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Welcome to Atlantis
Sep. 29th, 2008 03:50 pmSo I’ve had a kind of mixed reaction to the bailout bust. On the one hand I recognize the necessity of doing something. If the stock market implodes, everybody’s retirement funds and pensions disappear over night. I realize all those 4am infomercials have been urging us for decades to consolidate our wealth into krugerrands. But who among us was prescient enough to follow that advice?
On the other hand, if I wanted to live in the Weimar Republic, I would have arranged to be born in Bavaria circa 1917. Seven hundred billion dollars is a lot of money. Two hundred and fifty billion dollars, the figure spinning around in the 24 hour news cycle all weekend long (as though Nancy Pelosi herself was whispering in our ear, “Such a deal!”) is a lot of money too. Frankly the United States doesn’t have that kind of liquidity. What were they planning to do, fire up the secret underground printing press?
The 25 billion dollar bailout of the automobile industry I can kind of wrap my head around. The automobile industry provides real jobs for real people. It got kicked in the ass when Bush’s Middle East policy came home to roost, wily power brokers of that part of the world making their displeasure known in the most effective way possible by continuing the dismantling of our economic system begun by their kinsman Bin Laden in 2001. I’ve never understood why the talking heads didn’t make a bigger connection between the Iraq War and the price of gas.
But Wall Street! Banks! Honest to God! What have those jerks ever done for the middle class but exploit us and profiteer off of us every chance they got?
I have a hard time understanding capital. I mean, I do understand it intellectually but then there’s a karmic level on which it strikes me as fundamentally wrong and ill-advised to separate labor from the creation of value. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a socialist, I like the free market, I don’t see how you provide incentives without the free market. But I keep coming back to the fact that even after Washington Mutual became the biggest bank failure in history, its CEO still got a 4 million dollar golden parachute. Why?
Of course what happens tomorrow is more significant than what happened today. September 30 is one of 4 'gate' days per year for hedge fund investors withdraw their money. Who knows? Maybe they’ll give the market a vote of confidence and leave their money right where it is.
Would you like to buy this bridge?
###
In other news Mrs. Laurie the psychic vanished overnight. Poof! The genealogy shop disappeared too. The genealogy shop moved into the former Tourist Information digs next to the Fish Hopper a year ago. I can count on my fingers -- literally -- the number of days it was actually open, a confusing business model indeed unless the kindly stooped and balding old guy who sat behind the counter those few times was actually pulling a Botwin.
No future, no past. We’re drowning in the present tense. Welcome to Atlantis.
On the other hand, if I wanted to live in the Weimar Republic, I would have arranged to be born in Bavaria circa 1917. Seven hundred billion dollars is a lot of money. Two hundred and fifty billion dollars, the figure spinning around in the 24 hour news cycle all weekend long (as though Nancy Pelosi herself was whispering in our ear, “Such a deal!”) is a lot of money too. Frankly the United States doesn’t have that kind of liquidity. What were they planning to do, fire up the secret underground printing press?
The 25 billion dollar bailout of the automobile industry I can kind of wrap my head around. The automobile industry provides real jobs for real people. It got kicked in the ass when Bush’s Middle East policy came home to roost, wily power brokers of that part of the world making their displeasure known in the most effective way possible by continuing the dismantling of our economic system begun by their kinsman Bin Laden in 2001. I’ve never understood why the talking heads didn’t make a bigger connection between the Iraq War and the price of gas.
But Wall Street! Banks! Honest to God! What have those jerks ever done for the middle class but exploit us and profiteer off of us every chance they got?
I have a hard time understanding capital. I mean, I do understand it intellectually but then there’s a karmic level on which it strikes me as fundamentally wrong and ill-advised to separate labor from the creation of value. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a socialist, I like the free market, I don’t see how you provide incentives without the free market. But I keep coming back to the fact that even after Washington Mutual became the biggest bank failure in history, its CEO still got a 4 million dollar golden parachute. Why?
Of course what happens tomorrow is more significant than what happened today. September 30 is one of 4 'gate' days per year for hedge fund investors withdraw their money. Who knows? Maybe they’ll give the market a vote of confidence and leave their money right where it is.
Would you like to buy this bridge?
In other news Mrs. Laurie the psychic vanished overnight. Poof! The genealogy shop disappeared too. The genealogy shop moved into the former Tourist Information digs next to the Fish Hopper a year ago. I can count on my fingers -- literally -- the number of days it was actually open, a confusing business model indeed unless the kindly stooped and balding old guy who sat behind the counter those few times was actually pulling a Botwin.
No future, no past. We’re drowning in the present tense. Welcome to Atlantis.
