18brumaire

Madoff

2008-12-23T11:20:00.000-08:00

Bernard Madoff is out on us$10m bail. He's confined to his us$7m flat in Manhattan's silk stocking district. He's bilked his investors of us$50bn, yet for all intents and purposes, he is a free man living in the luxury he is used to. Why isn't he in prison orange and in Riker's island sharing the life of an ordinary felon? Well, as F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, the rich are different.
Madoff is 70. He's shouldering full blame for his Ponzi scheme, thereby trying to save his two sons, daughter, and brother from criminal pursuit. Nobel? Hardly!
He got away with it as he boasted, he could make money when the market was up or down but not when it went flatter than a pancake. It did...at the very moment he was looking for foreign suckers to sustain his pyramid scheme. Now, the slow wheels of justice are churning as government officials look into feeder funds and accounting firms and other 'louche' arrangements which allowed Madoff & co. to bilk his clients from day one.
Madoff won't find much cheer among his fellow Jews, whom he robbed gladly...Yeshiva University, Steven Spielberg's Wunderkind foundation, and the Eli Weisel Fund, among others. They entrusted endowments which overtime grew steadily so that they could expand charitable work, it seems, but wisely kept private money away from Madoff's greedy mitts. Madoff fooled large banks...Bank of Scotland, France's BNP, HSBC...not to mention the wealthy and comfortable who now are hurting badly in the autumn of their lifetime.
It is doubtful Madoff will see much prison time. But that is the affair of justice and a jury of his peers.
His machination had the complicity of the greedy but also of a mindset who thought the market itself could regulate foul play. It didn't. So new laws and older statutes will be better observed perhaps, but they won't stop those always looking for the golden ring of making a buck and quick. Nonetheless, harsh measures are called for; hardly a cent will be recovered, but Madoff & his kind especially his close confederates and those at the feeders fund deserve long terms in prison.

North Korea Idiotic?

2008-12-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

Before the movers and shakers of the Council of Foreign Relations, US secretary of state Condolezza Rice opined that 'only "an idiot" would trust North Korean promises that it abandoned its nuclear programmes". Well, blimey! Then why did Mme. Rice reverse course as Bush's secretary of state, in her boss' second term, and begin negotiating with Pyongyang? Well, Bush's play hardball diplomacy splatted egg on Bush's face after 4 years of name calling and boasts of bringing about regime change in North Korea. Bush & co. had to eat crow for its obtuseness ushered Pyongyang into the world's nuclear club! Then did serious negotations of a sort began. So who's idiotic? And can you trust Washington, a North Korean wag may ask?

Small mercies

2008-12-20T07:47:00.000-08:00

Winter Soltice...Christmas...Yuletide...call it what you will...soon the nightmare of 8 years of George Bush and his gang of the corrupt and the wicked will fade from the scene. Still, they leave behind not only a country on the abyss of ruin but the world clouded by uncertainty and war and millions of lives shattered. Should we be thankful? In a way, yes...the grinch that stole our well being and hopes is going to the smug, iron gated community in Dallas, Texas...he goes to pal out with the rich, the lazy, and those descended from the robber barons, the hucksters, and the people who crush small people owing to the sharp, questionable practices they use to get ahead. Thankful no...for Bush & co. have left behind a dung heap to clean up and hardship for the younger generations who will lead mean lives. Thankful, yes, for as the English saw twangs: Good bye to bad rubbish!

Every day has its day!

2008-12-16T11:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, every dog does have his day! And US president George Bush has had his at his press conference in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. A 29 year old reporter Muntader Al Zaidi threw his two shoes at Mr. Bush's head. The 62 year old president proved nimble enough to duck, but he couldn't escape the contempt of Al Zaidi's gesture. It was says the young reporter a farewell kiss to the man whose pre emptive war, based on lies and false reports, that have brought untold death and destruction on Iraq. Al Zaidi's gesture is an Arab way of showing complete disrespect and contempt, aimed as it was at Mr. Bush's head. What's more Al Zaidi spat out 'dog', which is the lowliest of the low in the Arab way of classifying animals. Al Zaidi badly bruised with broken bones is in Iraqi military hands, and will no doubt spend some hard time in prison. Mr. Bush will never live down the shame, no matter what smiling face he will put on it; Al Zaidi's two shoes will haunt him in retirement and follow him to his grave. A fitting judgment!

Every dog has its day!

2008-12-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

If a Ford worker is earning us$73 an hour, how much does a manager earn?

2008-12-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

Chances are the US congress will after negotiation give Detriot the bridge loan that the US auto industry is seeking, to ease their cash flow. The talking heads and the media are more or less drumming the same tattoo: the worker is to largely blame for the sad state of affairs that Detriot is in. He earns too much. Let her take a good cut in pay, in order to make the US auto industry more competitive. Look at Nissan, Toyoda, Hyundai, and other foreign car makers the workers of whom earn half of what a Detriot worker does. Why? the unions. Nissan et al. put plants in the South, in anti union states, for the simple reason that they can play workers less. So, largely writ, the attack on the unions and the so called high paying worker is a smoke screen to let off the hook an inefficient, highly paid bloated management. It seems as though today in the US, management is sacrosanct, but the ordinary union gal or guy isn't. He's greedy whilst management are saints. What a laugh. What has happened to the idea that the higher up the chain of command you go, the more responsable you are for what happens to a company's fortune? Apparently, that thought doesn't enter the calculus of blame. And how much do management earn? Well high multies of 10's, 50's, 100's 400's than the ordinary Jane or Joe on the assembly line. And if times are tough the union member tightens his belt, whilst management continues its high standard of living with full medical and other social benefits. Good year, bad year, management enjoys the good life. It's time to hold management's feet to the fire and let them share the lion's share of blame and sacrifice which hardly will make up for the hardship of the ordinary worker and a worker who is a union member. It's not the union member that should worry so much the banks and government but management who is let off the hook and continue a style of living which is condemnable on all points of the compass.

The New York Times borrows almost a quarter billion dollars

2008-12-08T17:48:00.001-08:00

In these parlous economic times, the old grey lady 'The New York Times' announced that it is going to borrow us$225 million against its new headquarters, designed by the well known architect Renzo Piano. A state of the art glass building of 52 floors had made news around the world by daredevils who climbed its ventian blind like slats to the building's pinnacle. It now comes to light that the NYT owns 58 per cent of the building or some 1,5 million square feet, and the developer Forest City Ratner owns the rest. Lately S&P have lowered the credit worthiness of the NYT, and a revolving line of credit is coming to its term. So, given the downturn in the print medium, the old grey lady is strapped for cash. In consequent, since it has its money tied up in the building, to easy its cash flow, the NYT is borrowing almost a quarter billion dollars against this asset. And this very well may be the first step towards increasing debt against its headquarters.

General Shinseki

2008-12-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

President elect Obama has chosen another member of his cabinet. This time to fill the post of secretary of veteran affairs. He has chosen wisely. He is going to nominated 4 star general Shinseki whom the much disgraced Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz dismissed as being out of touch in fighting wars. General Shinseki rightly called the need of several hundred thousands of troops in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. He was spot on when he spoke of ethnic and religious tensions which neither Mr. Bush nor his camp followers gave a second thought. With general Shinseki in the cabinet veterans will be given a fair shake...not the pitiful treatment they are getting...remember the scandal at Walter Reed hospital! It is a signal from Mr. Obama that a big broom is sweeping over business as usual in Washington. If anyone had any doubts, the naming of the octagenarian Paul Volker as head of Mr. Obama economic council would have told any thinking person that!

Mugabe must go!

2008-12-07T12:52:00.000-08:00

It is not without a certain sense of irony now to hear African leaders begin raising their voices calling for Mugabe of Zimbabwe to step down...to go away. It is long evident that Mr. Mugabe had ascended to the ranks of the meglomanic, but nary a word was raised for his removal from office outside of his own country. In Zimbabwe, Mr. Mugabe has done everything that he could to emasculate the opposition by any means possible. Yet despite his meanest efforts, the opposition fights on. Outside Zimbabwe, even South Africa's Tabo Mbeki had the squeak of a mouse in trying to square Mr. Mugabe's circle. For, Mr. Mugabe was calling in his chits, supporting as he did South Africa's ANC in its long struggle against apartheid; he skilfully played his anti colonists cards to shame other African leaders to put a damper on any criticism of him and his iron fisted rule. Now, it seems the fear of the dreaded cholera has put the fire of fear across southern and eastern Africa; for that horrid and lethal disease knows no boundry. Furthermore, Kenya's leader has put out a call to raise any army of African states if Mr. Mugabe does not resign from power, to invade and remove him manu militari. Something that they sneezed at when it came to Sudan's war in Dafur. Mugabe won't go, and unless his praetorian guard engineer a coup there is little that the feckless leaders in Africa can do.

City of the Patriarchs

2008-12-04T17:53:00.001-08:00

City of the Patriarchs. Hebron. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam acknowledge its sacredness. For the unschooled, read the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Since 1967Hebron is under Israeli occupation. Today, 180.000 Palestinian Arabs live in fear, because with the might of the Israeli military, 680 militant, orthodox Jews walk in the arrogance of self righteousness and conquest. They carry guys; attack Arabs; and try with some success to occupy property of theirs. For the 680, sweeping aside millenia, Hebron belongs to the biblical Judea under a perscribed guide of Jewish law which they wish to reclaim in the same vein as Islamic terrorist dream of re establishing the califate under the rule of Sha'ariah. For them, Hebron is 'Eretz Israel', the earth and soul of a Zionist state, which international law does not subscribe to. Yet, the gang of 680 extremists are sustained by millions of US dollars raised abroad, and particularly in the US, by the little known Hebron Fund. The fund's website says it raised funds for Hebron, Israel, no more, no less. These very monies go to sustain extremism and messianism, grandly protected by the might of the Israeli state through its army. The gang of 680 religious fanatics strut through Hebron, acting with open racism and impunity, in ways reminiscent of storm troopers and colonial armies of the past. A question arises: is the Hebron Fund aiding Israeli terrorism? This is a legal matter that Washington has to parse.

