Thursday, July 10, 2008

We have seen this before, and its always sinister

In today's NYT, the "demise" of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is treated with the soft gloves of supposed objectivity.

The article begins by saying that the tumultuous tumble in stock value of the two mortgage giants is inexplicable and at the same time potentially devastating for the US economy and, above all, taxpayers.

"There is a real panic about these companies on Wall Street right now, and sometimes a blaze like that grows almost without reason,” said Tom Lawler, an economist who worked at Fannie Mae for over two decades before leaving in 2006 to become a consultant. “There wasn’t really any new news to set off this crisis. The stocks just started falling, and didn’t stop.”


Typically, "the Market" is blamed for being skittish, crazy and prone to stampeding through the economy, destroying as it goes. Few have the idea that this may be deliberate or that the destruction of FM&FM might have consequences that are beneficial to some, while hurting the many. And if they do think that, they are dismissed as conspiracy theorists with an anti-American agenda.

Well, this isn't the first time we have seen the antsy investor crowd pinpoint a sector of the economy, "lose confidence" in it, then ultimately take it over when it lies bleeding in the dust.

The Great Depression in the US was an orchestrated event. The Depression was initiated by JP Morgan and Friends and when the dust cleared, they stood alone in the financial sector, with the American banking system in its bloody grip. This is the truth and i urge you to check it out.

The Asian Crisis of 1997 was orchestrated and led to the firesale of assets in Indonesia and Thailand, riots in South Korea and slumps in Japan, Singapore and the Philippines. The investors poured their money into the countries to develop them, "lost confidence" in their investments and the currencies they were to be re-paid in, then launched an attack that left many of these countries in economic tatters. Here is the Oracle on the crisis. the blame is often laid on the corrupt nepotism of Asia, hence the IMF's ill thought out bailouts. Anyway, check it out(pdf). The NYT figured it out at some point and produced a series after the fact -- 3 part -- that pointed toward the Western aka US banks as the culprits, not the Asian economies who had been following the the US economic wake since WWII. T

Can't find that link though, if anyone can please post.

here is some more good info in the current crisis.


Que bono?

this is all we need to ask each other. Who suffers is the silliest question you can imagine. Those who suffer the most are the poorest, the regular Joe who has to pay more gas, whose house is worth less, who can't lend a damn thing no more, who can't afford nights out with the wife no more and just sits there staring into the distance while he listens to this guy:

“I don’t think anything has happened in the last week to warrant the kind of anxiety we’re seeing,” said Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida and a former secretary of housing and urban development. “But the market does what it wants,” he added. “All we can do sometimes is grab on and hope we don’t get thrown off the ride.”




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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Now that America's Independence Day has passed, perhaps more Americans are considering the indictment of King George III in the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps thoughts of the predicative indictment resulted in Elizabeth Holtzman's July 7th article "Congress should impeach Bush now" at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/369880_holtzman08.html