Yahoo & Google strike out for freedom of speech

Yahoo and Google have come out for freedom of speech. Tell that old darlings to the Chinese bloggers and interest users. Yahoo and Google have kowtowed to Beijing's strict control of the press and the internet. Let's not forget that the China market means big bucks! And money is the lubricant that greases profit and market share and penetration. So, we ain't talking hay despite the flight to the aerie of high minded principles. Google censors bloggers. 18Brumaire now has a warning to its readers that it contains language suitable for adults. Let's give a sampling of what constitutes suitable language for adults. The adjective haggard, for one. Haggard is a strong adjective but hardly a shaker of the pillars of the temple of the establishment. And what about compost heap, which the Google programme put in between <...> with the note strong/strong...well, what would it say to a farmer or a gentleman gardner? Google and we suspect Yahoo have become like our prissy Victorian aunts, who even went so far as to cover the feet of pianos and chairs and tables, so that they could present a chaste and proper face to the world. Me or my, how the hands of time have gone backwards, and how so quaint the situation ain't.

Beijing makes a poor bet

After a 2 day meeting in Beijing, leaders of Europe and Asia have come up short on common ground for handling the deepening global recession. The meeting met the criterion for a ‘no meeting’; a meeting at the end of which high principles are enounced with no follow up. China however did make a bold move to a big mover on the international scene, calling for replacing the US dollar as world currency by either the Euro or the Japanese Yen or and why not by the Yuan Reminbi? China’s call for dumping the US dollar makes one scratch one’s head. Let’s look at the situation: one, China has a large amount of US debt, its has an enormous reserve in US dollars, and thanks to massive infusion of US dollar investment and industry. It’s own rapid industrialization is very dependent on America’s unbridled appetite for consumerism, snapping up China made retail items. Its monetary reserves in US dollars, Euros, and Japanese Yen have not sheltered Beijing from the toxic effects of the sub prime mortgage effect on the US and global markets. It has protected China from a shift towards abstinence among US shoppers. And its own bungling of quality control, its toys, its milk, its over the counter medical products have caused serious illness if not certain death. In consequent, sales have fallen off; factories by the hundreds closed and abandoned; workers fired and many not paid for work done. You’d think that China had enough internal spreading economic problems promising social unrest than to challenge the primacy of the US dollar. A gross miscalculation if there is any! A strengthening US dollar has shifted monies into the US market which may have a good injection into an ailing American economy. Beijing has made a poor bet, it seems. And if Barack Obama occupies the White House, although he’s not made much about China, Beijing may find an American president more interested in job growth in the US; keeping US investment at home and not in China; and a more realistic approach to a China that the two Bushes and Clinton kowtowed to gladly.

Greenspan pleads the fifth!

Alan Greenspan looked older and haggard when he appeared before the Senate banking committee yesterday [23 October 2008]. Sybilline formulae bubbled from his lips as usual, but in trying to explain his role in the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme meltdown, he pleaded not only not guilty, but flawed in his grasp of the markets. Under Clinton, he was held on a firm leash as guru of the US Fed; under Herr Bush, he exploded in exuberence, letting the free market do its worst as we now know; ignorning the headlong disaster which we are now all too familiar with. For Greenspan who sat at the feet of the ultimate free marketeer Ayn Rand and fluffed up the sails of Milton Friedman, the market not only could do no wrong, but it was self correcting like Adam Smith's invisible third finger would steady the free market capitalist ship from listing too far one way or the other. Brown noser of the first water, he left Herr Bush do his damnest to explode government spending and let his croneys and court favourites feed at the public's trough, whilst John Q and Jane Q Public shouldered higher taxes and fell into debt fooled as they were by the flashing tackiness of consumerism. Il Signor Greenspan pleaded that no one could foresee the recession, calling it a one time tsuname in a century. Well, sorry old cock, many did and screamed it from the roof tops, but times were so good no one wanted to listen to us Cassandras. And now it's payback time, and Greenspan is like the 3 monkeys rolled up into one, he saw no evil, spoke no evil, heard no evil. Yet, he is at the root and branch of the crisis. He's no honour; he won't fall on his sword; he's a coward; and now all fingers are pointing at him as the town leper. But, he cares not a whit. Il Signor Greenspan will withdraw into his cozy cocoon, rocked to his final resting place on the tunes of jazz. The bum is already king of the dust heap!

Alan Greenspan has a senior moment

Alan Greenspan looked older and haggard when he appeared before the Senate banking committee yesterday [23 October 2008]. Sybilline formulae bubbled from his lips as usual, but in trying to explain his role in the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme meltdown, he pleaded not only not guilty, but flawed in his grasp of the markets. Under Clinton, he was held on a firm leash as guru of the US Fed; under Herr Bush, he exploded in exuberence, letting the free market do its worst as we now know; ignorning the headlong disaster which we are now all too familiar with. For Greenspan who sat at the feet of the ultimate free marketeer Ayn Rand and fluffed up the sails of Milton Friedman, the market not only could do no wrong, but it was self correcting like Adam Smith's invisible third finger would steady the free market capitalist ship from listing too far one way or the other. Brown noser of the first water, he left Herr Bush do his damnest to explode government spending and let his croneys and court favourites feed at the public's trough, whilst John Q and Jane Q Public shouldered higher taxes and fell into debt fooled as they were by the flashing tackiness of consumerism. Il Signor Greenspan pleaded that no one could foresee the recession, calling it a one time tsuname in a century. Well, sorry old cock, many did and screamed it from the roof tops, but times were so good no one wanted to listen to us Cassandras. And now it's payback time, and Greenspan is like the 3 monkeys rolled up into one, he saw no evil, spoke no evil, heard no evil. Yet, he is at the root and branch of the crisis. He's no honour; he won't fall on his sword; he's a coward; and now all fingers are pointing at him as the town leper. But, he cares not a whit. Il Signor Greenspan will withdraw into his cozy cocoon, rocked to his final resting place on the tunes of jazz. The bum is already king of the dung heap!

