Posted by
King David Caul on Sunday, September 28, 2008 10:33:07 PM
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that Congress is sending a message to Wall Street that "the party is over." Apparently not the spending party -- not the congressional-chartered, financial-outlet-store shopping spree.
She told reporters that the bill is not a Wall Street bailout, but a "buy-in". Ahhh...such eloquent nuance!
Pelosi went on to release this gem; "No longer will the American taxpayer bail out the recklessness of Wall Street." That's right; she had the gall to open her mouth and release this manure of twisted, inverted, oxymoronic madness... "No longer will the American taxpayer bail out the recklessness of Wall Street."
She actually said this at the presentation of the nations most enormous, mind-boggling bailout. It really left her lips.
Perhaps what she meant to say, is that "we have just done our best to insure that this will happen again. We have rewarded bad behavior and nominalized the risks accompanying gambling with money, IF you're a finance insider". And they've shown they're willing to do it very hastily, and in enormous ways.
Even as they're wrestling with the smaller language within the most unprecedented bailout we've ever imagined, we're informed that this is a stupendous event, because it represents the transition into an era where the government will "no longer bailout Wall Street".
Is there no appreciation for irony anymore? Is there to be no celebration of this upside down, paradoxical and ironic inversion of truth by Pelosi? Is she brain-dead, or are we? Is this some surreal U.S. Dream? Can we wake up?
On early Monday morning, the Asian markets were up. They weren't down; they weren't in the gutter as was foretold -- they were up. We had practically been promised a global meltdown if the bill hadn't passed over the weekend. Instead, we see global commerce working as global commerce does; with ebbs and flows, highs and lows, panics and rallies. But the promise of the unimaginable devastation seemed to have been rather erroneous, if not hyper-reactionary, terror-filled speculation.
The longer I have had to ponder this whopping purchase of garbage (which no other financial entities apparently value or want), the more I begin to hate everything about it. I'm not even sure it matters if it will give us a short-term interval of respite from real-life ("if"); it's wrong, it is not constitutional, and it isn't American. And it comes with no guarantees whatsoever of any kind.
Some assert we can actually make money. Will it be the geniuses who are responsible for the ridiculous path to destruction of Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae (and enrichment of the CEOs involved) who show us this happy road to profit? Will it be Dodds and Barney Frank showing us this insightful direction into clever money management? Shouldn't we be a bit suspicious of their ability to make money? Shouldn't we be suspicious that their real skills lay in the inability to perceive financial soundness and successful fiscal behavior? Shouldn't we be hanging them from a tree for being national morons and quasi-ethical traitors, at best -- rather than entrusting them to determine the best use of $700 billion?
Is this a dream? It is bordering on the surreal.