Dr Lee Jae Oh

2008-12-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

Dr Lee Jae Oh's name deserves little household recognition outside of South Korea. Presently he is in the US on a visa which expires in May 2009 and holds the rank of senior visity scholar of the US Korea Institute at John Hopins University. Dr. Lee is the man who engineered the election of Mr. Lee Myung bak first as mayor of Seoul, and then as president of the Republic of Korea [ROK or South Korea]. Yet, Mr. Lee has not appointed Dr. Lee to any high post in his administration. Today [4 December 2008] New York's Korea Society rolled out the red carpet for Dr. Lee to talk of the role of president Lee Myung bak's administration. Which implies that Dr. Lee is in bad odour in Seoul since after the landslide election of president Lee, his campaign leader is sitting safely in Washington, DC. Dr. Lee faced a packed room of the South Korean press and the 'grattin' of Korea watchers in finance, the academy, business, the military and the diplomatic corps, and American Koreans. He approached his topic obliquely, talking of instituting a nation of 'the righteous', to eradicate corruption and open opportunities for all South Korea's to work hard to prove themselves as good, upright citizens. His call is right out of Korea's history of reformers, and with echoes of Jean Calvin's city of saints, Geneva. He then proceeded to talk of his trips to Peru, Brazil, among other countries in Latin America, but remained silent on his stay in Cuba. [There did he meet with North Koreans?] Furthermore, Dr. Oh is cut from the same wood as Confucianism, and his comments on the useless of a mountain in Rio which from the tope you see unfold before your eyes the splendour that is Rio de Janeiro. Yet, in the same vain, he doesn't see the ressemble with Mount Kumgang in North Korea to which South Koreans rush to visit. But that is his cultural blindness. His views on North Korea are firm the more especially since Pyongyang won't acknowledge the killing of a tourist in May at Mount Kumgang who strayed towards a military post. Nonetheless, he did go out of his way to stress that president Lee's approach towards Pyongyang is non threatening and peaceful. Dr. Lee said little about the US other than to reiterate that it is time for Washington to ratify the Korea FTA [which Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton expressed in the past little enthusiasm for a free trade agreement with the ROK]. But the import of Dr. Lee's talk was his sincerest apology to president Lee. Obviously, he wants to come back to South Korea, but his return remains unsure, the more especially since he is favourable towards Mme. Park Guen hae, former president Park Chung Hee's daughter who is president Lee's rival. Did Dr. Lee express full repentence to the Korean press who will deliver his message on Seoul's airways, it is too early to tell.

US recession year 2

2008-12-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday [01 December 2008], the NYSE lost almost 700 points or 9 per cent in value. News that the US has been in recession since December 2007 caught everyone unaware. Well...many...not all...Some voices had been raised saying that the economic verities of the day had gone haywire, and that the country had slipped into recession. But the old shaggy heads shook it off hiding behind the dry textbook definition that it was too soon to come to that determination. After the failure of Bear Stearns, the old guard thought, they had saved the day. They didn't, and from there the situation went from bad to worse, and them from worse to worser. The US Treasury, the Fed, and the economic advisors and conventional economists tinkered with this and that but after the government let Lehman Brothers fail...it was difficult to believe that the economic establishment thought the spector of recession didn't hover over the global market. It did! Now, the truth is out. It had been swept under the rug until the dirt accumulated into a small Himalaya, it could no longer be denied. And now we know, what we all knew or suspected, we're in a deep and growing recession, bordering on depression. Which raises the question about collusion between the Treasury, the Fed, and the monied and corporate class to preach denial. And denial they did preach. And they bought time till after the US elections, and left the mess for someone else to clean up! So we may soon see a mighty broom sweep out old theories and practices, and hunker down to get a failing economy working again.

Paulson's Apologia pro sua vita 2

2008-11-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

US secretary of the Treasury has gone on the telly to lecture us on the financial crisis which he as CEO of Goldman Sachs, among other bulge brack bankers, created, and which he as US secretary of the Treasury turned into a nightmare particularly after he, to teach Lehman a lesson, he refused to snatch it from bankruptcy. The rest we know as the world markets temble and continue tumbling. He has rewarded his friends in the financial sector and rescued AIG the spendthrift assurance company. Today's long, boring press conference bears no 'I take responsibility' at all, and he's done nothing to force the now more cash rich big banks, thanks to rate or taxpayers' largesse, refuse to loosen credit on the market. A casualty of this miserly attitude is the sinking of Detroit's auto industry, which again to teach the same lesson he taught Lehman, Paulson & co. are willing to tilt the deepening global crisis towards a worldwide depression. Once more, Paulson has shown too small for the job, and president Bush deserves complete blame.

Detriot's agony

2008-11-20T07:45:00.000-08:00

The US auto industry is learning a hard lesson. It usually favours the Republican party. It contributions fill the party of Lincoln's war chests. But when it comes with cup in hand to Congress for a bridge loan to tie it over during an economic crisis which the government infused funds have pumped up bluge bracket banks who created the subprime mortgage meltdown, thereby cutting off avenues of credit to Detroit, it discovers that its Republicans friends ain't listening. In fact Mississippi senator Shelby is the spokesman who is willing to tell them 'drop dead', go into Chapter 11. Well old Shelby who is known for his know nothing politics has been preaching the same message since he turned thumbs down on the Chrysler bailout in 1979. Luckily, he wasn't listened to. But this time, Detroit's Republican friends are digging in their heels in the wake of the party of Lincoln defeat at the polls and loss of the White House. More, Shelby & co represent the extreme right wing of the party which believes the workers not the banks have done the economy in and suddenly wake up to blame generous senior managers of the auto industry for inefficiences, lavish living, and any other sins they can find in their bible of narrowmindedness. Well by refusing to vote for a bridge loan of us$25 billion with severe conditions, they're willing to worsen an already bad economic future for the US. It's not bad enough when they had Bush in the White House, they let the banks and big business get away with everything imaginable, they now find virtue in letting millions of workers lose jobs, and fill the growing army of the unemployed and the poor. Why worry says Shelby? The market will correct itself. It won't. And the dimlight from Mississippi hasn't a klew ... does he believe the world is flat?

Paulson's Apologia pro sua vita

2008-11-18T11:41:00.001-08:00

The 18 November 2008 online edition of 'The New York Times' carried an op ed piece of US secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. It is called 'Fighting the Financial Crisis, One Challenge at a Time'. As such, it sums up quite neatly Paulson's guiding star in handling the worst financial crisis in almost a century, and thereby hangs a tale of his inability to deal effectively with the toxic subprime mortgage bonds which have infected the world financial markets. In effect, Paulson has mistaken the tree for the economic forest. As such, by treating each forest fire individually, he has allowed other low grade fires to thrive until each and everyone flares up into a major crisis. In brief, his narrow approach has made a bad market worse, and one example is worth mentioning, his deliberate, not fully thought out decision to let Lehman fail. Lehman's bankruptcy percipitated the krash which have threatened world economic growth and good health for years to come. Paulson's apologia pro sua vita is his way of a cover up. 'Le Monde' reports that constrained by Senator Obama's election, Paulson has put a break on his plan to disburse us$700bn to his friends in the banking industry. Moreover, his decision to let the American automotive industry to fail, is proof again of his myopia and misunderstanding of the markets. His insouciance of letting the pillars of US capitalism crumble, boggles the mind.

Standoff between South and North Korea

2008-11-14T15:30:00.000-08:00

Right wing talking heads and journalists in Washington are on the qui vive when it comes to the divided Korean peninsula. Especially worrysome is the new cold war of words between Seoul and Pyongyang, which they see as a North Korean ploy to put a wedge in the spokes of Washington's relations with South Korea, thereby forccing the US to choose between its long standing ally and Kim Jong il. Well, this standpoint has an odd logic to the like of the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute for example, but it is a big pill to swallow hold. What may give it urgency is that these neo cons for the most part, are out of Mr. Obama's loop, and so a lot of second guessing is going on. Let's look at the lay of the land, as North Korea threatens to close the border at the 38 parallel on 1 December 2008, and the effects of the revived 'cold war' between Seoul and Pyongyang. Trouble lay ahead with the election of Lee Myung bak as South Korea's president. He campaigned on a get tough policy towards the North, Once in office, he dismantled the 'Sunshine Policy', cut off fertilizer shipments to the North in the face of a growing food crisis and imminent starvation of North Koreans; he engaged in a Bush like policy of moral posturing and verbal threats unless the North bent to his demands. This strategy may have played well in Washington, but it didn't in Korea. Furthermore, one had to wonder whether Mr Lee had an understanding of North Korea, or the slightest hint of face among South Koreans. With the absence of Kim Jong il and the questions about his health, Mr. Lee's policy has encouraged groups to send by balloon pamphlets denoucing the North's Dear Leader; this has not gone over well at all, if anyone needed to be told. It has raised the North's temperature and with anger came the bluster of warlike words. Looking from the South, the killing of a tourist last spring at Kumgangsan brought no apologies from Pyongyang. As a result the North Korean resort has gone downhill since visitors from the South have steadily declined. And so we have a shaky standoff which Mr. Lee has let deteriorate and has tried to use to his advantage. However this has backfired, for if North Korea closes the border crossing, the South's free trade zone at Kaesang will suffer and have to close down, and in the face of the growing recession which has bitten large into Seoul's export economy, this is bad news. Now let's turn our attention to US South and US North Korean relations. One, the newly elected president Barack Obama has already sent a message reaffirming US' support and traditional friendship to Mr. Lee. Korea is not at the top of his agenda. As for US North Korea relations, president Bush has perced the enflamed abcess of long standing grievances as to Yangbyon and the nuclear question, by taking Pyongyang off America's list of terrorists states, thus opening the path for North Korea to tap the world's capital markets to repair its economy so on and on. American neo cons viscerally hate North Korea so that they see one under every bed as though the spirit of America's witch hunters could smell a 'Commie' a kilometre away. Well times are changing despite the scare tactics and wild scenarios of theirs. And more likely than not, Mr. Obama will stay away from this madding dispute between South and North. Mr. Lee began a fight which he cannot win, and that's the simple and plain truth.

Rahm Emanuel brought up short

2008-11-14T12:04:00.001-08:00

Barack Obama's new chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has had to apologize to Arab Americans for the tasteless remarks of his father Dr. Benjamin Emanuel. In an interview with the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, Emanuel pere who holds an Israeli passport as does his children, proudly extolled the power that his son would have over the 44 president of the US by influencing American support for Israel. Well had he stopped there, it would've sounded no more than the average boast of a proud father and an Israeli citizen that the US is Israel's friend. But the elder Emanuel didn't. He went on to add as chief of staff at the White House, my son won't be 'an arab. He's not going to be mopping floors at the White House'. The American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee immediately pick up on this racial slur [substitute Arab for black in the American context...and what do we have?], shot off a letter to Rahm Emanuel calling on him to repudiate his father's remarks, and noting on the bottom of the letter it had also sent a copy to Mr. Obama. Well, Rahm Emanuel apologized; he did the right thing. His father is an unrepentent Israeli hawk. The main street media has not picked up on the fact that the father as a youth was a member of the Jewish terrorist group, Irgun, which brought us the King David Hotel bombing and the Deir Yassine massacre. It would be in Rahm Emanuel's interest to keep a tight rein on his father, and to remember his first loyalty lies to the US not to Israel, despite the fact that he holds dual citizenship.