Self styled il Duce of finance Paulson pleads his case in the New York Times

Go online for the 23 October 2008 edition of 'The New York Times'. You will find a picture of self styled il Duce of finace & US secretary of the treasury Henry Paulson. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights of a oncoming motorcar tearing down a country road; he freezes; he doesn't know what to do, to save himself. Read Joe Nocera's timely article on his interview with Paulson which says what 18Brumaire has kept hammering away at, that Paulson was always chasing the after effects of the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme, which he at Goldman Sachs, among other bulge bracket banks devised and make handsome profits off the unsuspecting public; il Signor Paulson has failed miserably on his watch; he's not enough guts to step down, the more especially since it was his decision to let Lehman fail with an insouciance which simply boggles the mind, and shows him up for an incompetent. He let the largest purveyor of commercial paper go belly up, and as a result, the markets worldwide went ballistics. What does he have to say for himself? Not guilty, he pleads. He did his best, wink, wink, wink. The plain, commonsense truth is that blinded by his complete obedience to the free markets, with no oversight, and benign neglect of goverance, he couldn't think outside the box. In this he is in the league of Alan Greenspan whose sybilline commentary masked his utter slavishness to his goddess Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, let the thread of the economy unravel. 18Brumaire doesn't think that il Signor Paulson suffers much. He muddles along and almost threw world markets into a depression. Luckily, UK's Gordon Brown who knows a thing or two about economics managed to hold the beast of depression at bay, and il Signor Paulson had no choice to go along, even though he's down everything to water down regulation, mild or otherwise, in the market place. Il Signor Paulson sheds a crocodile tear or two, but he should be put on trial for his negligence at the treasury. More, he says that he couldn't foresee the radioactive disintergration of the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme. Really! Well, Goldman Sachs did and it sold off its share to any willing and greedy buyer without saying boo. So in the end we've a man who brought about a stock market krash and infected the global economy and put his finger in the sordid pie, licking his thumb saying, what a good little boy am I! but ain't taking no rap for the mischief I've done!

Self styled il Duce of finance Paulson enunciates the yo yo theory of economics!

Self styled il Duce of finance & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, the man who triggered the crash in the market by letting Lehman Brothers fail, and who as CEO of Goldman Sachs had given birth to the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme which has inflected world financial markets, last evening [21 October 2008] has risen to new heights of the banality of evil in economics. He now has held forth on yo yo economics. You needn't be a whiz kid of Wall Street to grasp the simplicity of his theory. Simply put, the markets are down but they will go up. And though he doesn't say so, up markets will turn into their opposites, down markets! Now is that a kick in the heade? Sure is! So worry not, share holders and coupon clippers, markets do rise and in 6 months or so, the US and world financial will be up to speed, dixit preacher of pie in the sky il Signor Paulson! With such reassurances by our wise but simple minded economic Duce, we can all sleep peacefully at night, and know that he has our best interests at heart! Wink, wink, wink!

The Dear Leader

North Korean authorities, it is reported, had closed off entry to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [DPRK] aka North Korea. Why? An important announcement was at hand yesterday. Yet no announcement came. Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington are worried for they fear the worst. Translation either complete incapacitation of Kim Jong il or the reading of his political will. The Dear Leader's absence from event marking milestones in the DPRK's history has injected adrenalin into the veins of the rumour industry. The plain truth is that no one but no one outside Mr. Kim's family and inner circle know what's what. Whatever the truth, one thing is sure: the country has not collapsed; panic is not seen on the street; there is no mass exodus across the Yalu into China or as family talking heads like to keep saying across the heavily guarded and mined 38 parallel in South Korea. Scenarios of gloom and doom and much wishful thinking since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the sudden withdrawal of Moscow's gold to North Korea. North Korean watchers with few exception are rubbing hands with glee about the end of Mr. Kim and his kind. They are more willing to believe in the tooth fairy than reality. And let's put it more boldly, they blowing smoke from where you can jolly well guess. Pyongyang will say what it has to say when it wants to say it. In the meanwhile, newspaper space will fill up with this or that or the other rumour.

Self styled il Duce of finance swallows dollops of Keynes hard!

When you thought self styled il Duce of Finance Hank Paulson & his acolyte, scholar, student of the krash of 1929 & US Fed Chief Ben Bernanke had emptied of Milton Friedman bag of tricks, the ghost of plenty past John Maynard Lord Keynes has spooked them into to embracing a weak Keynesian solution to the never ending economic crisis.
Yep, in an age of Herr Bush’s gross, misused and misdirected government spending, his two little elves at the Treasury & the Fed see a way out of the crisis by more and better government spending. What does this imply? Infrastructure, job creation, expanded monies for food, etc. 18Brumaire says ‘imply’, because with this band of skinflints for those who are not wealthy, we’re never sure that they wouldn’t try to throw more sand in the public’s eye! Like it or not il Signor Paulson & his mate Bernanke will have to back peddle on the sacred waters of free trade capitalism. But they will resist every push of the peddle to steer the economic ship towards neo Keynesian. Happily, time is running out for them, and soon they will be pounding the pavements for work. Let’s hope, no one will pick up this pair of loosers.

