Danny Schechter: Are We On The Verge of The Deluge?

[marmar]

Published on Friday, September 26, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
Are We On The Verge of The Deluge?
New Questions as the Bailout Sparks A War

by Danny Schechter


New York - The Hank and Ben Show was doing so well in the ratings. They crafted a plan -- ok, only 3 pages but still a prodigious effort in an era when so few can agree on the need for heat on a freezing day. But now the great unraveling has begun. Remember Karl Marx's lesson on the dialectic: thesis leads to anithesis resulting in synthesis. Maybe.

They sold the Democrats on the need for a bailout. They made it big so the rest of the world would notice and be impressed. They started out unreasonably demanding total power knowing they would have to compromise and so allow all sides to win something and hence come aboard.

Paulson knew he had to act fast, to make it happen in the same time period in which God was said to created the world. The 7 Day clock was ticking and they seemed headed for the endzone. A former football player, he avoided blocks by Nancy and tackles by Barney and was ready to throw a Hail Mary Pass if all else failed. President Bush was awakened from his slumber, given a script and a role to play in his White House pulpit. When his own party balked, he summarized the problem this way:

"This sucker could go down."

It wasn't clear who was the sucker; the system, the taxpayers or both. But it didn't matter. The credit markets were seizing up. Washington Mutual imploded and the hard rain that Dylan warned us about was falling ominously on Washington and Wall Street at the same time. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/26-10

[slackmaster]

1. We're on the brink of the precipice

The crag of the declivity.

[radfringe]

2. don't mind telling you - that I am very very nervous

at least 6 people in the production area were laid off today at my work place...

they laid off 20 people a couple months ago

[Betsy Ross]

3. If * was looking for a line to sum up his administration

he should know the "apres moi, le deluge" is already taken. (I know, it's French and he can barely speek English.) It would be appropriate though. "This sucker could go down" could be rephrase to "because of me, this sucker went down."

[zeemike]

4. wisdom is justified of her children

I came upon this in doing some research and I think it is really a description of today.
It is Jesus speaking in Mathew 11


16. But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
17. And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.
18. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.
19. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

Children in the marketplace...They have piped and we have not danced, morned and we did not lament.
And if our candidate comes one way it is framed one way and if he goes another framed another way.
We must wise up to that.

[Warpy]

5. The conservatives have a blind spot for the demand side

of the economic equation. I guess they think working folks pick their money off the trees in the back yard every day. Or maybe they're just plain blind to all of us.

In any case, the derivatives scam could have gone on for a much longer time had our wages been indexed to inflation and the health care mess not been allowed to be just another mechanism to cripple us with debt.

By stiffing 95% of us on wages, they killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. They always do. We need to start teaching this stuff in school.

Liberals and Keynesians were both banished in January of 1969. That's exactly how long it's taken for the conservatives in both parties to create this mess. When we consider the cyclical nature of capitalism as predicted by Marxists, we're right on schedule for a massive bust. Only adherence to the liberal programs as outlined by Keynes threw us off schedule after 1929. Likely we'd be looking at a shallow recession if those policies had remained in place. We'd have crashed in the late 80s without them.

Heavily regulated capitalism combined with socialism can work long term. It worked very well from 1935 until the OPEC oil shocks of the 1970s threw things so off balance that people thought the Chicago School of Economics was talking sense.

We now know what poppycock it was. We now know we're facing years of misery while we try to get a rational economy back, one that manages to address both sides of the economic equation.

It just sucks that the conservatives are going to hurt the 95% who didn't share in any of the benefit of increasing wealth of the last 40 years the most. They always do that, too.

And we need to make sure our kids know enough to teach their kids and so on down the line. It's the only way to defeat them long term.