GM Paradise Lost

2008-11-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

Emma Rothschild wrote a neat little book about the US automobile industry in 1974. She called it 'Paradise lost'. Sound familiar today when GM and Ford are on the cusp of bankruptcy? It took a Brit to calmly tell the decline of the US auto makers. She made a jolly good case as to why Volkwagen's Beatle could take away in the early
1960's up to 15 per cent of motor car market share in the US, and this at a time when motor gasoline was cheap! The buyer wanted fuel efficiency, not gas guzzler, and didn't give a fig about dinosaur like features like fins and long bodies and cumbersome motors. Sound familiar? It should, for the same complaints are with us today in a severe recession for GM and Ford. There was time when GM's CEO could arrogantly boast, 'What's good for GM, is good for America!' Not anymore! And this has been true for quite a long time as Korean, Japanese, and European carmarkers have shaken the pillars of Detriot's supremacy and smugness. Who remembers, too, when UAW president Walter Ruether urged GM's CEO to support Harry Truman's proposed single payer healthcare package? No one. GM didn't want anything to do with healthcare for all Americans, so wily Ruether got a contract and a promise that GM would look after GM's workers' health as employees and pensionners. Shortsighted GM is now stuck with the albatross of healthcare premina which it gladly put around its own neck itself. Why? Senior management were basking in GM's salad days and had no thought for the future nor any idea of social responsibility. Who remembers another Ruether initiative? As the US was building Fortress America to defeat Hitler and Italy and Japan...the Axis, Reuther came hat in hand to Washington asking that automotive assembly plants be turned into aerocraft factories. He got turned down, and today, the taxpayer is saddled with an inefficient semi private company called Boeing & its ilk, which basks in government largesse and cost overruns and gross inefficiencies. GM missed out as not only an automaker of note but a future aerospace and defence contractors. So today shrinking like violets they're a shadow of themselves, the for plain and simple truth, for over a half century its warts were there for all to see and they did little or nothing but continue business as usual which now has landed them on the edge of collapse and chapter 11. Sheds no tears for management but pity the poor working stiff!

US treasury won't purchase toxic debts after all

2008-11-12T11:52:00.000-08:00

Speak of back peddling, US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson announced the US government won't purchase toxic subprime mortgage debt, as collatoral for bank bailouts. It is bad enough, Paulson has proven inadequate in the face of the worst economic crisis since 1929 [dixit John Thain Merrill Lynch CEO and former Goldman Sachs buddy of Paulson], but he has done everything to feather the incompetence of the investment banking industry with the promise of government largesse. Paulson's days are numbered at the Treasury and his band aids for the growing recession have become the joke of the day. He's willing to let AIG gobble up US$bns as executives of this assurance company waste millions on junkets and selfish pursuit, but he won't funnel money to GM and Ford. Is this surprising? No. Let's not forget, Paulson is the financial wizard who let Lehman fail without stopping to think that it was the largest vendor of commercial paper, and that it's bankruptcy would throw a spanner in the world's financial markets. Which it did, and accelerated the recession everywhere globally. So we dealing with not with a rocket scientist in finance but a small town banker who even with specs sees hardly the tip of his nose and even that hazily. It's time he's gone, and for good!

The Russian bear roared

2008-11-06T07:22:00.000-08:00

Russia's president congratulated Barack Obama. He then went on to announce Moscow will station missiles on its European enclave of Kallingrad in response to Herr Bush's forward policy of putting missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic as a warning to Iran! Herr Bush's logic strains the imagination since the missiles are in Russia's backyard, so to Russia's way of thinking, Iran is a figure of speech for Russia. The Polish prime minister smiled at Russia's move by dismissing it as a Russian growl...in other words, the Russian wolfhound barks but doesn't bite. The stationing of Russian missiles in Kallingrad simply makes relations with its neighbours in Europe tenser and more unsettling. Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, sighed with disappointment, but without a note of seriousness. Russia is serious; Herr Bush is not; he lacks a sense of history or for that matter why Churchill and Roosevelt couldn't but allow a Russian cordon sanitaire in eastern Europe after the end of world war 2. Herr Bush broke that sense of calm by his forward military policy in eastern Europe and then his wanting the Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO. So, president elect Obama has another load of tsuris to carry before he enters office, and a clash with Russia at the green carpet is not one he would welcome. Beware of the growl of the Russian bear! Avoid adverturism!

Will Barach Obama blink in dealing with North Korea?

2008-11-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

Former staff writer of the Asahi Shimbun Takahashi Kosuke raise this question. The newly elected American president has not lost sleep thinking of Kim Jong il, 18Brumaire dares saying. Furthermore, negotiations with North Korea is not a very high priority faced as America is with the worst economic crisis in a century. Freelancer Takahashi thumbs his worry beads that Mr. Obama is not cut from the diplomatic cloth to hold his own with Mr. Kim. He sweats at the thought the future 44th American president will engage in discussions with Pyongyang without preconditions. Well, old darling, wipe your brow. Preconditions do exist, and they were hammered out by the reluctant suitor George W. Bush who scrambled for a foreign policy "win" before his lackluster years in office came to an end. Furthermore, much to his neo con supporters, not only did Mr. Bush flinch but he blinked in dealing with Mr. Kim, in negotiating a way out to defuse and shut down North Korea's nuclear programme. Mr. Obama is cool as a cumcumber, more sure of himself, and what's more will have a team which will be of one mind with him; something which Mr. Bush didn't on the question of North Korea. Takahashi has swallowed whole the red herring that talks with "preconditions" lead to complete capitulation. It doesn't. Had he looked into his own cabbage patch of Japan, he would've perhaps, seen that Tokyo's dealings at first with neighbouring Beijing were predicated on the assumption that it was alright to agree to disagree, thereby sidestepping thorny issues of Japan's agression in China in the 1930's and 1940's. Let's face it, like Mr. Bush, Takahashi has a visceral dislike of Kim Jong il, and like the bogey man that a child endows with extraordinary powers, he projects his own fears on to Mr. Obama.

A faustian bargain...Taiwan & China

2008-11-03T07:14:00.000-08:00

A top negotiator from China is coming to Taiwan to negotiate smoother economic trade and political ties with Taiwan aka the Republic of China. The Kuomintong holds power in Taipeh after recent elections; the old KMT has never wanted to wean Taiwan from the myth that it is part of China, on one hand; on the other hand, the current recession affecting even cash rich Taiwan which lives off exports, pushes it to firm up relations with China where it has heavily invested time, money, and qualified people. Beijing seizing the opportunity to "absorb" Taiwan which it regards as a renegade province, will use the wiles of Circe to hog tie the Republic of China into its web of false security. Beijing is not talking to Taipeh as an equal, no matter what president Ma[n] might say or think; it will use any trick that it has in its bag of thuggery to hook Taiwan into its net and for good. The KMT should look at negotiations with Tibet. A fog of false promises. Tibet should serve as a lesson to Taiwan. You can make money in China but do not fall for the lure of gold. Taipeh has a good hand to play with, and should never lose sight of Beijing's duplicity. The old Chinese leaders have feet of clay, and they need Taiwan, and that Taipeh should never lose sight of. Furthermore, Taiwan is a thriving democracy, and the Taiwanese won't stand for Beijing's wiles and false words. And that Beijing hasn't ever to forget.

Yahoo & Google strike out for freedom of speech

2008-10-29T11:28:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-21T07:17:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-10-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

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'!

2008-10-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

'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!

2008-10-15T07:15:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-10-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-05T11:57:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-10-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-10-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-02T07:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

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!

Death of a warrior in Singapore.

2008-09-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

JB Jeyaretnam fondly known as JBJ died suddenly today of heart failure at the age of 82. A warrior has fallen in his fight for civil rights in a PAP run Singapore. The ruling party impoverished the man by using a law for slander which put a heavy financial burden on JBJ, ruined him, but never extinguished his flame nor his passion for justice. For those outside the Merlion City with longer memories, they many remember him as the 'man from Anson' who upset Lee Kwong Yew's tightly run election, who won a seat in the parliament. JBJ so frightened then prime minister LKY that knowing the measure of his 'enemy' had to shed his high tone of 'impartiality' by descending into the well of parliament to debate sharp tongued JBJ who could with a razor sharp phrase cut through the wooden language of the PAP younger guard who grew up in a city state run by one party. Not happy to parry and thrust with JBJ, LKY & his minions sought the courts to slander the man. They succeed, challenged, too, his credentials at the bar, and brought the mighty warrior to the point of ruin, but they never humbled nor defeated the man, only death could. The LKY's party the PAP were so frightened of JBJ's success at the polls, they re drew electoral circumscriptions and the rebellious Anson was incorporated, defanged, and turned into a PAP safe seat. JBJ represented, in spite of oft time fraction behaviour with smaller parties, a voice that spoke truth to power, and one man did make power fret, sweat, worry, and lose many a night's sleep. For those who saw the man at the exit of the MRT at City Hall, hawking a book of his speeches, can never forget this elder statesman, and who 'in petto' thanks the lucky stars, that he was there to defend civil society and civil rights in Singapore. The old warrior is now gone, but let's hope his spirit lives and has inspired younger and yes older Singaporeans to carry on the fight for truth and justice and a more open society. Fair thee well, oh warrior!

The Wall Street bailout, is it socialism? or national socialism?

2008-09-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

Herr Bush in his usual state of irrational exuberence has hailed the dodgey Wall Street bailout plan a major success. He would, wouldn't he? He's hailed his Iraq war a success, too, and we all know that is a crock of night soil! Everyone is hoisting the old hoary petard that with the bailout the free marketeers are taking a leaf out of the socialist handbook. Well, old darlings, is it the Socialist handbook influenced by Marx or the Nationalist Socialist handbook written by Mussolini? If you look at the huge emergency spending bill the houses of Congress signed off the other day, what do we find? The largest share of the pie goes to defence, homeland security, and veterans affairs. So the road to socialism to drag US capitalism out a mess of its own making, tilts towards il Duce's national socialist model, and history buffs, remember that under il Signor Mussolini and Herr Hitler the banks made out like the bandits they are and the country was set on a permanent war footing. Ring a bell?

The more you scratch McCain's image the filty the dirt uncovered!

2008-09-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Sunday edition of the 'New York Times' online has a revealing and long and well researched and documented article on John McCain's ties to the gambling mafia of the US, and the role his advisors beginning with the suspect Rick Davis of the Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac subsidies in his own personal bank account till the two semi private entities were on the verge of government takeover, and now we find his greedy fingers in the casino honey jar! [Remember the convicted felon Jack Abrams funded his fraud by using casino money till he was brought down by a jury of his peers! and sent to prison where he turned on his own mates. No honour among thieves there...!]. The laundry list of McCain handlers and bundlers grow more and more interesting since they are the scum on the pond of skimming off the government through tax favours and loopholes, and campaign on the fraudulent claims that no one else but them should feed off the public treasury. Throw the rascals in gaol where they really belong. Basta ya! Enough is enough. McCain as president is a laughing job, but seriously speaking should he become Mr. 44, the US is heading for a disaster which would make 9/11 seem like child's play!

Why did anal hair stylist & self styled Mussolini of finance Paulson let Lehman fail?