Miracle of miracles, Herr Bush wants to save 'democratic capitalism'!

To think the world has lived to see the day when Herr Bush has descended from his imperial indifference to venture forth unto his countrymen and women, to spread the gospel of 'democratic capitalism'! For 8 years he has allowed his class of bloodsuckers, croneys, coupon clippers, scalliwags of the super rich to feed off America's hardworking poor and growing army of impoverish middle classes, and thought nothing of it but to ensconce even more firmly on the levers of economic, political, and social power of the plutocracy that he favours. And now in the midst of that class' demise owing to their greed and incompetence and contempt for democracy...and to save Herr Bush's class from complete implosion, Herr Bush now is trying to bamboozle the ordinary man & woman on the street, into thinking that he was and is their frined. Ain't that something else? It certainly is. His magic won't work, but that doesn't mean Joe or Jane won't vote against his best interests. He might in this year's elections. For Herr Bush & his plutocrats ain't hurting that much, but the country is. Happily this would be tin diktator will be sent to his dude ranch in Crawford, Texas, whilst everyone else has to pick up the broken pots he is leaving behind. The man should be in gaol not in splendid, easy retirement!

Anal hair stylist & self styled il Duce of finance Paulson regrets! Put on Cole Porter's Miss Otis Regrets, boys!

Anal hair stylist supremo & self styled il Duce of finance & former CEO of Goldman Sachs & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson now regrets his whooper for throwing the world’s financial markets into the worst krash since the Great Depression. Well, il Signor Paulson ain’t no Miss Otis Regrets of Cole Porter. Porter at least sends her to the gallows for murder. What the anal hair stylist is economic butchery. He won’t suffer capital punishment nor live on bread and water in a prison cell. But the anal hair stylist supremo has nothing between his legs. He’s no man; he won’t take his punishment, the least being turning in his resignation. Since this incompetent fool fancies himself a Sinologist of sorts, were we in a Cultural Revolution, we would lead him around with a rope around his neck, and he wearing a dunce cap, for everyone to boo and spit on him. What this arse hole did is worth our full contempt. He’s a coward of the first water; he’s dumb; he’s incompetent, and stubborn. Let’s call for his resignation!

Old Korea hand Donald Kirk is much displeased that Herr Bush took Pyongyang off the US list of terrorist states

Donald Kirk has had a long hate affair with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea [DPRK] which is more commonly known as North Korea. Kirk is an old Asia hand; he was the International Herald Tribune's man in Seoul, and has contributed to Institutional Investor, TheNation, The National Review, and is a regular on Asia Times Online. Washington based, he's chummy with the Pentagon and the American Enterprise Institute, and his articles appear in the Christian Science Monitor and occasionally he makes an appearance on Public Television channels and speaks at the Korea Society. Recently, he visited the DPRK; he didn't like what he saw there and his filings make that very clear, snide and smary as they are. He added little to what other critics of Kim Jong il had to say. Kirk when he covers South Korea, took a distinctly hard line, shrill assessment on Kim Dae Jung's opening to Pyongyang which we went under the name of 'Sunshine Policy', and he was quick to attack Roh Moo hyun, Kim's successor in the Blue House. With the election of the right wing Lee Myun bek as president of South Korea, Kirk has found a man to his liking. It doesn't take a rocket scienctist to figure out why. Lee's espoused the old Bush line against Pyongyang, but with some arm twisting from Herr Bush, he held his tongue on the DPRK's removal from the US list of terrorist states. For even the occasional student of Korean affairs, reading Kirk is enlightening. He is the conduit of right wing neo con attitudes and is a sounding board for the Pentagon and other US agencies best left unnamed. Kirk is a must read for that alone.

Super Schnorrer JPM CEO Jamie Dimon says his bank doesn't need the us$25bn bailout!

We heard it from the horse's mouth, super schnorrer Jaime Dimon, ceo of JPMorgan Chase. He doesn't need a government bailout of us$25bn, after the bank reported earnings of us$2,6bn for 3q 2008. Yet, he was quick to add, but 'what's good for the system is good for JP Morgan'. Doesn't this statement stir chimes in $nostalgic minds: Charlie Wilson when he was ceo of the now much shrunken and depressed General Motors with a grand display of huberis proclaimed 'ubi et orbi', 'what's good for GM is good for the US!' Well, old darling, refuse the infusion of US rate and taxpayers money. Well, he won't. For hidden in that sea of very black ink are toxic Alt-A mortgages mainly in California which run up to us$400bn! So, little wonder, Dimon, il Duce of Finance Paulson and his sidekick bathroom attendant Bernanke look smilingly on Wall Street's fair hair boy. Did they hand him on a silver platter Bear Stearns & Washington Mutual? Dimon who believes in the free market and less or no government interference in the private sector, is no slouch when it comes to milking the public's cash cow...the US treasury. And he naively believes that the equity warrants the US government has in his bank will mean strict regulation. Well, let him dream! By accepting the government's bailout, he's let the camel into his tent, and we all know the end of that parable! Enjoy the comfort of your hubris, old Jaime Dimon! The old Greek gods are thirsty for revenge!

