Americans Unwilling to Face Reality

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• Reader Comments (3)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  You can find many people who had warned of this latest financial crisis. If one understands bubbles, one can see when they are ready to pop.

  James Howard Kunstler in his book “The Long Emergency” predicted these days in 2004. His book is premised on peak oil and the slow but sure decline of nations that depend on an oil economy, zeroing in on the US. He was quite clear in describing the housing bubble and thought it was due anytime, and also describes the exotic financial vehicles ready to fall apart.

  But listening to the “naysayers” in times of ignorant dancing for money isn’t popular in the media.

  And this latest crisis is at least the third in the last decade. Who can forget the Enron, Worldcom, AND yes, Wall Street crap going down in 2002/2003? And way back in 1998, (just ten years ago) we had the Asian crisis that nearly took out the whole shebang due to an American hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management, which was quietly bailed out by the our government.

  Those two previous crisis’ were simply a harbinger of things to come. AND if this bailout proves to be the fix to halting the housing bubble in mid burst or keeping the status quo of freewheeling Wall Street, then we can easily predict another crisis in just a few years.

  Until this nation can face the facts that a well regulated capitalism with average growth is far more fair and healthy for an economy than letting the elites have their rules, ethics and rigged games and everyone else different ones. That’s always what trickle down economics has been about. They play by a different set of rules than everyone else and in so doing they would allow a small portion of their wealth to filter down. They thought this was fair, as egotistical elites would naturally think that they know better than anyone else.

  As far as outsourcing, most of those jobs will never come back it is true. Mainly because as we enter the age of declining oil reserves and prices are trending ever upwards, our wasteful way of life will paradoxically somewhat temper that upward trend because we are going to have to sacrifice our suburbia in the long run and as well the cheap WalMart crap that will become more expensive to ship.

  Posted by Jon B on Oct 20, 2008 at 11:54 AM

  To address other points in the article;

  MacArthur only briefly mentions Hank Paulson. This guy is forming Wall Street in his own image, the God of finance. He allows certain firms to fail, others to merge and others to get funding. All the bailout money is going directly to banks that are the buyers of government treasures at auctions named Primary Dealers. This is no accident and by the way the primary dealers include some foreign banks which you KNOW will be saved by either the foreign government of the banks or by the US.

  Paulson of course was from Goldman Sachs and so is the guy he appointed to oversee the bailout. Can you say, crony capitalism? There is absolutely no way that Goldman Sachs will be allowed to fail, at least as long as Paulson is the God of finance.

  MacArthur rightly points out the campaign contributions from Wall Street to Obama and McCain. He didn’t delve into the contributions made to other presidential candidates that have fallen by the wayside, Mitt Romney and Chris Dodd as the highest recipients. As well, for years Congress has received gazillions from Wall Street, both parties gladly extending their hand. Sitting on the finance committees is a guarantee to big campaign contributions. Can you repeat, crony capitalism?

  What amazes me is that as these firms and companies on Wall Street as they were understanding their plight, that they were throwing money around to politicians like it was Monopoly money. It amazes me because they figured no one would think back a few months to see that this was what they were doing as they were contemplating their possible demise. But then again, I seem to be the only one that has looked back a few months. Crony Capitalism with capital cees.

  And let’s not forget that the next shoe to drop that the media is actually beginning to mention is credit card defaults at high rates. No surprise that the credit card companies were ahead of the curve and lobbied and bribed (let’s just call big time campaign contributions what they really are) hard to get that bankruptcy bill through Congress.

  So again I agree with MacArthur. Until people in this country understand that you can’t create wealth by simply moving numbers around a sphere of deceit rather than actually creating growth by making things, then we will doom ourselves to repeat more economic crisis’.

  Posted by Jon B on Oct 20, 2008 at 12:32 PM

  The history of dynamic capitalism is marked by great literature of disintegration. I adapted Balzac’s play LE FAISEUR some years ago, as BALZAC’S GODOT. For that is what the speculators at the end are really waiting for: for the gentleman who absconded with the funds to return. It’s great comedy but—of course—no one wants to put it on!

  Mr. McArthur is right in many ways but fails to anticipate Lenin who would forecast a big foreign war for the corporate state,

  
  MICHAEL ROLOFF
  Member Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute and Society
  this LYNX will LEAP you to all my HANDKE project sites and BLOGS:
  http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.html

  “MAY THE FOGGY DEW BEDIAMONDIZE YOUR HOOSPRINGS!” {J. Joyce}

  “Sryde Lyde Myde Vorworde Vorhorde Vorborde” [von Alvensleben]

  Posted by mikerol69 on Oct 21, 2008 at 3:37 AM

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