Piracy on the Financial Seas
There is a saying: When the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.
Well, the U.S. is not so much sneezing at the moment, as coughing its guts up. In scenes eerily reminiscent of the beginning of the Great Depression back in the 1930s, Wall Street is in utter turmoil. The banks, and other financial intitutions which have become fatally embroiled in the sub-prime housing market, are taking on water, and appealing for Mommy to come and save them. It is a sad sight, watching these spoiled children, stranded on a capsizing lifeboat too big for them all, crying out to be saved as successive waves drag them under.
I make these watery analogies, because once these grand institutions were like great galleons sailing the financial seas. However, a few years ago, they all started to raise the Skull and Crossbones. They have been engaged in piracy; stealing money out of the financial system, and burying their hoards on tropical islands. All of us have been robbed. The reason why you don’t see bankers thowing themselves off the top of their corporate buildings, like they did in the 1930s, is because they still have their private hoards. They are all still rich men and women, having accumulated their wealth through their overly complex financial instruments. At our expense.
I, like many, have no bloody sympathy for them at all. yet, George Bush’s government has decided to act like Mommy, and come to the rescue of her ailing children. Multi-billion dollar handouts to these bankrupt companies is seen as a means to an end. That end is the avoidance of the complete collapse of the American (and thus global) financial system. Yet, the Fed is effectively nationalising piracy. Captain Jack has been saved from the gallows to fight another day.
And what’s with this policy of Nationalisation anyway? Isn’t that ‘Socialism’? Everything that the Bush administration detests?
It would seem that we are all socialists now, whether we like it or not. The Fed and the U.S. Govt doesn’t have a limitless pot of gold (far from it). That money has to come from somewhere. And, that’s right…it’s the taxpayer.
When there are good times, the people at the top risk our money to make themselves rich. When the bad times come, they get bailed out by…us.
It’s not right, is it?
andylloyd
Eric Harrington
Jolene Rae Harrington
ravingliberal
Where Conspiracy and Reality Collide 
No it certainly isn’t right, Andy. But to bailout or not to bailout isn’t really the question here–how the hell was this mess allowed to go unchecked for so long? Aye, there’s the rub. Being conspiracy-minded as I am, I question whether some elite globalit cabal didn’t engineer the situation in order to further consolidate its power base? And what about us Little People? Surely, history has shown us that economic chaos breeds the winter of discontent. And the Ruling Class fear the mob more than anything, right? Unless… unless there’s already a plan in place to deal with the inevitable insurgencies. While rights have quietly been eroding and “national security” powers have been coalescing, and mysterious detention camps have been built in our backyard… is this part of an ingenious master plan to take us from socialism to fascism?
Be afraid, be very afraid… (that inexpensive piece of land in the hills of Uruguay is looking pretty good right now, hmmm?)
I was thinking along these lines myself today. Nazism arose through a bunch of political losers gaining control, riding on the back of the people’s hatred of Jews, who were assumed to be behind the slump, as well as all the other ills of the world. Merchant bankers are a less conspicuous target for the hatred of the masses, were the whole damn package to collapse around our feet. But I’m sure the Fed, and the FBI, will hunt down every last one of them should that slide to Fascism take place once again.
So. Will it be their backs that are first against the wall when the revolution comes? Somehow, though, I doubt it…
At least Congress seems to be seeing sense by having misgivings about the Bush plan to bail his rich mates out. $700bn equates to about $3000 for every American, man, woman and child. That’s a substantial tax hike to consider in a Presidential election year.