Unacceptable but necessary, dixit il Duce of finance Paulson

'Unacceptable but necessary' quoth the raven of free market economics & anal hair stylist supremo & self styled il Duce of finance & former Goldman Sachs CEO & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson. Yes, it's unacceptable to this free marketeer who as CEO of Goldman Sachs fashioned the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme which has infected and poisoned the global system of finance. Dragged kicking and screaming to match in step with Europe and Japan in dealing with the market krash of 2008, he finds it unacceptable, but has to bow to his peers concerted and common action which goes against the grain of letting government's largesse favour finance capitalism without any check. So, here he is agreeing to buy equity warrents into 9 major US banks, including his defunct investment banking house Goldman Sachs reborn from its ashes as a commerical holding company cum bank, and agreeing to regulationing the finance industry as yet undefined. Do the US rate or taxpayers need a man like Paulson to save literally their lives? NO! NO! NO! He's against everything which their tax monies fund without 'government on capitalism's back!' The US needs someone who will safeguard the economic lives of its citizens not a scoundrel who sells pie in the sky whilst sipping champagne & eating caviar in the aery of his multi million dollar home. Happily, he has not long in his post, yet he has enough time to drag his feet in dealing with the consequences of the krash so that each day becomes a small calvary for the small man or woman but not for the plutocrats that he and Herr Bush favour, support, and look to save out of class solidarity. Throw the bum out! Paulson has not shame. He should resign!

Herr Bush gets green around the gills...he dumps free market snakeoil shares!

It's no use belabouring the point that Herr Bush has transgressed the sanctity of his sacrosaint belief in the free market. He had no choice. Owing to his inept handling of the economy and his lackadaiscal management style, his hands off approach to everything he doesn't touch, and his choice of a secretary of the Treasury, the anal hair stylist supremo & self styled il Duce of finance & former CEO of Goldman Sachs who is more gauche than Herr Bush, he had no other choice to concede defeat to the UK's Gordon Brown in dealing with the global krash of the world's stock exchange. He's had to embrace 'socialism' of a sort, to save the economy from his own recklessness and stupidity, whilst affirming in a brief speech to the nation [14 October 2008] that he's saved free market capitalism. That's a laugh! Il Signor Paulson has done everything to save Wall Street, parasitic finance capitalism, and his own hide. He's act in a way which tells the US rate and taxpayer, he doesn't give a rat's arse for them but the shekels they can pay the Treasury to bail out people like him who devised the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme which is the root of the current economic crisis. Yet, by pouring good money after bad into the world's banks, and re establishing a certain equilibrium in the financial markets, Herr Bush is doing nothing that ease the onerous burden that he & his gang of 40 thieves have burden the American people. Now even he agrees, the world is in a deep recession, but he cares not a wit for he's little time left in office, is a scion of wealth and ill gotten gain, and can go back to chopping wood in his 'ranch' in Crawford, Texas. Yet, he's green behind the gills, for he's turned the US into a primus inter pares which means the US' sun of power is setting, and lesser countries in Europe and Asia are there to pick eventually the banner. A pox on his house! --

Pyongyang's off the US terrorism list; Herr Bush picked the wrong fight!

Herr Bush picked the wrong fight when he let his then national security advisor Condoleeza Rice put North Korea on his 'axes of evil' list. In a moment of whimsy, Herr Bush, a scrappy, dirty fighter, and a small man in mind and thought, took on a wily opponent who bested him at every twist and turn. Not only that, Herr Bush lacked the cujones to discipline his vice president whom he let go to the edges of the extreme in matters domestic and foreign. By his dickering, his waffling, his sitting on the fence, Herr Bush in all his small mindedness even allowed Pyongyang to join the world's club of atomic powers! And for what? One, to prove, Clinton was soft on North Korea? In part, yes! Two, to show, he could bell the communist beast? In part, yes! The laundry list could go on and on. The US elected twice, a yahoo with a pedigree of weath and a Yale degree and a Harvard MBA, who failed many times in business, to assume the role of the leader of the world's only superpower. And boy, did he fail at that! Like the grumbling, formidable mountain of LaFontaine's fable, Herr Bush in finally living up to his promises to take Pyongyang on his list of terrorist states, gave birth to a mouse of an agreement. He lost, and in doing so, proved the bankruptcy of his stupid foreign policy which knocked the US as 'the' superpower worldwide. North Korea emerges the winner! Pyongyang delivered the knockout by slowly escalating the risks of ignoring it...read, starting up its nuclear reaction, producing plutonium grade uranium, and testing its very sophistication rocket technology!

Self styled il Duce of finance Paulson is up to his old tricks! Markets tumble!

Anal hair stylist supreme & self styled il Duce of finance & former CEO of Goldman Sachs & US secretary of the Treasury sent markets down again. It’s against his ideological spaghetti backbone to do more than asking the banks to do the voluntary thing for government capital infusions and police themselves. In brief, he won’t be taking a leaf out of British prime minister Gordon Brown’s partial nationalization of banks. He’s letting the blood flow more profusely in the world financial markets. Were he to put a government leash on houses which aren’t regulated though they function as an investment banks, he wash away the black pessimism of today. Quite frankly, acting true to form il Signor Paulson is like Pavlov’s dog, ring the bell and he behaves as he was trained. 18Brumaire is not a Paulson groupie; we have always thought him incapable of doing good for the US rate and taxpayer. Like his handler Herr Bush, he looks to preserving his bloodsucking class of coupon clippers, fraudsters, & financial thugs, who bleed the body of hardworking American almost white. So the crisis will continue and as it does the closer we come to falling into the abyss of a depression which seems the curse of a Republican administration without ideas.

Anal hair stylist Paulson is helping the invisible third finger to screw us all!

