Frau Laura Bush reminds 18Brumaire of Dickens' Mrs Jellybean who wanted to improve the lives of Africans but steadfastly neglected her own children nor saw the squalor and poverty of her neighbourhood in London in 'Bleak House'. Need we say more about Herr und Fran Bush's compassionate conservativism?

Mortgages once again

After sitting on his hands Herr Bush is sweating mildly at the news of the accelerated pace of foreclosures in 2008. Blaming the victim, the poor owner whom Herr Bush's friends in the financial community roped into building homes beyond their means, Herr Bush and his mossback Republicans in the houses of Congress have done their worst to forestall the looming crisis. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in deep dodo themselves, mismanaged by Herr Bush's appointees. Herr Bush believes in letting his venal friends feast off the body public and bleed it dry. Well the chickens are coming home to roost, as the economy proves Warren Buffet wrong, it has not turned the corner on the subprime ponzi scheme fallout, the depth of which is like the proverbial abyss...unknown. Today BlackRock is buying up at a discount UBS mortgages and will recycle them as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch have as junk bonds, unback, but at a 7,9 or high rate of return. And Herr Bush and his scum are trying to buy time so that whoever becomes president in 2009 will have to deal with the problem and the war and rampant inflation and unemployment and and and and...Yes, Herr Bush has accomplished a mission by running the US into the ground physically, financially, and morally.

Here we go again--Michael Gordon, the New York Times, and leaks to the press about Iran

Here we go again. Yesterday [5 May 2008] the grey old lady the well respected New York Times printed an article by Michael Gordon with unsubstantiated rumours about Teheran training Shia guerrillas to fight in Iraq. Well as we all know but hardly the publisher, chief editors at the Times seem to forget or not to care that Michael Gorden along with the disgraced Judith Miller published article after article about weapons of mass destruction and beat the war drums for the war that Herr Bush cooked up for Iraq. Now, Gordon is doing the same for the much talked about bombing of Iran by the US. Does the Times need this Pentagon Trojan Horse on its payroll. It seems so. It has cut him much slack and permits him to print rumours to feed Herr Bush's meglamaniac designs on Iran. It ain't for nothing that the very day Gordon's article appeared that old walrus of extremes John Bolton appeared on Fox News to issue a warning against Iran and threaten its destruction. Which the twit of a reporter signed off by saying with a very good suggestion, Ambassador Bolton.

Israel at 60

Israel is now 60. If it followed Chinese tradition, it would be entering a second birth. If so, the birth is a horror story. Israel after 60 years is in turmoil and moral bankruptcy and mired in corruption and scandal. Its prime minister right-wing and 'fascisant' Olmert is being investigated for corrupt practices, as was his successor the mummy kept on life support Arik Sharon. Israel is in a constant state of war with the Palestinians to whom it will never allow a proper homeland, but will end up absorbing all the territory it wants, leaving on the lees for the Palestinians. This said, by its own designs which mimic Nazi tactics during the early years of world war 2 when the German Army 'liberated' Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic States, they carried out a deliberate policy of Lebensraum, which is exactly what the Israeli are doing in the west bank and permanent open warfare in Gaza. Unfortunately the US is firmly on its side owing to Herr Bush's misplaced charity!, the stupidity of New Labour under Blair and now Brown, and the European Union suffering from guilt from world war 2 about the say it treated its own Jews. So in the end the idea of Herzel's 'Judenstaat' will be sacrificed like the lamb Abraham did in lieu of his own son as his god had commanded. As the bible say pride proceedth the fall. And Israel's fall will be a big bang!

Is Buffet correct? Is Krugman equally right?

The magnus of Omaha Warren Buffet has announced the economic desert US financial institutions and economy have being traversing is nearly the promised land. In short, the worst is over. Paul Krugman of Princeton suspects so, too, but he has issued a note of caution; if the downturn has stopped and it looks as though there might be more rosy economic news tomorrow, chances for reform and regulation of the markets will go the way of all flesh, and the smart arse bankers who gave us CDO's, ABS', SVU's, and the like will go their merry way doing their darndest to bleed the economy dry for their own class' enrichment and iron grip on power. A sad commentary indeed.

