Geithner, Obama and Bernanke discuss strategies to revive
the nightmare of Wall Street!
Friends, Wall Street went up nearly 500 points last night (my time). It comes as a reaction to the moves by Geithner to sweep the toxic assets owned by the banks under the carpet using both taxpayers’ money and borrowed money. Once they’re under the carpet then the world can pretend they’re not there.
It seems ironic that the capitalist system, the one that is supposedly based upon markets deciding who rises and who falls, is being propped up by Governments who are taking on the failed, largely worthless investments so that the banks will start lending to each other and the whole credit-based system where people purchase things they can’t afford will get back into overdrive again until another greed-crazed crisis appears.
What happened to all the new finance and banking regulations that were promised, the ones that were supposed to prevent insane speculation and cons like the Ponzi schemes? Regulation? That’s a dirty word in boardrooms. The Robber Barons don’t want to be regulated and their Political Pawns will make sure they’re not. They want freedom to do whatever they like as long as there’s a dollar in it and to hell with consequences like global warming.
In other words, despite the crisis, nothing much has changed. Capitalism won’t die even though it should and the rich are licking their lips at the prospect of making more billions from the continuance of an unsustainable, corrupt, divisive, unfair economic and financial system.
I have to admit to being disappointed. I had hoped that out of the apparent economic and financial collapse something decent might emerge, something fairer, something noble, something that might replace greed and war as the motivating forces behind our world.
No way. We’ve all been indoctrinated with greed for so long we can’t visualize anything else. Foolishly we think that jobs are the be all and end all of our existence, well-paying jobs that means we can stuff our large ticky-tacky homes with more and more useless, unnecessary things that bring us little enjoyment or peace, things which are destroying the world.
And those who manipulate us continue to use fear to keep war going, to keep the armament factories in full production until we reach the stage where some rogue nation will drop the first nukes and then our world will quickly disappear in a fireball.
A pox upon this world, I say, especially upon its leaders and the fools who support them!
Hey David,
fascinating article… I have to admit i am also disappointed. You emphasized a great point about what we care about now a days is jobs and how people just want to get more greedy! My perspective on this job thing is that YES, we need jobs ( to survive of course!). But the first priority people should have is a job that they enjoy doing which provides a sense of good to the community, followed by their income! The problem now a days in my opinion is that people are putting money as their top priority instead of the skills they get out of it and the benefits it does the the world.
This is just my opinion of course. Being a university student, through extensive volunteering and course work, I am enjoying my current studies and I can see myself pursuing a career in this field not because of the money, but because I enjoy it a lot and provides benefits to the community ( health care that is!)
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Humans are the only animals that have jobs, Irfaan! There’s a message in that.
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Marts 24. (1999) – a teen year memorial day of just another obscene atrocity done by, [the terroristorganisation!], NATO – a brutal and completely wanton bombardment , killing innocents numbered in hundreds.!
Thank you David, – happy to have found someone with the same opinion, what concens to ‘work’.
People use to think/being told, by means of the Bible, that Paradise is beyond this World.
Paradise is here, I can tell you, if you will, if and but all have to concede to it before it ‘works’.
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Sometimes I think it is our “job” to spend time in nature and appreciate it. If we don’t get out and enjoy it, it can go away. Like the agent orange like spraying they want to do for hundreds of miles along beautiful rivers and canyons in California and Mexico all along the entire border spanning hundreds of miles of natural beauty. What will save it , if it is saved, will be because of the people who are the lovers and caretakers of this beautiful, rich land. When Europeans first discovered California, they were suprised to find a tended garden. The entire state was both wild and tended all at the same time. In fact, they thought the natives were obsessed with nature. Well the Europeans had their way and the incredible abalone gardens on the sea shelf have all but disappeared, the forests are fenced in and too many wetlands paved over, but we love our beauty and it takes below wage earning Mexican illegals to do the work; back to the toxic border situation. The circle of life, eh.
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Obama is talking about regulation of some businesses. I am suprised you can’t hear the screams of the rich and powerful. They don’t like it that the government might be changing the rules that have been giving a few all the wealth and leaving most of us destitute.
I am sure that once any rules are written and passed there will be enough loop holes that they will not have any real effect. They will just be something to try and stop populist outrage which congress suddenly seems to be hearing.
After all the rich have bought and paid for congress and they demand to get their moneys worth.
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John, it’s probably more correct to say the Paradise ‘could’ be here but only if we change our ways, give up on greed!
Grace, the circle of human life is unfortunate because other species leave the world much as they found it.
Jeannie, the lawyers and accountants are sharpening their pencils already and licking their lips in anticipation. Sadly, greed is a powerful motivator of human behaviour.
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What will the hyper-greedy do with all the devalued ‘money’ they are so frantically collecting?
Maybe lighting a homegrown cigar with a $100.oo bill will become popular again.
Failed People = Failed Government
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