.. better make sure that the bung is in, 'cause ...
.. there's a hole in your bucket, dear sleazer
-=*=-
«... we will find these people and we will bring them to justice.»
-=*=-
OK, pardnah, now let's see you put your money where your mouth is.
These people have perpetrated out-and-out fraud, a form of 'daylight robbery.' By 'these people,' I don't mean the people who brought us the Iraqi-WMD fraud (murder for oil), here 'these people' are the (self described?) 'masters of the universe,' the Oh, so clever-dicks on Wall St., the ones who invented then perpetrated the swindles at the heart of the current financial crisis - 1st guesstimate at damage limitation, $US700bio. Some are saying that without a bailout the financial system will collapse. Whether this is hype can't be ruled out, and going on the recent past should be strongly suspected, but nevertheless. Frau Merkel seems to think there's a problem sufficiently grave to say that it was irresponsible for the US ...; she did not look at all amused.
-=*=-
If you buy something, anything, 'due diligence' apart, you expect a) that the info (i.e. truth) is available (even if you have to work for it, but why that?) - and b) you expect it to work 'as advertised.'
Keywords: product suitability, product liability, truth in advertising, etc. (Probably a few more; my poor recall.)
Looking at (a), the providers of info were either totally incompetent (recall 'masters of the (financial) universe') - or they 'simply' lied, then as for (b), i.e. working as advertised, the MBSs, CDOs & SIVs, etc. not only do not work at all well, they are sooo bad as to be described as 'toxic.' The writers of many of the underlying mortgages were uncoupled from any and all risk, and must have known that they were going over the (prior, good practice) limits. There is no other possible explanation for 'NINJA' mortgages (No Income, No Job.)
Full (i.e. not only to US victims) 'money back' as (part) reparation must be considered as only reasonable - but who's gunna pay? Why stick it to the mostly hard-pressed taxpayers, aka sheople®?
One thing that is fur shure, is that all those who have fraudulently profited should pay - usually (like the ATO, say) the penalty for financial malfeasance is to fine by some multiple of the 'damage.'
Given that the freaks have come close to destroying the financial system, any penalty ort'a be suitably extreme.
-=*=-
We know all about GWBush&Co's hypocrisy, not to mention criminality, as demonstrated by the US illegal invasion of Iraq, this Nuremberg class war crime then having being extended by morphing the illegal invasion into a brutal occupation, each filthy crime more murdering than the other. But (and it's a mighty big 'BUT'), the hapless victims of the US executive, aided by the US congress, perpetrated by the Pentagon (no honour there) and ultimately by the mainly US 'grunts,' those poor, hapless victims in Iraq were not us, i.e. they were some foreign other. (Me racist? No, but the US perpetrators: yes; they call it 'exceptionalist.')
With the financial crisis, the hapless victims of the toxic products of the 'masters of the (financial) universe' are us, and our mostly 'Western' friends.
What we need is a) reasonable reparations for all victims, and b) all perpetrators brought to justice. By all means fix 'the markets,' but no single penny to the crooks that caused the crash.
Nothing else will really do, eh pardnah?
Some justice for the survivors in Iraq wouldn't go astray, either.
-=*=-
Update - i.e you don't have to take my word for it, this from Rep. Marcy Kaptur via GG:
«To Wall St. insiders . . . you have perpetrated the greatest financial crimes ever on this American Republic. You think you can get by with it because you are extraordinarily wealthy and are the largest contributors to both presidential and Congressional campaigns in both major parties.»
My comment: Democracy? What democracy. This is 'the world's best' (so they say), the best and the brightest - criminals.
2008/09/25
before any bailout is started ...
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3 comments:
G'day Phil, thought Chris Floyd referencing Arthur Silber was appropriate.
Bits I like:
...In other words, Krugman insists that we solve a problem that cannot be solved -- but that we do it more "efficiently" and "competently." This is precisely the argument that Democrats, liberals and progressives always make -- even with regard to momentous war crimes like the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In still other words: they concede the basic terms of the argument, and argue only over the specific implementation. And then they pretend to wonder why they keep losing the argument. Here's a clue: they keep losing the argument because they never engage it. If Krugman and the many others like him have their way, the immorality and the futility will continue, in economic policy, in foreign policy and in every other area -- but the immorality and futility will be carried out more "efficiently."
This:
[M]ost Americans will not accept that actions have consequences, and that those consequences are sometimes irrevocable. Your prayers will not restore over a million slaughtered Iraqis to life. Your wishes will not instantaneously erase the horrifying memories that make an American soldier unable to sleep, incapable of holding a job, and that make him a stranger to his own family. There are times when our actions lead to results that cannot be undone.
Which leads to this:
Yet most Americans -- and our entire governing class and almost all commentators and bloggers -- refuse to grasp them. It is as if these ideas are written in a dead language. Certainly, the language is dead to them, for they have made themselves incapable of understanding it. To recognize a truth of this kind threatens the mechanism of denial that lies at the very center of their sense of themselves, at the very center of their identity. So the truth cannot be acknowledged.
Those are AS. Not, I suggest, off the mark.
G'day Phil, some saw it coming while others said the fundamentals were sound ... or " ... at leat I knew what I thought when I got iup this morning, but I must have change many times since then." (to paraphrase)
More from Michael Hudson.
Pepe Escobar with ramifications of the melt-down.
The best laid plans detailed on other threads are coming unstuck.
G'day Phil, but who is to blame? Glenn Greenwald reports on some strange attributions.
National Review's Mark Krikorian notes that (1) Washington Mutual became the largest bank to fail in American history yesterday and (2) its last press release touted the fact that it was named one of America's most diverse employers, having been "honored specifically for its efforts to recruit Hispanic employees, reach out to Hispanic consumers and support Hispanic communities and organizations"; for being "named [one of] the top 60 companies for Hispanics"; for "attaining equal rights for GLBT employees and consumers"; for having "earned points for competitive diversity policies and programs, including the recently established Latino, African American and GLBT employee network groups"; and for being "named one of 25 Noteworthy Companies by Diversity Inc magazine and one of the Top 50 Corporations for Supplier Diversity by Hispanic Enterprise magazine."
While juxtaposing these two facts -- (1) WaMu has a racially and ethnically diverse workforce and (2) WaMu collapsed yesterday -- the National Review writer headlined his post: "Cause and Effect?" He apparently believes that the reason Washington Mutual failed may be because it employed and was too accommodating to large numbers of Hispanics, African-Americans and gays. Is that why Lehman Brothers, AIG, Bear Sterns and so many others also failed -- too racially diverse of a workforce? Ironically, the night before, National Review's Mark Steyn and Hugh Hewitt agreed with one another that The Atlantic Monthly was forever destroyed as a journalistic entity because it employs Andrew Sullivan, whose writings about Sarah Palin are "a form of mental illness."
And other examples. Enlightened stuff. Not.
More from GG in McInsane, Prince of Arizona, the man who could not make up his mind ... or, first there was a debate, then there was no debate, then there was.
Joe Conason.
A meltdown primer.
As to the debate .. a first report.
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