Halt to Israeli settlements

Herr Bush sandpaper hero extraordinaire

Five years ago Herr Bush staged a Hollywood orchestrated landing on an aircraft carrier within sight of bathers on San Diego beaches. He got out of his aeroplane's cockpit, in battledress overall, tucked his helmut under his arm, saluted sharply, and declared 'Mission Accomplished'. Well, whoa George, not quite yet. His rapid war in Iraq is now going into its 6 year, and Herr Bush is nowhere near victory as he was on 5 years ago. Since he's a man who sees no setbacks, he sallies forth as Don Quichote to tilt at windmills. The only battles he has seen were the ones he waged at alcholism and drugs, shirking as he did duty in Vietnam as he did, owing to his daddy's connexions. iv
Five years have seen the US' moral fiber worn to a frazzle, its national debt ballooned to the highest levels yet, its citizens reeling under the weight of spiralling upwards prices in food, healthcare, motor gasoline, a stagnant pay packet, and a declining life expectancy. Herr Bush has claimed his surge has quieted the killing of US service men and mercenaries in Iraq. He hasn't been reading the morning papers, has he? American deaths and casualties again are climbing in Iraq, since dumbly Herr Bush disbanded the Iraqi army when he toppled Saddam Hussein, thereby creating a guerrilla army which calls the Anglo American troops 'occupiers' and has taken to resisting them by all means possible. In addition, it has allowed the al Quaeda bogeyman to enter into the fray. Yes, despite his apologists, Herr Bush is nothing but a sand paper warrior who knows from nothing, care for nothing, and learns nothing.

Moral state of the American Union

18Brumaire knows its not January the ritual time for the American president State of the Union address before the joint houses of Congress, and broadcast like a papal discourse 'urbi et orbi', to the town and the world in imperial fashion. Herr Bush's 8 years have visited a plague of physical and moral squalor not only in America but in Iraq and other hot spots in the world. Yet you'd never know it if you followed the America media. What do we get: the actress Uma Thurman being stalked. Who cares? Well she might, and has the wherewithal to defend herself, but what about the average man or woman whose job are sent overseas, who don't earn enough to meet rising food, gasoline, and rent fees? And who haven't decent health coverage? Well they're less important than Mariah Carey marrying a man 10 years her junior. Or Madonna new hit album. Or someone's lost cat. And then there's the war in Iraq that Herr Bush engineered, it's gone from the public's sight even though a rip roaring majority have said 'ya basta!', enough's enough. And the sideshow of Clinton, Obama, and the tugboat admiral McCain...interviews pick nits, looking for scandal, and avoid the real and hard questions. Washington America's first president thought the average American who think for himself, but looking at today's media owned by the very few corporations who put profit before the truth, the US is woefully out of touch, and as such will continue to have leaders like Herr Bush to put them into the devil's pocket of woes and troubles and much worse.

A turn for the better for the anemic US dollar

Herr Bush's bathroom attendant and head of the US Fed has seemingly done something right. He put an end to lowering the prime rate the government lends US banks. He drew a line in the sand at 2 per cent. He's tried everything but this time what he did might improve the health of the US dollar. It is slowly strengthening, along with better corporate earnings even though for the 4 successive month the employment numbers are going up. So yes we're in recession though Herr Bush will deny it.
With the improving dollar motor car owners should see reflected in a the drop of a barrel of oil, but not necessarily a quick fix at the pump.
Yet a strong US dollar won't wipe away with a magic wand Herr Bush's 8 years of physical and moral squalor he is leaving this country in. His crowd, the 1 per cent who own more wealth than 50 per cent of Americans, won't feel the pinch; they will continue a life style better suited to the jaded, decadent algae on the American pond, whilst the ordinary Joe or Jane will scrimp and save to pay for high food prices, higher gasoline, higher rents, and for those saddled with mortgages a desperate struggle to square the circle before being thrown out on the streets if they don't meet monthly payments. Such is the reality to today's America, a sorry sight it is.

Always a single swallow which announces a rebound in an anemic US economy

Wall street watchers have cause for optimism, or so they think. Any rebound in the market place makes them marvel at the resilency of a US economy which is in deep crisis. Yesterday [1 May 2008] the Dow Jones spiked up almost 190 points, thereby pushing it over the 13.000 mark, the first time in 4 months. Today the US Bureau of Labour Statistics talk only of 20.000 who had applied for the dole in April, which kept the employment level at 5 per cent. [Everyone knows how phoney these figures since if everything were equal...unemployment would soar to double digits!] So once again the economy has turned a corner, there's light at the end of the tunnel. But like a coquette the market can turn shrew and drop without batting an eyelash. Herr Bush is counting on a rebound of consumer spending, and yes they're spending but less and buying cheaper products and tightening belts. There is no cushion since the US is a country where its citizens do not save nor come near any level of the savings in other industrialised country. It has a mean spirited government and moss backed elected officials who feather their own nests, but don' t give a tinker's damn about the rest. So when the market drops again what will Herr Bush do. Nothing of substance since he is now on record that there are no easy solutions, although for almost 8 years he kept smiling dumbly talking up how good the economy is. With a president like that who needs enemies?