18Brumaire has long been unimpressed by anal hair stylist supremo, self styled il Duce of finance, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, and US secretary of the Treasury. It has earned us a warning to readers of Google that our content is for adults only. The only trouble is that the American public is growing fast into manhood owing to the bad policies and choices of Herr Bush's il Signor Paulson & his Sancho Panza sidekick US Fed chief Ben Bernanke. As 18Brumaire mentioned, Paulson's dumb decision to let the world's largest purveyor of commercial paper Lehman to fail, whilst saving the arse of his old colleague at Goldman John Thain CEO of Merrill Lynch; that irrational step tilted the world markets towards the downturn and the blood letting in the markets. Imagine, Lehman held us$ tillions in commercial paper; everyone--banks, businesses, individuals, governments--held Lehman's paper, and so with Lehman going into bankruptcy out of bad management and greed, it set the world in panic selling, ill ease as to the future, and a mindset of 'sauve qui peut' as the rats, the fat greedy rats of plutocracy abandoned the ship of free market capitalism. Today, Lehman's commercial paper goes on auction, and its sheer value staggers the imagination, clicking the counter into the us$ tillions of outstanding loans. Ain't that a kick in the head, and a glaring example of Paulson's bad judgment and monumental stupidity. And now, we see Paulson has no plans but to save the leprous skin of the banking class, and damn everyone else. The anal hair stylist should be in prison for the harm and havoc that he's created...and lest we forget as chief honcho at Goldman Sachs, he helped fashion and devise the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme, which is at the bottom of the meltdown globally. And not only has he put his lapdog to oversee the us$700bn 'bailout', which if anyone really looks at the money trail, will quick discover that his incompetent lackey of finance capitalism has thrown to wind, to cushion his class of greedy ogres of finance us$ tillions already! And now he's got BlackRock aboard to help manage the 'toxic subprime debt'. Yep BlackRock who came up with the idea of these financial instruments which remain without value but have the effect on the markets of an AIDS virus, with its multiple, Protean permutations! And as an outsourced company, BlackRock will make out like a bandit in fees and perks and skimming over the top of Herr Bush's administration largesse of rate or taxpayer monies! Ain't that a kick in the head! So, Paulson has put the fox in the public hen house, for rapine and plunder. He's a criminal. And his belief in letting the market regulate itself, has resulted in greasy the indivible hand's third finger to screw up the public's anal hole with impunity! Paulson & his ilk belong behind prison bars, and for life!

Self styled il Duce of finance fails to tame the markets!

The Persian king Darius couldn’t tame the waves; the anal hair stylist supreme & self stylist il Duce of finance & former CEO of Goldman Sachs & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson cannot tame the financial markets. Today [9 October 2009], the NYSE bled more red ink, the seventh day in a row, and the Dow Jones average fell below 8000 as it heads south towards 6000. Quixotic il Signor Paulson has tried every trick in his how to finance book of the free market to quiet the market volatility. And to no avail. His handmaiden in his efforts US Fed chief Ben Bernanke have borne no fruit after a cut in the interest rates. World markets remain jittery. The chaos in financial circles have thrown off high pedestals the mighty priests of Wall Street and the US Fed. In today’s online edition of ‘the New York Times’, a detailed article explores the handy work of Alan Greenspan who is much responsible along with Goldman’s Paulson for the mess in the market place. A year ago, this would be considered high treason no longer. Crisis saves no one’s reputation the more especially when it comes to the almighty Yankee US dollar! In the NYT and ‘Wall Street Journal’, the anxious eye sees a straight line of how il Signor Paulson and his side kick Bernanke have struck out blindly in dealing with the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme meltdown, from the fall of the house of Bear Stearns to the dumping of Lehman Brothers to the questionable rescue of AIG to…. [fill in the blanks]. It’s a sorry record of the anal hair stylist supremo’s tilting at windmills, misreading the pulse of the markets. Take his allowing Lehman to fail, and saving his old crony from Goldman John Thain of Merrill Lynch from falling flat on his face. Il Signor
Paulson did not give a second thought that Lehman was the foremost issuer of commercial paper which banks, businesses, and wealthy clients held. By bankrupting Lehman, Paulson set off the current run on the world markets. And Paulson is the man who made the house of Goldman a mighty player on Wall Street! Let’s face it, Paulson has proven unable to ‘think outside the box’. His bromides do not work! They cannot in a very ‘toxic’ market! Push come to shove, he is going to be forced to ‘nationalise’ the big bracket bank to restore confidence in the market, yet he is resisting, blinded by his own economic orthodoxy and fuzzy vision of the current crisis. 18Brumaire’s youngest grandchild who point out that this emperor is naked. He should step down. He’s no clear plan to restore confidence in the rapidly falling and deteriorating markets at home and abroad. Too long has he look up the financial arse hole, and let the real signs pass. If he had any honour, he would step down, but Paulson is not a honourable man in this sense. He’s first and foremost out to save his plutocratic class—look at his inchoate plan to rescue free market capitalism from itself! When he needed to take action six months ago he didn’t; now as the markets waiver on the border of a very serious recession, he is a blind man…and so is his class…where is the one eyed man who can lead us out of the mess Goldman Paulson & his scum created for us in devising the subprime Ponzi scheme which has proven more toxic than a hundred atom bombs! Away with this pest & his ilk!