2008-09-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

The answer to this question is in Gertrude Morgenstern's article in the Sunday 'New York Times' online. Morgenstern is the newspaper's financial senior reporter, and what she says should confirm what 18Brumaire has always contended that anal hair stylist & self styled Mussolini of finance & US secretary of the Treasury is part and parcel of the subprime meltdown, and not of its solution. Morgenstern's article details why Lehman got thrown overboard by il Signor Paulson & his gang of 4, and AIG got a government loan of us$80bn. It seems that Paulson's old outfit Goldman Sachs where he was CEO and had walked away with a cool us$500m in the pocket as he ascended to the post of Herr Bush's cabinet, had a us$20bn exposure with AIG's Financial Product London subsidiary, and that relatively small sum if we are to believe the thick India black ink of Goldman's balance sheet, would have sunk the mighty house of Goldman & Sachs as though it were a stealth torpedo. Morgenstern also says that Goldman Sachs was AIG's leading trading partner, and as such made much dinero from that suspect relationship. AID's downgrading by the equally complacent rating agencies of Moody's & S&P & Fitch, threatened Goldman's standing, and so with Paulson's successor Blankfein also at the secret confab which let Lehman go down the tub, these panicky big swollen heads of world finance snatched AIG from the jaws of failure, and as such brought some confidence back to the markets but not for long, and yet, it saved Goldman from rumour and loss of shareholders confidence. So, when it comes down to it, it looks as though il Signor Paulson acted out of very narrow, selfish motives, in order to save 85 Broad Street, Goldman's headquarters from ruin, and cushion his own class of pirating free wheeling, free dealing, free marketeers at rate or taxpayer expense. And what a bill, the poor slogs are going to chew and gulp down as a whole, whilst these arse holes of the rich and the mighty get off scot free! Anal hair stylist says that the pain is worth it, but not for him, he remains a solid billionaire; tell that the man who faces foreclosure, or the mother who has health assurance to pay for her child's sickness, or to the unemployed worker whose job is in China where Paulson made big bucks for Goldman Sachs! If anyone deserves to be in the dock, it's Paulson for his crime against the American working class, and for his big part in devising and fashioning the subprime Ponzi meltdown!

Jaime Dimon to the rescue of WaMu

2008-09-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

Jaime Dimon is Herr Bush's fair haired boy. He served up cheaply Bear Stearns on a platter, and at a bargain basement price. Now Herr Bush's put the largest commercial banking failure in US history Washington Mutual, better known as WaMu, into JPMorgan Chase's basket, and at a greatly reduced price. Why? Well with the government snapping up failed Wall Street toxic bonds and rescuing Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, and throwing a life line to AIG, taking over WaMu would cause a larger rebellion among the moss back Republicans who are sabotaging il Signor Paulson's package to quiet jittery financial markets at home and abroad. JPM can well afford it, for he's paying less than us$2bn on the cheap, a sum which what Bear Stearns brought him almost pays for the deal. More, JPM has space to expand on the US west coast where it is under represented. So, like the cat that ate not one but two fat canaries, Jaime Dimon is sitting pretty. And, for WaMu's subprime mortgage debt, he does give a flying fig! Why? Well the government's rescue plan will take them over, and Dimon will simply dip his white bread into the gravy that's left. Ain't that a kick in the head!

Lame duck Herr Bush cannot whip his party into shape!

2008-09-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

Herr Bush is showing the wear of time. He's incapable of cracking the whip to discipline his rebellious Republican troops in the house of Representatives, to back the Wall Street bailout. My have the mighty have fallen! Newt Gingrich tried shutting down the government he failed; now Herr Bush is failing as always has, to show his mettle. Oy vey!

Tug boat captain McCain dithers in a financial storm

2008-09-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

Well if further proof there be as to tug boat captain McCain's ability to make decisions, to lead forwards on to battle to slay the economic crisis dragon...do not expect miracles. He dithers; he flip flops; he's the jerky movements of a puppet. But one thing is sure, he ain't got a single idea in his wooden head. He's a know nothing who tries slipping and sliding and shucking. He ain't a natural born leader; in fact, he ain't a leader at all. Let's call him a political summer soldier. He basks in the glory of media sunshine, but when the dark clouds gather, like now during the financial crisis, he's taken heels to his shoulders and run away. And he wants to be president of the US. If there is a sign of the decadence of the American empire, he's the perfect example. And what's more, 'I'm a leader; I've the experience; I've this or that', but he cannot shape his moss back Republicans in the house who are playing spoilt spot and offering reckless solutions, like doing away the capital gains and inheritance tax! to solve a capitalism in crisis. And what does this erstwhile hero do, smile, sit on the fence, and waffle. A sure fire formula for failure. With a man like tug boat captain McCain America doesn't need enemies!

Herr Bush fails to tame his party in the houses of Congress

2008-09-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

Herr Bush's very short speech to his fellow Americans last evening [24 Sep 08] fell flatter than a pancake. It looks as though the Democrats would sign on to a stiff bailout but not members of Herr Bush's Republicans in the houses of Congress. Herr Bush is not only a failure but a has been.

Tub boat captain John McCain runs around like a chicken with his head cut off!

2008-09-25T07:19:00.001-07:00

Tub boat captain and Republican presidental hopeful John McCain is running around like a chicken with its head cut off! Hither & thither & yon he strikes out. Now, for the sake of the nation, he's 'suspending' his campaign. Why? The subprime meltdown crisis is sinking his ratings, and to stop, Obama from gaining footage, he's asking him to stop campaigning too. What a transparent fraud! He's proving what common wisdom said about Gerry Ford: 'He cannot walk and chew gum at the same time!' Now this man who poses himself as leader looks as though he cannot look at one crisis but at one time, and this man wants to leader of the 'free world'. Give us a break, old cock! And then passing up a chance to chitchat on David Letterman's late night programme, he backs out to have a dalliance with Katie Couric who as it turns out made Sarah Palin look as raw and inexperienced and ill knowledgeable that she is to be a heart beat away from the Oval Office. Why the switcheroo? Well, the financial crisis, old darlings. What a transparent fraud to get publicity. And if his spinning like a top out of control, he won't debate Obama at Oxford, Mississippi until the bailout package is resolved and decided upon in Congress. Now speaking of cowards who run in the heat of battle, well, old dear, what do you have to say for yourself? Yep, here's a man who headed the Senate commerce committee and understood less then about economics and still less today about economics on his own admission. And this tub boat captain wants to be president of the US? Heavens preserve the American people and the world. Headless McCain has made his footprint of indecisiveness, flip flopping, and taking bad advice from his handlers.

Herr Bush meets Wall Street expectations...and as usual is late for the prom!

2008-09-25T07:12:00.001-07:00

Herr Bush is never on time for a crisis which he hasn't committed. Last evening he interrupted prime time television viewing to deliver a do or die 7 minute speech of utter eyewash! Even his own Republicans aren't buying his baloney! The subprime meltdown and the infection it's spread in the corpus economicus has around deep seated anger among the electorate, for him or his anal hair stylist & treasury secretary & of late il signor Paulson who thinks of himself as an heir to Mussolini, and lest we forget a prime mover when at Goldman Sachs of the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme, to ask the electorate to swallow whole the us$700bn on their word alone! Neither Congress nor the electorate are going to be snookered in another warlike debacle that is Iraq! The electorate is looking for blood, and it will get some before a package is hammered out. Herr Bush has proven once again, he ain't a leader but the tail his class of plutocrats wag in the face of a storm!

Bush at the UN

2008-09-24T07:24:00.000-07:00

Herr Bush has made his swan song speech at the UN general assembly yesterday. [23 September 2008]. Herr Bush was up to his old tricks, peddling his rancid brand of snake oil, but everyone's is now on to this major disaster as 43 present of the US. Again, he hectored the assembly, and dismissed as irrelevant the UN. But when there's a problem for him or any of his allies, he's the first to seize the Security Council. Herr Bush has shifted the US into a second shift of world power. He knows it, but cannot say so. So as he moves off the world stage, no one but the choir of supporters of his will miss this grand guignol!

Il Signor Paulson sheds tears that would drown a school of crocodiles

2008-09-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

Il signor Paulson aka anal hair stylist supremo & US secretary of the Treasury is affliged. He 'suffers' the pain of the slogs on main street. He never is going to admit he's part of the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme meltdown which he as CEO of Goldman Sachs helped set. No, not he...he's blameless as Pontius Pilot...he's washing his hands of the blame but at the same time shedding cocodile tears at the state of the US' and world's financial markets, and is yes wanting to do something about it to the tune of us$700bn rate or taxpayer dollars. But he and his unindicted co conspirator the bathroom attendant & US Fed chief Ben Bernanke, are clever by half. Il signor Paulson has donned the Roman toga and fancied himself as a Cipolla the magician in Thomas Mann's 'Mario & the magician'...he's cast himself in a 3 page memo to Congress as Mussolini re incarnated...as the new Tsar of finance to lead us poor children out of the land of debt to the land of milk and honey of prosperity. Yep, the foxes are in the hen house still! He wants a blank cheque which he ain't going to get. People know how to read 3 pages and see il Signor's plan for the Ponzi scheme it is. Imagine, letting Paulson hire outside consultants from failed Wall Street houses to handle the us$700bn bailout! You've gotta be kidding, old weaver of corporate anal hairs! Cry as much as you want, but your days are over, and lucky you you won't be thrown in the slammer where you rightfully below.

Look at Sweden for a way out of the financial mess il signor Paulson & co. got us into!

2008-09-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

America's is so in love with its image that it looks at itself in the mirror of exceptionalism. Well, old darling, you ain't. The likes of the anal hair stylist supremo & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson & his co unindicted conspirator at the US Fed Ben Bernanke simply mirror the vacuity of their capo Herr Bush when it comes to history. And in splendid exuberance and sheer incompetency they bungled the job of dealing with the subprime meltdown, a meltdown il signor Paulson who has donned a toga like Mussolini which he helped create and now wants a blank cheque to bail not only his own Goldman Sachs but the whole group of thieves on Wall Street. Well, it doesn't look as though he's not going to get what this will gutter snipe desperately wants. Incapable of thinking outside the box of free markets, he didn't even look at the way Sweden took care of a similar meltdown but not from subprimes which is Paulson & co's monster, in 1992. Sweden 'nationalised' the banks, put in tight controls, and honest supervision, spanked the banks out of tough love; in the end, the banks went back to the private sector, chastened and in better financial condition, and without a strain on the rate or taxpayers. But why would an anal hair stylist or a university professor of economics like Bernanke who studied the Great Depression look at another country's experience in a similar crisis? The simple answer. It ain't American; it didn't do what orthodox free trade economics demanded. And so Sweden emerged a better economy, whilst under Herr Bush's stupidly held beliefs in an unfettered free market almost bankrupted not only the US but the world economy. Now the US congress, Democrats & Republicans alike want blood, and punishment for the fat cats of the plutocratcy who still live high on the hog as the standing of living of the ordinary slog has become worse and worse. Time for a Mme Defarge to demand her pound of flesh!

