How kooky is it to watch people fret that the bailout represents "socialism" or "socialism for the rich" as if observing the advent of something new. Before the bailout you had massive state intervention and subsidization in the economy; after the bailout you have . . . the same. This is like Powerball economics: people only notice when the jackpot cracks a hundred million, but that doesn't mean the lotto's not rolling along every day.
So the bailout's got fuck-all to do with any of the actual problems with the American economy. So you expected otherwise? The problem with the American economy is that its only productive activity was building crappy houses a zillion miles away from economic centers and using the borrowed money that built them as an asset in order to borrow more money to build more crappy houses and then taking all of the bad borrowed money backed by all of the crappy worthless un-paid-for houses and using it as collateral for huge insane unsustainable investment schemes and then selling giant insurance policies on those investments that were backed by the very same bag of bad debt that funded the investments in the first place. I mean, the solution to it all is an asteroid or something.
15 comments:
Well, hey, look at the bright side! We have martial law to which we look forward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8
So the bailout's got fuck-all to do with any of the actual problems with the American economy.
Come on, that's not true. The bailout is more of what caused the actual problems. More and better problems! More inflation, more government debt, more moral hazard, more, yes, socialization and subsidizing of loss along with privatization of profit. And kickbacks keep flowing in campaign contributions. Everyone wins who matters. Same old same old.
Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling.
Gotta admit, there's something just deeply amusing about a crisis of capitalism being caused by transactions taken out under condition of deliberate fucking lack of capital. It's like the economics equivalent of achieving nirvana.
I enjoy all the nonsense at the moment about the economy can't move until the prices of homes stabilize or begin to appreciate again. When I moved to Southern California, the Realtor and the Chamber of Commerce both assured me that the value of my home would appreciate $100K a year. I laughed at them. Since the market in the Crossroads of Opportunity was never saturated with McMansions -- 60s style ranch houses for the VA crowd and worse predominate -- I haven't really lost a lot. But, the only way the prices get moving upwards is if the supply is not a total glut. Which in many markets it approaches if not passes...
So, one thing that we could do is spend some of the money on destruction. Suburban renewal, as it were. Reduce the supply, make building new one's prohibitively costly and see what happens? What happens to the homebuilders? Well, let them work on the infrastructure we need in this country. Use government money to pay for work on the things that government is supposed to do -- bridges, roads, aqueducts, goddamn gladiatorial arenas, military bases, mass transit lines.
Wait, that would mean planning the economy around some sort of rational principal. Opps, sorry I spoke.
From the Independent (UK):
"Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night."
So, who says you can't take it with you?
The poor dears need something to keep body and soul together.
Wait just a gosh darn minute.
You mean to tell me they play the lotto every day??
Sounds like someone's been reading their JHK!
Can't hardly wait for his latest posting this A.M.
A small correction to Monsieur's statement
"...the [problem with the] American economy is that its only productive activity was building crappy houses..."
There is one other sector of the economy that is highly profitable, and some would say productive -- the military/security industries. They don't actually produce anything that contributes constructively to social needs, except accidentally and tangentially. It is also a 'socialist' sector in so far as government funding and command direction are fully symbiotic with the 'civilian' ownership and management.
Lost in the Sturm und Drang of the financial crisis was the passage of the largest Defense Department budget in history, to the tune of nearly $700 billion. Add in the black budget and military/security spending buried in the budgets of other departments and the total exceeds $1 trillion.
What a felicitous convergence between the ideas of phillip allen and Crusader AXE. MOABs for malls, baby. Cruise missiles for cul-de-sacs.
good gawd, stop it! can you imagine the permitting and paperwork involved?
harumph.
Permitting and paperwork-they pays the bills. I love permitting and paperwork!
Park Place is mine, bitches!
why limit yourself to the asteroids, my good sir! there are plenty of near earth objects just waiting for atlas to shrug, so to speak, and then we will all be done for.
also, this
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