Mortgage foreclosures

Surfing the net brings interesting info to light. A recent Sunday [5 October 2008] interview on America's National Public radio brought this nugget to the surface. NPR's Sunday two hour morning news programme touts a blog for those having difficulty making mortgage payments. This 5 October story is about a young married woman in the murky land of California which is steep in failed mortgages.
Her tale of woe is instructive. She began by saying that she thought that her grandfather's advise on putting away something [money] for a rainy day and living beyond your means, a bit thick. She after all was living in another time, another world, an age of easy money and of plenty. She and her husband had a good college degree; the two were had stepped on the rungs of middle management; they were children of genY. She and her hubby jumped at the idea of buying a home of their own on easy credit terms with almost nothing down. And then the housing bubble kicked him and the variable mortgage rate began climbing, and her monthly payout did too to meet her bills. What were they? Well, to begin with, the mortgage payment, then student loans, then motor gasoline for two gas guzzlers for her and hubby to go to their respective jobs, and of course, food prices kept going up, and then there were the credit card debt which at first helped cushion the burgeoning expenses. She found a second job, and even with 3 salaries, the money was never enough to downsize the ballooning debt. Now here's the kick in the head, the young lady had a degree in FINANCE, yes finance. When asked if she read the terms of her mortgage, she replied wearily no! For her and her hubby the hypnotist's crystal of easy money, feed greed and the dream of a home of our own, a home 18Brumaire hastens to add, which suited them both and in which they would spend most of their lives together. When asked, what about savings? None, nada, not a plug nickel, she came back with. And now, by December she very well will be out on the street unless the mortgage is restructured and renegoticated. Fat chance at that! Now here's a solid citizen of 'middle class America' whom you'd think is a model for others to follow. Well, they have. Usually the usual scold will say, people on welfare or in slums or in barrios drank from the same fount of snake oil the banks and mortgage companies were selling two cents on the barrel head even at that! Irresponsible, living beyond their means! Well the truer story is a reflexion of this young gal's tale of woe. Someone whom the system favoured, and it failed her and opened a deep wound of America's fraud, speculation, and easy marks for the banks and mortgage companies to exploit and walk away with fat wads of us$ in pocket. Did our gal learn anything? She did. She regretted thinking her granddad was an old fuddy duddy out of steep with the times; he wasn't in a way; he knew the horrors of the Great Depression, and yet even he couldn't save his granddaughter from her own desires and her times.

Anal hair stylist & il Duce of finance Paulson's lapdog Kashkari rewards the failed bankers who brought you the subprime mess

The public knows little of Neel Kashkari. Briefly, a native of Ohio, an aeronautical engineer, a recent MBA who went to work for Goldman Sachs. There he caught the eye of il Signor Paulson self styled il Duce of finance, who took him to Washington when he ascended to the US Treasury. Now, Kashkari is the lapdog of anal hair stylist Paulson; he will do the bidding of his master. Look at whom Kashkari spoke to when he became the guy who was going to distribute the us$700bn bailout, you ask. Well, to the American Enterprise Institute, the gang of neoconservatives who believe firmly that government has the god given purpose of rewarding the rich who are absolved from any responsibility and who if we didn't know helped design the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme, chief culprit of which is il Signor Paulson himself. Well, we all know that everyone's talking about liquidity, so you've to wonder why Kashkari ain't pumping up at his us$700bn motor gasoline station the banks with cash to lend to one another. Good question. Well, he's spreading the rate or taxpayers manure first and foremost as outsourcing to the very bankers who helped create the subprime meltdown. And if we know anything from past history, outsourcing will fill deep, greedy pockets of the people who triggered the world financial crisis in the first place. Two, why is Kashkari the puppet of anal hair stylist Paulson waiting for the day after the election to disperse funds to the banks? Another good question which any child can answer. So Herr Bush & co. are once again playing the US rate or taxpayer for a sucker, born anew everyday!

Rats fleeing the economic ship and world bankers bluster & fluster & don't know up from down!

The rats are fleeing the mighty economic ship that has sailed happily through smooth seas till Wall Street began hawking snake oil in the form of subprime mortgage debt [an arching term to include all the greedy nastiness that street could do]. Now world markets are heading through stormy weather and the world's bankers have lost their heads. Main street everywhere has lost any notion that these high flyers know their arse from their elbow! Look at anal hair stylist supremo & self styled il Duce of finance & former CEO of Goldman Sachs & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson. He got his us$700bn rescue package with little oversight, and he hasn't the foggiest idea as to what to do. He's not as 18Brumaire has constantly written, enough fingers and toes to staunch the leaks in the financial markets. And what's more, he hasn't the foggiest idea as what to do next other than giving his cronies oversight on the 'bailout'. Well, banks ain't lending to one another; foreign countries are panicking and eacy state is going its own way. No co ordination in the world markets and everyone of the rats are fleeing a seemingly sinking ship. And what's more the mighty Solons who vote this and that are so tied by the umbilical cord to finance capitalism, there is little hope for reform, let alone a radical breakthrough. Yes, old darlings, you've made a mess and will continue to do so, for no one with lead in his pistol is on the scene to whip you back into line and obey the oversight and discipline the exuberant bankers abandoned for self enrichment, and what's more in the US, since the abandonment of pension schemes, the little man and woman who knows squat about investing has had to follow the examples of their betters [sic], and do a monkey sees, monkey does act to get by and save for days of pensioners. Where has this gotten them? Back to square one and poorer than ever and a bitter old age whilst the plutocrats fall comfortably of government bailouts and cushions of a sybarite life style. Is there no justice? Apparently not!

Self stylist il Duce of Finance names a Goldman Sachs crony to oversea bank bailout!