Oil jumps us$16 to a high of us$120

2008-09-22T15:42:00.000-07:00

Oil spiked up sharply on 22 September 2008, to us$120, after falling to us$92 last week. Why? The answer is not difficult to find. Financial markets are jittery and the us$700bn that Signor Paulson our anal hair stylist supremo & US secretary of the Treasury thought he would get and control with impunity is slow in coming. Bless the US congress for demanding terms which won't favour Paulson & his motley crew who created the subprime mess and waxed rich from it. Already Morgan Stanley has sold a goodly share to a Japanese bank; from Japan, it can tap into liquidity, but surrenders control; the Japanese are no fools; they know a good bargain when they see it for after all they've had 20 years after the Japanese miracle bubble burst and they know how to deal with the US bubble in a way which will bring benefit to Morgan Stanely, something a hookup with Wachovia wouldn't. Instability in the market place tilts towards finding a haven in a hurricane in commodities...hence the precipitous rise in oil. Gold is up again, and so the merry go ride continues with more headaches for the US & its 'rentier' class of sponges, blood suckers, and rich. If congress had the power to dump Signor Paulson, it should have. He's an incompetent and a loyal soldier for his class of plutocrats, most of whom deserve to be behind the thick bars of a prison cell! So as long as there's no agreement on a bailout oil will bounce higher and higher and higher.

Livni & Netanyahu join hands?

2008-09-22T15:33:00.000-07:00

Tzni Livni is aching to become Israel's prime minister, the first woman to rise to this high office since the no nonsense bulldozer Gold Meir a quarter century ago. She's now inviting her old party head Benjamin Nethanyahu to hold hands with her in forming a coalition government which wouldn't buckle under the splinter religious parties' perennial threats to bring down the government. Such a 'union sacree' augurs bad for Palestinians, to state the obvious. Nethanyahu would like them to disappear; Livni has a more nuanced approached although the object is more or less the same. The new coalition government if Nethanyahu agrees to join spells the end of any Palestinian state other than disparate small Bantustans on the west bank; of the Zionist goal of a Jewish state since Israel will have more Arabs than Jews; and the endless political instability. Let's not forget Livni's suckled the teat of Ze'ev Jabotinsky's extreme right wing ideology from the cradle; she's the daughter of a rabid, ultra Zionist, and although she paints a pretty face she's still her father's daughter. She won't nor cannot bring stability and peace to Israel until the Palestinian question is solved, which it looks more as though it is going to be liquidated! Stormy days ahead, me hearties!

The death of Reagonics, the banishing of Friedmanism, and the demise of Wall Street!

2008-09-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

The economic crisis which is shaking the pillars of world capitalism is burying Reagonics, banishing for a while Milton Friedman economics to the island of Laputa, and ending Wall Street as we know it. But with Signor anal hair stylist Hank Paulson at the Treasury donning a Roman toga a la Mussolini, the capitalists who set up the subprime Ponzi meltdown are now queuing up for taxpayers' largess. Government should punish these folks severely so that they will learn that if like children they put wandering hands on the financial stove they will get burnt severely! Let's hope the Democrats in the houses of Congress will put severe restrictions on what the bailout will do...in brief, they should dollop out large servings of hard love on this rascals most of whom deserve to be in gaol and not free to plunder the public anymore. Yet, the like of Signor Paulson like the fabulous roc are like reborn Christians who piously mouth platitudes but go on doing business as usual. Let them suffer as the small people are and make them pay back the public from their own private wealth accounts for the fraud that they've perpetrated!

McCain's Phil Gramm's puppet

2008-09-22T07:34:00.000-07:00

John McCain is like a weather vane. He spins in any direction and will spin out lies and hokum and sell snake oil at the drop of the hat. Look who's advising him on the economy, the old swindler Phil Gramm who did much to loosen regulation of markets. After his run in the US Senate, he is now an employee of UBS, the Swiss bank who's up to its eyeballs in subprime debt and under the scrutiny of the US government for breaking tax laws to let the superrich not pay a dime of what they owe the US Treasury. And now he wants the widen the us$700bn bailout to a larger sum so that his bank UBS can suck up US taxpayers' largesse! Ain't that a kick in the head? It is! He's the man who let Enron get off with paying more...in fact his wife Wendy Gramm sat on Enron's board...and she's now heading a foundation for government deregulation. Does this all sound all too familiar? It should since the keywords of Gramm's snake oil economics keep popping up in McCain's sound bytes. And Gamm's has the balls to say the US rate or taxpayer whimpers at paying geometrically more than his fair share of taxes whilst vermin like Gramm & the McCains & the Bushes & the Cheneys & the scum of their class don't! They all deserve to be in gaol!

Anal hair stylist supremo Hank Paulson now fancies himself as Il Duce of Finance!

2008-09-22T07:22:00.000-07:00

Anal hair sytlist supremo Hank Paulson & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson is itching to don a Roman toga and have himself proclaimed Il Duce of Finance! US$700bn bailout for his band of Wall Street theives who like anal hair stylist Hank Paulson created the subprime mortgages, swaps, and like sophisticated financial instruments, now wants a 'blank cheque' to bail them out of the mess that they created. And puppet McCain advised by UBS' Phil Gramm now even wants foreign banks like UBS, Credit Suisse, et al., to drink from the oasis of the US bailout. Imagine! Well, it's true. The very filth and vermin who have lived high on the hog during the horrible mismanagement of Herr Bush, are looking to do what they want without any transparency, without any hard love, and continue to pulldown multiple million dollar salaries and bonuses and dispose of the debt on the books--the true amount we really haven't the slightest klew as to how much and us$700bn is a ballpark figure hidding an even more astronomical cesspool of debt!. And of course the middle classes will have to drink the bitter bowl of tea whilst these petty tyrants fiddle while the middle classes standard of living burns to ashes and are even more impoverished. Herr Bush's thugs are taking a page out of Signore Mussolini, for those with short memories, coined the term fascism, and under whom the banks did very well, as they did under militarist Japan, and Herr Hitler's Germany. A crisis of capitalism, yes, but with reactionary models and more suffering for the ordinary slogs! And Signor Paulson thinks he's the reincarnation of Mussolini...

Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, and the death of Reaganomics

2008-09-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

World markets regains the fleet of foot of new found youth yesterday. Herr Bush's minions 'saved' free wheeling, free dealing, free market capitalism from itself, by buying up the toxic wastes of the financial markets. The rate or taxpayer will foot the bill, and the crooks on Wall Street will get away with fraud. Everyone will breathe more easily, but life for the slogs will become more onerous owing to the large burden of debt, they are and will be shouldering. And let's not forget the Iraq war debt and other follies of Herr Bush. Reaganomics is dead but not buried, and won't be if the subprime meltdown had not like the AID's virus hadn't spread to every corner of the body economica! Milton Friedman has died an inglorious debt, too, for his smash him in the face, brass knuckles, Hobbesian school of eocnomics. Herr Bush & his arse lickers and his awful class of thieves and blood suckers owe a great debt to FDR whose new deal they failed to undo completely. Had the New Deal not set up mechanisms to drag the country out of a depression almost 80 years ago, the US and the world would have tilted towards another Great Depression. So Herr Bush & co won't hated regulation will have to rebuild the wall of China separating commercial from investment or private banking, reform the mortgage markets, so on and on and on. They viscerally cringe in doing this, but do it they shall and will, for their class' very survival depends on it. May Herr Bush & co rot in hell for the deliberate harm they are causing us!

Fried Rice has a good old time lambasting Russia for all good that will do!

2008-09-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is back in her cold war element. She never tires throwing mud pies at Russia for stealing her thunder in the South Causus and up tilting NATO membership plans. As a student of Soviet Russia, the big brouhaha over Georgia's dumb invasion of South Ossetia which brought the Russian fist back into the region with a might to smash the US's plan to encircle Russia, she is pointing her spinterish finger that the naughty Russians...how dare they upset Herr Bush's applecart! Too bad, old darling...you helped train and arm Georgia for its adverturism and its complete defeat! Sour grapes. That won't do you any good...you cannot move the Israeli's to sign a peace treaty and recognise a viable Palestian state, nor get the North Koreans to dance to your tune, nor the Iranians, nor the Pakistani, nor the Iraqi...and the 'chaier of doleances' lengthens as the US is consumed in its own fire and stupidity under Herr Bush's failed government.

Anal hair stylist Paulson prays at FDR's grave!

2008-09-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

Anal hair stylist supremo & US secretary of the Treasury & radical privatiser Hank Paulson & his henchman the toilet room attendant & US Fed chief Ben Bernanke, realising capitalism worldwide is in extremis, now have gone to the grave site of FDR, to thank him for his brain trust's policies to save capitalism from itself in 1931 onwards. Herr Bush & co have pushed Reagan's programme to dismantle the gains of the New Deal so that the rich old boys can rule again in a free market, now have to derail this push, and take a leaf out of the New Deal's bag of tricks to right markets, absorb Wall Street's toxic waste, and dump the burden on the rate or taxpayer and let the guilty go free and smiling with money still in the bank. Why you ask couldn't these fools figure it out beforehand and reset the course of ship of economic health? They're so blindsighted by ideology that for them they took the fungus rooted tree of free market capitalism for the forest of economic health. Now to save their class and everyone else from the grave of a not lamented casino capitalism, they have to bring the government back to its rightful role as arbitor and regulator of the markets. As the learned rabbis pray, let the tripes of this bank of fools rot fast and asphysiate the robber barons in their own corruption!

Morgan Stanley scrambles for a buyer

2008-09-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

My how a week can change Wall Street. Gone are Bear Stearns, Lehman, and Merrill Lynch...and soon Morgan Stanley who's trying to get the shaky bed of Wachovia. Morgan Stanley like all the other private, investment banks have up the wazoo in bad loans. And no one knows what's on the books of theirs and won't know since there is no law which hold their soft feet to the fire. By hooking up with Wachovia, like Thyphoid Mary, it will infect Wachovia with its unfettered debt which in a sleight of hand will find protection under federal guidelines. Which means that the ordinary man and woman on the street will be saddled with even more debt...no thanks to Herr Bush's mad radical mania to extreme privatisation of the US economy, for his rich friends and thugs. The anal hair stylist & US secretary of the Treasury & his co conspirator in ripping off the taxpayer are out of their league but will do everything to snatch from complete disaster the so called free markets. Which brings to mind church goer Karl Marx who spoke of freedom of the press...yes the press is free for those that own the wherewithal and means. So, in short, the crisis continues and what for more shoes to drop in the US and world markets.

If the government can nationalise AIG, why cannot it put a break on private assurers, reduce health costs premiums, and oversea universal healthcare

2008-09-17T07:39:00.001-07:00

A good question. Herr Bush believes in free markets. Now his version of casion capitalism has failed utterly. With the nationalisation of AIG, it is time to ask why cannot the federal government put a tight leash on assurance companies who charge high premiums for medical assurance but are horribly dishonest in denying policy holders payment on medical expenses, and keep them inline, thereby putting controls on a group of liars and thieves bulking the public of billions us$ a year, for profit. If a Republican administration can nationalise AIG why cannot it rein in the dishonest assurance industry, institute a German style universal healthcare system for US citizens? A good question. But the answer, ain't forthcoming. Think about it!

AIG nationalised!

2008-09-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

Things have to be very bad for a Republican administration like Herr Bush's to nationalise AIG, the failed assurance company with worldwide tentacles. No bank would belly up to the bar to bail it out, so public authorities had to. New York state's gouvenor David Patterson stepped in quickly with a us$20bn loan. AIG assures the state. And then the anal hair stylist & US secretary of the Treasury Paulson and his co conspirator bathroom attendant & US Fed head Ben Bernanke put AIG into receivership with a 2 year loan amounting in all to almost us$90bn of the tax payers monies, translation social security cushions, pension funds, to save irresponsible private industry from themselves! So the government may gain on the deal since AIG is really in chapter 7, liquidation, and so bits and pieces of it will be sold off during the next two years. Saying this, the markets are momentarily stablised, but the crisis is hardly over. Why? Well the fools like Paulson & Bernanke and surely the dumbnut Herr Bush are not demanding the highly leveraged banks and AIG which had become a hedgefund of sorts, open their public to public scrutiny. These leaders of finance and government haven't the foggiest klew as to the high degree of debt that is out there, the solidity of assets, so on and on. They're in the catbird's seat but don't demand openness. Why? you ask again. They're prisoners of their own ideological blindness. Loathe as they are to government intervention, they are intervening to save their class but hardly the rate or taxpayer whose monies are bailing out these crooks and incompetents. No regulation, they say. And of course, their very actions show the bankruptcy of free wheeling, free dealing, free market capitalism. As such, the US and yes the world's markets are on the edge of a depression. By shotgun marrying a failed bank with commerical banks like JPMorgan & Bear Stearns & Bank of America & Merrill Lynch, the government ruled by these bloodsuckers are compounding the crisis. No transparency demanded by them, no open books, no laws for showing true value of assets, well, we simply are like the monkey chasing its tail in a circle of gloom and doom. So who's next? one has to ask...will it be credit cards? student loans?
on and on and on...Do breathe too easy investors. You may wonder why there's little public outcry. Well one, in hard times, everyone's scrambling to survive, but two, more importantly, owing to 401[k]'s, everyone has been encouraged to take a stake in casino capitalism, so everyone wisely or unwisely has a portfolio, and his pension fund is heavy leveraged, so the crisis hits every and unevenly since the hungry sharks make sure the little man bleeds and gets eaten by the crisis but the big bloodsuckers get out with few scratches. And that's the meaning of AIG's nationalisation and eventual demise.

The seemingly never ending blood letting in the marketplace!

2008-09-16T07:20:00.000-07:00

The blood letting continues. Anal hair stylist supremo & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson is slipping and sliding on all the blood on the world's exchanges. He's taken a gamble by letting Lehman fail and saving Merrill Lynch, but it ain't holding. Suddenly, he's twisting arms of JPM say to lend up to us$70bn to the ailing AIG which it too will belly up soon enough. And then there's Washington Mutual which is tottering over its own grave site. And the bank failures continue, and with each failure, the yaw opens wider, for where will it end? No one knows. Then there's the credit card crisis, the student loan crisis, the auto loans crisis, the huge and growing ogre of personal debt, and the US government's ballooning debt which will put the squeeze on the US rate or taxpayer whose standing of living is sinkiing as fast as the sun does in the west.
And the anal hair stylist supremo waxes confidant that the fundamentals are good. They ain't, old cock. A bold reform is needed but you won't find that chez Paulson or among Herr Bush's flunkies. And then there's old Wall Street as Paulson knows it, which is on its way out. He should remember Shelley's 'ode to the west wind'...if Bear, Lehman, & Merrill are gone, is not the fate of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs not far behind? And the answer is yes...
If you listen or read the US media you get not only on the whole a distorted and ahistorical view of the crisis but sharp criticism that firewalls didn't work to prevent the crisis. Why should they?They have been torn down under Reaganomics and Milton Friedman baloney economics...The New Deal put in place the Glass Steagal [sic] Act which erected a high Chinese wall between commerical and investment or private banking, and that held till a Republic congress with some Democratic support, bulldozed it in the 1990's, and then lax or hardly any regulation let the banking houses play havoc with the turmoil and carnage we see today. Paulson is against regulation; McCain, too. So here we are under Herr Bush not only has the US failed up and down the line in foreign policy but domestic policy, too, but not for the thugs with a life style of nabobs who are the ones Paulson & McCain & Herr Bush really consider worth saving.

Nouriel Roubini talks horse sense about the death of Wall Street investment houses!

2008-09-15T20:14:00.001-07:00

Nouriel Roubini talks hrose sense about the death of Wall Street investment houses! Main street economists take comfort in the fact that Herr Bush & co. are owning up to the fact that all ain't well in the economic house Herr Bush built! Now even John McCain is chiming in on change although he thinks that the US economy is fundamentally sound. Well, old darling, talk to Nouriel Roubini at NYU's Stern School of Business to wake up and start drinking the strong coffee of economic reality! Many of his peers and most pols and surely Herr Bush & co. will want to pooh pooh Dr. Roubini's bleak prognosis of the US and global economy, but they won't be able to in the medium term. Roubini rattles off with a hangdog look the wide extent of the crisis which touches every base in the domestic economy. He's not sour on the ability to overcome the crisis unless measures, more than bandaids which Herr Bush & co. are applying to the gaping economic wound, are taken with a seriousness which no one has seen yet. Obama is heading in the right direction, but he sould keep saying, 'it's the economy, stupid!' to the fatuous McCain line of economic soundness and fundamentals, since he and his party are the obvious culprits in the meltdown. If Roubini is right, even the mighty Goldman Sachs is teetering on the edge of extinction, but that remains to be seen. What we do sense from Roubini's quick study of the current crisis is seeing the decline of the US has top financial dog, this in spite of the global contraction of first world nations economies, and seepage into emerging markets which will feel the pain just as acutely as the US is at the time of this posting. Roubini deserves our thanks for the Scottish ice cold shower which should wake up Herr Bush & co. It won't, they simply are stalling for time so that they can pass on the mess that they created to
draft

Anal hair stylist Paulson takes a hardline. It won't work?

2008-09-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

Markets are down. Anal hair stylist supremo & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson won't bail out Lehman Brothers who are hiding behind a chapter 11 defence to delay payments on its debts as he begins the sorry business either of paring itself down to a small player or simply going the way of all flesh to extinction. Paulson drawing the line in the sand at a Lehman bailout comes a week after he 'renationalised' Fannie Mae & brought Freddie Mac under government's wing. He couldn't do anything but that since they were and are public entities alas run on inefficient private lines. However Paulson did his old mate John Thain from Goldman and of late NYSE Exocet, now CEO of Merrill Lynch, a good turn, he married Merrill's future to that of Bank of America's though a us$50bn buyout. So 'une pierre, deux coups'. Well that won't solve the crisis which will run into the us$trillions. Paulson didn't invite the cash rich hedge funds and venture capitalists to the weekend meeting of old Wall Street houses to save Lehman. He could have, and Lehman might have found a white knight. Why not? you ask. Well, for one thing, inviting the young wolves to the bargaining table would bring the wolf into the Wall Street chicken house; the new boys with money would push Paulson & co who are responsible along with Reagonics thanks to Milton Friedman Ponzi economics, out...and that is something the anal hair stylist isn't inclined to do. He wants the big boys who got us into the mess to rescue. Heroes? Nay fools. Blinded by ideology of the free market they are still taking the tree for the forest, and so the US and the world are facing a 1931 depression look alike. Paulson has proved himself a weak reed, and an incompetent...he and the bathroom attendant Ben Bernanke at the US Fed are scrambling for any straw in the wind. But the crisis continues...now AIG might go belly up and so the dominoes in the assurance industry will totter and may fall in a row. What's Paulson going to do about that. And the rising unemployment? the rising cost of living? Apparently little or nothing. Paulson is playing with low cards, and he won't beat the dealer of economic fortunes. And this puts Herr Bush in more bad light since he's nothing only an incompetent but a braying Texas jackass, and where does this leave the cadaverous Jim McCain out on a limb praying for a miracle. The tragedy continues....

Hank Paulson has sleep night!

2008-09-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

The anal hair sytlist supremo & US secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson says that he can sleep at night. Now, ain't that a kick in the head. The man who when he was CEO of Goldman Sachs ruled an empire which help cook up the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme, now see his world crumbling faster than the proverbial cookie. He and the other members of the Wall Street gang of four -- Geithner at the New York Fed, Cox at the Security & Exchange Commission -- have summoned the Wall Street bankers to a meeting this weekend to foist on them the sale of Lehman Brothers. Hardly a week after the 're nationalisation' of Fannie Mae and bring deeply troubled Freddie Mac under Herr Bush's we're against big government wing, the anal hair stylist supremo is faced with more dire news...how to get Lehman off the front pages and restore some confidence in the markets at home and abroad. Will he be able to do another Bear Stearns? We're watching men who may make money, oodles, tonnes of money for themselves and their clients, are stymied and found wanting and incapable of turning around a crisis which is threating the pillars of capitalism for the first time in almost 80 years. [Of course, the economists will say, it's not the same today as it was yesterday. Nonetheless the repercussions are just as disturbing and profound!]Little wonder the anal hair stylist supremo spends sleepless nights. His world is dying in front of his eyes. We're witnessing the 'krash' of Milton Friedmanis which that arse hole Ronald Reagan embaced, and which with the Republicans and some Democrats took government regulation off our backs but loaded us with debt under the incompetent Herr Bush years with debt, rising taxes for all but the very rich, and is sending the US quickly turning the US into a has been as a superpower. We're living in too exciting times when free wheeling, free dealing, free market capitalism is heaving its last breath, and for sure, that means that business as Wall Street wants it done, is passing off the stage. And the subprime mortgage Ponzi meltdown which Paulson & co concoted is at the root of it all. And Bear Stearns and Lehman are the tip of the financial debacle's iceberg. If anything, it shows that this wizards of high finance are incapable, incompetent in handling the crisis. They're flagging their wings wildly, flying from one solution to another, but nothing is working because they're blinded and blind sighted by a decrepite ideology which never allows them to see further than the tip of their high straight noses, and even then hazily. And what makes matters worse, should John McCain become president, this horror story will continue. So Lehman will fail, with or without a buyer, the outstanding subprime bad books are showing sums of trillions in arrears, and these thugs who hold the reins of financial and political power are skating on the edge of disaster which will drown us all. May Paulson have sleepless nights even in death!

Beginning of a crackdown in Malaysia?