Here we go again! In the face of a giant meltdown in financial markets, anal hair stylist supremo & self styled il Duce of finance & US secretary of the Treasury & former CEO of Goldman Sachs has named a crony Neel Kashkari lately of Goldman Sachs to oversee the us$700bn 'rescue fund' to save Milton Friedman economics from itself. Fat chance! Il Signor Paulson has proven himself incapable. He's more an ostrich hidding his head in the sand whilst exposing his the country's financial arse; he's dragged his feet trying to avoid everything his ideology says that he shouldn't do, and let the market take care of itself. Well, the old darling helped fashion and sell and profit greatly from what is globally called the 'subprime mortgage Ponzi meltdown', and which has spread like an AIDS like virus through the world's economic body. He's no real programme, for if he did, with us$700bn on hand, he would have something to spend it on. Well, he doesn't. But he does have his cronies from Goldman Sachs to appoint with plummy titles and posts. Will they buy the toxic subprime debts say at us$0,60 on the us$, will they impose discipline on the markets, when they couldn't discipline themselves nor rein in their greed? Probably not. But like all bankers of Paulson's wide yellow stripe, he prefers doing little or nothing. And the proof is in the pudding, without a plan or even a sense of direction as to what to do. The feel heeled Asia markets are now falling...boys come out with her savings to save Paulson & his foul policy. Herr Bush's now pushing Herbert Hoover out of top spot for economic failure, and now proudly wears the crown. The bar is very low for Paulson & Neel & all their rotten plutocratic friends who even now live high on the hog whilst the average rate or taxpayer is suffering and will suffer even more. What we need now, are men with ideas not the old fools and their failed programmes and hot air which have landed us and everyone else in the world in this cesspool of a giant meltdown. Were are the good fundamentals these purveyors of snakeoil have been pushing to a public dazzled by glamour and false hope?

The no meeting in Pyongyang. Herr Bush's policy towards North Korea is a dead duck!

Much has been made of the US chief negotiator Chris Hill's panicked flight to Pyongyang to try to salvage a dead deal on North Korea's nuclear programme, in the light of Kim Jong il's regime's restarting it again, and reneging on Herr Bush's promises to delist North Korea from its 'terrorist states anathema'. Even though Hill prolonged his 2 day stay to a third, his trip was much ado about nothing, and had the suspect odour of a publicity stunt to blame Pyongyang for Washington's sins. Herr Bush tried to flim flam North Korea by calling a meeting whose avowed purpose is doing no business at all. US secretary of state, the incompetent Condoleeza Rice gave the whole show away by announcing that the US had nothing to offer North Korea in order to dissuade it from shutting down Yongbyon once more. Furthermore the sleight of hand was to hide from view the complete and total failure of Herr Bush's foreign policy, by creating the impression that the US was ready to talk business, but whose avowed purpose is to do no business at all, at all. And so it was. A visibly exhausted Hill showed up in Seoul to say nothing had been accomplished in his quick flight to Pyongyang. The result: Pyongyang will continue its nuclear programme. Hill's last minute visit may have had another purpose...he had to pluck his false rabbit out of his diplomatic pouch, for at the same time he was there military talks between North and South Korea were underway, and there too we find another 'no meeting'. The fault lies squarely with the hardline, dogmatic Lee Myong bak, South Korea's new president. He has succeeded in killing the goose that laid the golden eggs of Kim Dae Jung's sunshine policy, and bringing back to the divide Korean peninsula, a renewed state of tensions. So much for the high and the mighty who take lamp lights for chamber points! If anyone has shot himself in the foot, it's Herr Bush and his fellow blockhead in Seoul Shogun Lee.

Google & 18Brumaire...censorship?

Anyone wishing to read the blog 18Brumaire.blogspot.com will find a warning that it has 'content suitable for adults'. If you google 18brumaire, you will find 4 entries, and not the most current. However, you go scroll down to the bottom of the page, you can click on the blue line which will bring you to about 18 pages of blog entries, but not all entires; go to page 16; there you will find the 'objectionable' blogs fit for adult eyes only. And lo and behold, you will find such everyday topics about the current US presidential campaign, the less than sterling practices of US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson & co, so on and on. So how does this infringe on Google's code of good conduct? Beats us! even though Google distances itself from the views on 18Brumaire. Well, you can say this works two ways, since it human nature to taste of forbidden fruit, the casual reader will look for the taboo subject. Or it's Google's way of protecting itself from the angry army of the righteous who will object to anything under the sun! 18Brumaire is honoured to uphold the sanctity of the first amendment, and believes in free speech, and all that good stuff!

Wells Fargo foils anal hair stylist & self styled il Duce of the US Treasury's plans

Today [3 Oct 2008] Wells Fargo gave the royal finger to anal hair sytlist supremo & self styled il Duce of the treasury & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson lately of Goldman Sachs. The Minneapolis bank offered us$7 a share for Wachovia. Previous il Signor Paulson playing his game of rewarding his friends and killing his enemies [vide Lehman & Bear Stearns] had offered Wachovia to Citibank with US rate or taxpayer largesse to cushion greedy and wobbly banks. Citi could and choose what it wants from Wachovia and throw aside like chicken bones the parts it didn't want. Namely, Citi's mouth watered at picking up Wachovia's commerical banking units at fire sale rates, which is the tattoo pattern of il Signor Paulson's. Well, surprise, surprise, surpise, Wachovia made a bid for Wachovia in tot for us$14bn at least, and without public financing. So there il Duce trying once again to flim flam the rate or taxpayer for the comfort and ease of his plutocratic friends! Citi is not taking this lightly nor is the anal hair stylist supremo of the coupon clipping classes. What all this goes to show is one, there is liquidity out there--look at Buffet flating Goldman Sachs and GE--but the moguls of finance won't wave the flag to save free market capitalism from itself. So il Duce of finance along with his unindicted co conspirate the bathroom attendant US Fed head Ben Bernanke is panicking and not without cause with a dodgey bailout plan which rewards people like Paulson who helped devise and enriched himself in the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme [18Brumaire readers look at JK Galbraith's 'The big crash 1929', the chapter on Goldman Sachs we trust, to see how the leopard hasn't changed its spots!], and who is the fox in the people's hen house, ready, willing, and eager to plunder the American working people, for his lazy, blood sucking class of the rich and super rich, and the sycophantic corporate America! So bravo Wells Fargo. Paulson has proven himself incapable and an il Duce without clothes. His old magic is gone. Throw the bum in prison and then throw the key away. He's none of the sekhel [Yiddish] that a Warren Buffet has in his little finger.