2008-09-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

The United Malay National Organisation [UNMO]has ruled Malaysia for the past half century. Until March 2008, it has withstood against winds and high tides, challenges to its monopoly of power. Now the wind is blowing in another direction for the policy of positive discrimination, in other words, Malays get the cream and the Chinese and Indians and EurAsians get the crumbs, has been opening challenged and with a coalition of parties capped by the UMNO pariah Anwar Ibrahim, who after years in prison on trumped up charges by the old prime minister Mahatir Mohammed, and suffering a ban from engaging in politics till this year, has won a safe seat in Penang. Anwar has [un]wisely threatened to bring the corrupt rule of UMNO down in September when parliament meets. The Indian minority who occupy the lowest rung on the economic totem pole has grown restive, and the Chinese who run the economy are no longer satisfied with things they way they are, have in the last general elections managed with Anwar and Malays who want a modern, civil society, to put UMNO into a minority in parliament and to rip out of the rapacious claws of UMNO the economic heartland of Malaysia, among which Penang is a good example. The younger generation is chomping at the bit in reaction of the heavy hand of a backwards Islam which has gone to the extent of bringing a suit against a Catholic newspaper published in Bhasa Malayiu, which 'dared' use Allah for God. Only Muslims have the right to use it, they say. But what do these ignorant fools know? Allah is invoked by Arabs be they Muslim, Christian, or Jew in daily speech! Blogging has reached a level to challenge UMNO who retaliate by arresting bloggers. And since the loss of Penang a leading dim light of UMNO by the name of Ahmad Ismail has played the race card against the Chinese, calling them the Jews of Asia. Although UMNO have banned this light of racialism for 3 years, he does represent an ill wind blowing through Malaysia at the moment. UMNO which have held power for a half century will not give it up easily, and since the current prime minister is considered a weak reed, the old prime minister Mahatir is mounting the charge to capture the discontent and with the army take power! And should that happen the crack down will be severe, and the Indians and Chinese will be reminded they are like the 'dimmi' of the Koran, minorities to be suffered and who suffer under discriminatory measures. In a way, Malaysia is apartheid light, but with the dregs like Mahatir and his motley crew, it will become heavier. And what's more they will encourage the benighted form of Islam which hold sway among a swarth of Malays. As to Anwar whom they fear, assassination or a guarded gaol cell with the key thrown away is certainly in the cards, if the forces of reaction hold sway in Malaysia.

Rally around the flag, boys, and more lies

2008-09-12T08:21:00.002-07:00

Good guys don't win ballgame, the old saw twangs! And who says McCain is a good guy? Other than rallying around the flag and invoking a god which until now he was if anything didn't coodle up to, McCain and his handlers see Alaskan gold in playing dirty and kicking his opponent Obama in the balls. Yet how crudely they do it. As Paul Krugman pointed out, anyone who can finger a computer keyboard will find McCain & co. engage in lies and fling shit with the worst of them. Not surprising! For a man who says, he knows nothing about computers, what can you expect? His perky running mate the truth stretching god driven Sarah Palin ain't far behind in slinging mud when her beliefs tell her to turn the other cheek. She's wont, and doesn't for she's a warrior in christ and will slay anyone by hook or crook who stand in her way. Which brings us the latest campaign ad about dignity...well it was McCain from whose lips many times fell 'the pig with lipstick shtick' and against women...oh what a gentle man he is! Palin has the hide of a rhino, so she's not worried about what she hears, since she's her sword of god to slay the infidels. McCain forget what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And Obama & Biden give as good as they get, and they ain't no Kerry who rolled over and played dead till it was too late in 2004.

Nanny state comes to the rescue of Lehman?

2008-09-12T07:18:00.001-07:00

The mighty bastion of free market capitalism the US, has always sniffed at coming hat in hand to drink from the public trough. For others, not for them. Well, 18Brumaire thought Lehman would fold by 1q 2009, wrong! Its books are soggy with subprime mortgage debt; its shares have fallen in price; and its lost the confidence of the financial community. And to the rescue comes the US government as White Knight to bail them out a la Bear Stearns. It is good to recall the immortal words of a banker who during the severe debt whip lash the big boys on Wall Street had from foisting unsollicited loans on Latin American governments in the 1980's, when we're making it money, get the government off our backs! but when we're in trouble we come with a cup in our hand for the dole! It's no different 30 years later! The whole system is rotten to the core and Herr Bush's minions haven't the slightest klew as to what to do other than load on the taxpayers' back trillions more in debt. Which tub boat captain McCain thinks is simply divine and Palin the work of her gods.

Duddy & Goldberg pack your bags & vamoose!

2008-09-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

You don't need further proof that Herr Bush's policy below the Rio Grande is a big bust! Look at the explusion of US Ambassadors Goldberg & Duddy from Bolivia and Venezuela. Times have changed when the CIA's money and expertise could overthrow fairly elected governments like that of Salvador Allende's in Cuba 35 years ago. And what's more joint Russo Venezuelan military exercises will break Washington's long hold on the US fiefs in Latin America. The Monroe Doctrine is now a toothless tiger. Herr Bush's false war in Iraq has diverted his attention from traditional US hegemony below the US border. For a man who struts like the cock of the walk, he's really a hen in disguise! Foggy Bottom has cried foul, a grave mistake, but the egg is all on Herr Bush's face. Of course when a new president sits in the Oval Office good neighbourly relations may be re established, but one cannot be sure!

John McCain's Lipstick smear

2008-09-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

Let's get serious John McCain! You faux indignation at Obama's use of the old saw lipstick on a pig makes for finger pointing at you, you hypocrite! You used it not once but many times...and you used it against Hillary Clinton, you old sexist you!
Have you no shame? Absolutely not, it seems. Happily some of the media knows what a fraud you are, so they didn't blush from showing you spouting the same metaphor that Obama used. If there's lipstick on anyone's collar, it's on yours. Play Connie Francis' 1960's hit 'Lipstick on your collars'...silly boy!

The Dear Leader's health

2008-09-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

Tongues are a wagging. South Korea says, Kim Jong il had a stroke on 14 August, the day before the anniversary of the Korean peninsula liberation from Japan's colonial rule. Intelligence agencies the world over think that he's very ill, but have no klew other than speculation. Of course Pyongyang dismisses all rumours. The usual right wing fringe are calling for suspending negotiations in Beijing and Pyongyang on the nuclear issue which seemed so close to resolution but Herr Bush reneged on the deal by not lifting North Korea's name from the terrorist nations' list. As a result, Pyongyang has begun reactivating Yangban, its nuclear testing site which it was dismantling. Now it seems that North Korea has a well protected second missle launching base capable of propelling ICBM's. Lee Myung bak, South Korea's president is threading cotton because his intransigeant policy towards the North and his scrapping of the Sunshine policy, leaves him holding the helm of a shaky ship of state if change occurs in North Korea. And Herr Bush has no plans but to get the hell out of Washington as fast as his term is in office, thus leaving his successor with big problems to take care of, problems which this know nothing president dished out to his fellow citizens and to the world with an insouciance that should be listed in the Guiness book of records for the biggest pair of heuvos secos. The west may be irresponsible but anyone who has an inkling about North Korea should know that nothing is left to hazard, and should Kim Jong il be ill, there is a solid core of cadre to step in and keep Pyongyang running smoothly.

Angry feminists

2008-09-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

A lot of women who wanted a woman in the White House, backed Hillary Clinton's run for the nomination for the presidency of the Democratic party. She didn't get it, we know. Now with Palin on the Republican ticket, many are switching to her camp. Why? Out of pique and mindless anger. These 'feminists' want a woman in the Oval Office and although they've not looked at actuarial charts, they morbidly figure that McCain will die in office and voila Palin becomes president! Well, old darlings, many of you believe in a woman's right to choose on the matter of abortion, Palin doesn't. With her pro life, creationist, and God ordained beliefs, you will be liable to prison. And not only that you may be forced to sing hymns and lead a home bound existence in Palin's version of what makes a woman a woman even though she's in public office. So cut off your nose to spite your face, fair ladies, the last laugh will be with you, as we will surely get an American bowdlerised version of Christian Talibanism.

Herr Bush as commander in chief...a spectacular failure

2008-09-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

Herr Bush is meekly pulling out 8000 troops from Iraq. Which means the surge has failed. A bigger troop withdrawal would show not only how fragile it is but that the situation on the ground would reverse itself dramatically. On the Afghan war front, he refuses to give his generals the men they need. Here we go again, mama mia! War on the cheap; conflated hot air, but not follow up. He ain't from Missouri. He keeps his money in his pocket and not on the barrel head. A tin horn sheriff he...He doesn't care a whit. And as the learned rabbis say, let the vultures eat his liver and his innards and let him have one dark year after another. He deserves more than our contempt. He deserves to go to prison and locked in a cell the key of which is thrown away.

Lehman going down the drink!

2008-09-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

Six months after the failure of Bear Stearns, things look bad for Lehman Brothers. If they go belly up there is no guarantee that the anal hair stylist Hank Paulson and his evil twin at the Fed bathroom attendant Ben Bernanke want to bail this investment banking house out, the more especially since they put Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac into receivership! Well, they're going to have to any which way you look at it. Lehman's days are numbered. The Korean Development Bank has pulled out of negotiations to help float the bank or even buy a majority share. Simply put, no one wants this loser who is drowning in subprime mortgage debt. We're in the midst of an extremely severe financial crisis, and neither Paulson nor Bernanke know what they're doing. The old bromides of free wheeling, free dealing market capitalism have failed as they usually do. Hold on to your seats boy, the markets are tumbling and the little man in the street will have to sweat blood to bail out the system.

Sarah Palin's amniotic fluid

2008-09-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

La Palin is basking in the spotlight of high celebrity. Yet as the days pass the public is learning more about her warts. A long story in the 'New York Times' on line yesterday [8 September 2008] jumps out at the reader's eye. During her pregnancy, hidden from the citizens of Alaska, Palin knowing that she was leaking amniotic fluid went to make a speech in Texas rather than look after her own health and that of her unborn child. The boy Trig was born a month early and is as we are never told not to forget, a boy with downs syndrome. Were la Palin as concerned with life and the health of a fetoeus which she believes has life and a soul at the moment of conception, she showed little concern at this new life. Obviously it may not have been an easy pregnancy for a 44 year old woman, but her insouciance is manifest and we dare say reprehensible. Her 5 child may have had downs syndrome but if he didn't the leaking amniotic fluid from her placenta and the rigours of travel and the pursuit of her faith based politic agenda, put her boy Trig in harm's way and has condemned him to a dim life should he survive into adulthood, and what's more at the public's expense which la Palin castigates for being too generous for the likes of her mentally handicapped child.

Europe laughs at anal hair stylist Paulson desparate move to nationalise Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac; foreign holders of US mortgage happy as pigs shit!

2008-09-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

Toilet bowl cleaner & from Fed chief Alan Greenspan perorated that there was no housing bubble! La de dah, he was wrong as he was most of the time. Today as a desperate act to rescue the US economy anal hair stylist supremo & US secretary of the Treasury, along with toilet room attendant Ben Bernanke at the US Fed 'nationalised' Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae. Boy, did that raise loud rolls of laughter across the Atlantic. The free marketeers took a page out of Europe's book! Herr Bush has put into the grave his failed economic programme if you can call it that; other would say, it was the anarchy of the market that prevailed, and what's even more ironic, it is anal hair stylist Paulson who as CEO at Goldman Sachs helped set up the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme which now threatens the world economy! The bathroom attendant Bernanke thought that damage control would settle unstable market with a us$100bn bailout and water level. Wrong. If he can count the figure is over us$500bn and rising fast. Although today's 'glad tidings' buoy world stock markets---China, Japan, southeast Asia, Korea, the petro dollar states sigh with relief that now the US rate or taxpayer will bail them out, it is far from certain that the subprime virus has been stopped and the cure is on hand. At best, no one knows what will happen, but we know the worst: we see not only a bailout for investment banks, but a rescue operation of Fannie & Freddie a la S&L scandal of the early Bush pere administration of 20 years ago. In brief, these high rollers of free market capitalism have learnt nothing! It means that mortgage values are plummeting, foreclosures rising, and at the same time, food, fuel, and the overall standard of US working and middle classes are sinking as they shoulder more trillions of US$ in debt thrown on their backs! Now, the impoverishment of US rate or taxpayers will make them the cheap labour of the world markets for to survive they will work at any price in order to survive. Herr Bush belongs in gaol for ruining the US economy by his stupidty; there in another cell belongs Paulson & his band of greedy thieves in the investment banking community; and more it should be a wake up call for America to throw the rascals who have ruled the US for most of the last 30 years, the Republicans that is with their failed right wing revolution to be put on the dust heap...If the US ever needs change, it is certainly now. But the moment, Herr Bush & co will go from one desperate measure to another like a blind man having lost his sense of where he is!

Maverick John McCain

2008-09-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

18 Brumaire muses this question. If John McCain says that he's a maverick in the Republican party of his, how come he never marshalled force to create a reformist wing within his own party? Now, throwing powder into the American voters eyes, he's sold his sold to the extreme right of his party, and in this he's not a maverick but a camp follower of everything that Herr Bush's 8 years in offer has offered the American people, and what's worse is that supine McCain is now showing his true colours as an arch reactionary wrapped in the red, white, and blue. It is becoming more like were McCain the
next occupant of the Oval office, the prediction of Huey Long will find its Duce.

Herr Bush an incompetent and failed president

2008-09-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Herr Bush has many fans still, but one thing is certain: Bob Woodward of the exposure of Watergate which brought down the crook Richard Milhous Nixodealinglan, has the seal of arse kissing wiped from his eyes, and now in his fourth and final running account of Herr Bush's presidency, he cites chapter and verses of the internal workings of the White House, serving an indictment of a president who is more like or not the worst of America 43 presidents! And that ain't a mean feat, believe us. Newspaper man Mike Chinoy offers us the same profile in his book 'Meltdown' which documents the Herr Bush's utterly mindless dealings with North Korea. If anyone doubts Herr Bush's incompetency, look at the needless war in Iraq; the failing war in Afghanistan; the provocation of Russia by egging on the mad Saakashivili of Georgia to attack with his American trained and American armed troops South Ossetia, which has ended with the complete destruction of Georgia's armed forces, Russia occupation of some parts of its territory. Herr Bush has an cast iron mind which is incapable of leadership. If he's remembers for anything, it will be that under his watch, the US is declining towards the niche of a second rate power.

Anal hair stylist Hank Paulson & Bathroom attendant Ben Bernanke finally decide to act

2008-09-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

18 Brumaire has neglected anal hair stylist supremo & US secretary of the treasury Henry 'Hank' Paulson and bathroom attendent & US Fed chief Ben Bernanke for too long. Finally these blockheads are acting to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from mismanagement and possible malfeasance as the subprime mortgage failed Ponzi scheme deepens and saps the very foundations of Milton Friedman economics which have put free wheeling market capitalism at grave risk at home and abroad. Like the rescue of Bear Stearns in March, these thieves work at night, and so today a Sunday, they're going to nationalise again two semi private entities which have fed largely at the public's tax trough. Why has it taken so long? 18Brumaire won't go into a long discussion on the matter, suffice it to say that these two flunkies of a failed Herr Bush first had to open the public coffers to prop up the very greedy investment banking community which thought of the 'sophisticated' financial instruments which made that big bucks, and at the same time deflect any criticism of the lax oversight of the Fed especially during the long reign of toilet bowl cleaner and camp follower of unbridled, unchecked free markets capitalism Alan Greenspan [who instead of basking in his reputation and failure should be behind bars!].
Now, once the big boys can milk more recklessly the public's monies, these two dim lights need to take care of free wheeling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So the shareholders of these two mortgage entities will get us$0,10 on the Yankee dollar if at that, and the heavily tax burdened middle and working classes will have to should a debt that only an Atlas can shoulder! Oh the big boys, well, they've feathered their own nest thanks to Herr Bush's tax cuts which favour this foul smelling rotten corpse of failed free market capitalism and which also benefit the bloodsucking rich who deserve the cart to the guillotine than a house in the Hamptons or Palm Beach or Palm Springs! Of course the people with foreclosed houses and unable to make mortgage payments are going to be blamed for imprudence, not the unindicted criminals at the big banks and among Herr Bush's entourage who conned them into buying without a pot to piss in and sold them pie in the sky dreams.

Charlie Rangel has pissed someone off. Who?

2008-09-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

A high ranking Harlem Democratic member of Congress Charlie Rangel is on the hot seat. All of a sudden this octogenarian with clout in the houses of Washington and in New York politics is being hounded by the New York Times for tax evasion, special treatment on his rent, uncleared property in the Dominican Republic and in Harlem. Why? Who? That is the big question. Rangel who unseated the popular but venal Adam Clayton Powell, jr. is now treading water. How long will it take to sink him? He will win another term at the 2008 general elections, but will he finish his two years in office before he's indicted? That remains to be seen. Poor Charlie...?

US unemployment tops 6 per cent and Herr Bush says good bye suckers

2008-09-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

Rising unemployment in Bushland has gone over 6 per cent, even though workers' productivity is higher than ever. Yet, Herr Bush & his gang of rich theives are not going to lift a finger to relieve the workingman or woman. So much for a re energised Republican party which praises god and country and apple pie and says you to hell to the toil and struggle of everyman!

Wine & cheese & fighting the Republican party's image

2008-09-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

John McCain did his strut, his walk, and his talk at the RNC convention in Minneapolis whilst outside the St Paul police took prisoners among the protesters. McCain is fighting his own party's record of the last, miserable 8 years under the most failed Herr Bush presidency. As the corporation lobbies threw lavish parties the 'small town' , 'small minded' Republicans hip hopped away sipping champagne and filling large pauches with cheese and other cocktail fare. As the reinvented big bag of wind put it, a military hero doesn't make for a good president nor bestow on him the halo of God's choice from on high. True, but McCain is striving to put a sorry party past behind him and woo the majority of American voters who are on the borderline of poverty, have little or no healthcare coverage, have a foreclosure sign on their property, whose children are being left behind in quantities unimmaginable since the reign of Harding, Coolidge, & Hoover...all 3 Republican presidents. McCain will play on his war record and his image as a maverick, which are wearing thin as rice paper. On Iraq, the surge is failing, the more especially since now Petraeus that man with the gift of blarney which would make a Madison Avenue man proud, is saying that Herr Bush has to put a hold on troop withdrawl [sic] and shift the grunts to the failing and much neglected war in Afghanistan. Thank you very much Herr Bush for another botched job. And there's the rub in McCain attempt to revamp the party. Disowing the legacy of Herr Bush, having the alleged crook Tom Delay at the convention as a lobbyist and milking big bucks from eager cows for himself and McCain...and then there's the crossdresser Giuliani who clawed himself into the elite he so affectedly dispised, and the mad Mitt Romney who castigates the rich although he grew up in wealth and as a Bain man cannibalised American corporations he bought and sent workers out to years of unemployment and poverty. That's the image McCain is trying to hide and for that he needs the pit bull he found in Palin who will gnarl, gnaw, and go for the jugular. But the economic conditions are such only the most committed to small values will support the wine & cheese closeted elite who are saying they're of the working class. A big Bronx cheer to that!

Electrifying the Republican choir

2008-09-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

If anyone had a doubt as to the Republican party's attack plan on the Obama Biden ticket, well, last night speeches by the Rudy Giuliani and then vice presidental candidate Sarah Palin should put uneasy minds to rest. Executive experience, elitism, celebrity, and a man who really has no public record to stand on, and so it went. Well, lackaday, you'd have thought the Democratic party was responsible for Herr Bush's sorry 8 years in office and the economic misery it has wrought on the American people, were layed on the Obama Biden party's doorstep. Wrong. The campaign to come will be dirty and vicious and from the likes of Palin who fancies herself as a pitbull with lipstick, the beating of the drums of the extreme right wing, be it book burning, guns, imposition of fundamentalist Christian 'shaar'ia' law on everything she touches. McCain chose her, and as 18Brumaire remarked he has delivered his soul utterly to the looney tones right wing, which he endorses. In fact, you may say, he's even to the right of Herr Bush, were that imaginable. Yep, the ultra right wing of Republicans are enthused, smell victory within its reach, and will fight dirty...but they forget one thing Obama Biden are not like supine, courtly John Kerry. It will get as good as it gives and we foresee many bloody noses. An obvious observation, the likes of Giuliani and his thugs are part of the country's elite, no doubt about it; the leading Republican strategists and neocons have ivy league degrees. For them, the world's their oyster, but for the base they do encourage and cultivate guns and religion and the fear of tomorrow.

A failed dawn raid in Pakistan

2008-09-03T07:15:00.000-07:00

US stealth forces from Afghanistan stole early morning into south Wazirstan to find Osama bin Laden & co. They shot up a fair amount of people, some say including women and children, took others away for questioning across the border. Sorry, Charlie, no Osama & co. A failed mission; a desperate mission with a single steel purpose in mind. A surge to get McCain elected president. This raid will cause high indignation in the basket case that is Pakistan where the prime minister was the object of an assassination. It may be the holy month of Ramadam but the byzantine internal warfare in Pakistan continues and very little is done to check mate the growing fundamentalism assault on civil society and an expanding breeding group for Al Qaeda and the Taliban. How could it not be since a large swarth of the military and for sure the intellegience services are hand in glove with the goal of restoring a mythical califate under Shaar'ia law.

The genie's out of the bottle in Thailand

2008-09-02T11:02:00.000-07:00

A quick observation. Things are heating up to the boiling point in Bangkok. General Samak has threatened to disperse protesters but the army won't stage a coup d'etat like it did two years ago. This time, the army preaches caution and a parliamentary solution to the growing unrest. What is left unsaid is that today's crisis has its origins in the military coup. The army with the backing of the king unleashed a force which they find that they cannot easily control and which they fear for its consequence. The monarchy may not be in danger but it foundations are suddenly shaky. What's more, the current unrest has detracted the government's attention from the Muslim insurgency in the southern provinces near and around the Malaysian border. Now that the Ramadan the month of fasting has come, fighting might abate, and thus, buy Samak time to settle matters pacifically in Bangkok.