John McCain concedes Michigan to Obama on 2 October 2008. Is McCain the 2008 Kerry?

US Republican party candidate for the presidency John McCain has ordered a retreat of his troops from the state of Michigan. He's conceding Michigan to his opponent Barak Obama. His dirty tricks though his Michigan surrogates had wanted to challenge voters who were in foreclosure, thereby denying them of the right to vote [read mostly blacks who favour Obama]. It didn't work, and McCain's messy tactics earned him little but diminishing returns in his hope of snatching the state's electors. Which raises the question: Is McCain following in the footsteps of John Kerry's 2004 campaign, when the senator from Massachusetts gave up states to George Bush without much of a fight, in order to carry the battle and money to another day and another state? Seems so. The economic crisis has broken the neck to neck polls with his rival Obama. The junior senator from Illinois is pulling ahead because rightly the American voters have pinned the tail of economic woes on the Republicans' elephant, and believe the Democrats are better able to deal with worries and woes and drop in living standard of theirs. So the tug boat captain's election boat has sprung a leak, and try as he might, he's not enough fingers and toes to plug the gaping holes.

Rock bottom expectations for Sarah Palin pay off!

Last night's [2 Oct 2008] US vice presidential 'debate' won't ruin Sarah Palin's reputation. No one had high expectations for John McCain's running mate. She couldn't not but shine since no one really though much of her to begin with. And she did for the moment. She simply proved once again how untutored she was in matters of state. When she doesn't know the answer, she runs at the mouth, throwing everything and the kitchen sink in to her rapid fire, confused volley of words. The talking heads say that she 'connects' with middle America. She may; then again, she may not. What is certain is that McCain's choice uncovers an Alaskan mother lode of know nothingism which is an endemic strain in nativist Americana. She pumps out like an old church organ the sound bytes of god, country, and mum's apple pie. Knee jerk appel to the basest elements within the body Americana. It's a sorry day for America, her candidacy, and it says much about the devious mind of McCain, revealing his erratic, hip hop character of a weather vane spinning in any direction of the wind of opportunism points him to.

Asian markets are not amused by the Senate's vote on the US bailout

Asian stock markets are down this morning. The vote in the US senate which passed its version of the massive and increased bailout bill has run into the distaste of Asian markets. They are not amused by the added amount of us$150bn to a us$700bn package to excuse American financiers for bad behaviour and little reform. They full well know that it is cash rich Asia who will have to pour money into an undiscipled and insouciant US economy where personal savings are very low, where personal and corporate debt is high, and where US lawmakers think the world is their oyster and que dedale! the world owes them everything for the simple reason it is the US. And the merry go round will whirl even faster for to get off will through the global economy into chaos.

Consolidation in the financial markets...the road to the ultimate triumph of finance capitalism

Consolidation in the financial industry is going fast a pace. Wachovia is folding into Citibank; Merrill Lynch & Washington Mutal in JPMorganChase. The bailout when it comes will not sink its teeth into the meat of the problem...mortgages, but will refloat the meanies who brought us the subprime mortgage meltdown. The talking heads talk of Main Street, but for all the blarney, the bluster, and the blowhards, little will be done for the little man or the little woman. A good barometre is the rising unemployment numbers, the tight family budgets, and the general impoverishment of the majority of the US population. We are seeing, dare we mention the road to a national socialism which would make il Signor Mussolini quite happy. Confidence will fill the sails of the rich and the super rich who may feel some pain in portfolios of theirs, but won't stop a lavish style of living which brings to mind Dickens...picture small children, shoeless in the snow, looking through the frosted window panes of a rich family's Christmas dinner. And that's more or less what the Main Street is seeing and feeling and experiencing. And alas no matter the new tune after the elections, the rich will benefit because the shift in privilege begun under the false prophet Ronald Reagan is not torn out root and branch.

Wall Street forgets Main Street

Markets are in a spin but ultimately the tug of war in the houses of Congress will vote for a hastily, devised 'bailout' of finance capitalism which has ruled the roost for almost a generation. The plutocratic rule of bankers will continue no matter the reform. Look, the anal hair stylist supremo & now self styled il Signor Mussolini & US secretary of the Treasury will control the bailout for the first 3 months at least. With us$700bn or tranches thereof, he will do everything, as he is doing now, to consolidate the firm grip of those thieves which have brought free market capitalism almost to its knees. The mechanisms of saving the banks will take a leaf out of FDR's book, but the more pertinant example is the rise of national socialism which il Signor Mussolini brought to life. In Fascist Italy's example lest we forget, the banks made out like bandits, as they are doing now in freedom loving, land of the free, home of the brave US under Herr Bush. Look at the budget allocations, defence, homeland security, veterans affairs receiving the lion's share of rate or taxpayers monies, and a sop or two for Main Street, read the little guy or gal. Inchoate popular anger is there awaiting as the case will be in the US for a demogogue, not an enlightened leader. Everyone has much to fear for the renaissance of nationalism socialism!