In a classic example of how Washington works our government has just
shown us how to get things done. Wall Street, in a paroxysm of self indulgence
parlayed share holders equity, counterparty funds and investor money into one
of the greatest busts in financial history. Billions upon billions were
invested in what might well have been termed, in another time, in
another place, as enough 'luft-papier' to fill myriad Zeppelins whereas here better
known as subprime loans and mortgages, Collateralized Debt Obligations,
or simply "junk"
But hey, don't worry. To make good all that "junk" there is a lender, or
better put, spender of last resort and that's us, the public and its Treasury.
If you have enough access, enough influence, enough well connected
friends in Washington, help is on the way. The keepers of our Treasury,
our Federal Reserve stand ready to dole out our treasure to keep our
drunken sailor friends on Wall Street on the high, and keep those slightly
tarnished golden parachutes sailing in the wind. Yes, a sacrificial lamb was
needed to exculpate the Street's sins and set a public display of penance and
punishment, and Bear Stearn's, Chairman Jimmy E. Cayne, sad for his
employees, pulled the short straw.
The Federal Reserve has mounted a sweeping intervention counting into the hundreds
of billions. It has changed the ground rules of its mandate by opening its
discount window, for the first time in history, to investment banks in
order to deal with the disaster. And just as well they did and do, because
Wall Street would have taken all of us down with them. Correction, we
would have plummeted down while those nimble golden parachutes would
have provided a soft and cushioned landing to the Street's top honchos.
While Washington was busily coming to the aid of their well connected
friends another constituency in this nation also asked for help. Those
distributors of heating oil, fuel dealer groups from Maine to Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, and on, responding to the pleas of their customers savagely
impacted by low temperatures and resulting low inventories and the high price of heating oil especially in the Northeast, were petitioning that outpost of the oil industry, our Department
of Energy, to release stockpiles from the Northeast emergency reserve.
According to Reuters the U.S. Department of Energy had declined to
comment.
By comparison, unlike Wall Street, the plight of heating oil users is not a
self inflicted disaster, but the culmination of this government's energy policies
that have indeed been an unmitigated disaster not only for those
dependent on heating oil but for the nation altogether.
Well you see, releasing product from the 'emergency' reserve would have
two consequences. It would be of immediate help to a beleaguered segment
of our citizenry, and have a salutary impact on oil and downstream product
prices. Well we can't have that. While in the Wall Street scenario there is
no constituency for keeping Zeppelins afloat, here the oil industry through
their friends in the Administration and Congress have successfully sought
to keep the price of oil and oil products high and higher still. If you ask
those representing us in Washington, they will deny it of
course, but how else did we get to where we are, transferring our wealth
to oil interests both domestic and foreign.
And any way, those people in towns, on the farms, in the shops of Maine,
New Hampshire, Minnesota, North Dakota and on, well heck, they don't visit Washington
much, after all.
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
While keeping those Zeppelins afloat, could we do some much needed repair to boardrooms across America?...
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/03/letter-to-ceos-of-fortune-1000-cos.html
I am disgusted with people who want to drill in Alaska. This is one of the few wilderness areas left that America controls. Even if we "need" this oil now, isn't there a chance that our great great grandchildren will need it as well? Why destroy one of the last pristine areas on earth simply for a problem of today, and actually only a problem of $$$. Few people are having to car-pool yet, let alone make any other major cuts in their lifestyle. Once we have actually had to sacrifice - all of us - in a major way, then we can destroy what's left of the planet.
One has to wonder why the government only lets us pump 500 gal here in Texas and Oklahoma?
If they would let us pump more then we would not have to drill in Alaska. Besides, don't we sell
our oil from Alaska to Japan - so why is this a question?
Freezing widows major economies do not topple.
But that might be a good idea... sort of give Gov't some economic incentive to help those widows too. And maybe all investment banks that go to that discount window should be required to turn off central heating and A/C in all their offices until their 'loans' are made good. Seems fair.
Place these financial enitites and their 'financial wizards' on the international Auction block. Hand them to their Creditors literally- for defrauding them by using OUR Stolen Identity. We neve ragreed to support their gambling habits. they have betrayed US and the Chinese and the UAE investors. so let them face the judgement form those enitities. Considering how long this fraud has been going on- we can add their decedants to the list of 'Commodities ' to be slated for the 'block'
We have the technology right now to be free of oil. Anyone out there with half a brain should be able to figure out why it's not going to happen anytime soon. Enough said.
welcome to the rothschild dream. You are being ruled by an elite group of bankers and oil men. This has been happening since the federal reserve private bank began running your currency. Do you all know that income tax is illegal? It is in violation of the constitution and was not ratified by the necessary number of states needed to go into law. Your income tax goes directly to the federal reserve bank, controlled by private bankers. Greenspan did exactly as he promised he would do at the bohemian grove. Its all a giant heist.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the House of Rothschild.
Can you document Greenspan's promise?
So let us look at the energy policies of the Democrats. Make sure the EPA has rules too tough to build refineries in the United States. So releasing oil won't help the northeast heating oil market come down because refineries are already running at capacity.
Can't drill for oil anywhere close to the United States or in the United States, as it might hurt a tree leaf. Yet China and others are drilling in the Caribean Sea.
Democrats want to conserve energy, so of course the answer is to raise taxes, which helps no one.
Lets us look at the Eneregy Policy of the Republicans...What's that?....We can't, it's secret?...Oh, OK, never mind.
Dipshit.
Energy policy is to let the free market work, and open things up for refineries and oil companies to expand and build refineries and drilling to get more oil.
You don't make any sense, how do you plan that we pay for this trillion dollar war? The Republican spend and borrow and cut tax's hasn't worked and never will we have gone down this road before. Bush has just about destroyed this economy and you want McBush to finish it all together. You need to at least use that brain of yours besides spitting out old saying that never worked and think about just what we need to do. Give more tax breaks to the rich and corporations for what? They haven't trickled down in almost 8 years.
Accurate but you do not go nearly far enough, knowhelpnow. Photofarm seems to be sniffing something because he/she has NO grasp of the truth available here. It was said on these posts by someone witha better education than I have that the money pissed away on this idiotic war would have funded every POSSIBLE necessary bit of research to design ways to harness energy sources that would NEVER run out. Those resources would have provided the energy for this country and every other nation in this world and the opportunity was thrown away again and again. Oil is why we invaded a nation that had never harmed us, Saddam could have called us everything vile he could think of or paid anyone else to think of and it would have caused us exactly ZERO, zilch, nadda, bit of harm. He had nothing to do with 9/11. bushit had NO right or excuse to invade and occupy Iraq. bushit and cheney are to blame for the downfall of everything from our standing in the world to the economy. A vote for mccain is a vote to destroy whatever is left of our nation. mccain has already said he will make PERMANENT the obscene tax breaks given to the super-rich. We'll be in Iraq for a hundred years. "There will be other wars!!" As though wars were something to proudly look forward to?!? ronnie raygun was the first to serve as the mouthpiece for this "trickle-down" bullshit. "A rising tide lifts all boats" was what the fool recited. I wonder who wrote that since by the time it was said reagan was so far gone into Alzheimer's disease that if his handlers had told him to sing "I'm a little teapot" he would have done so.
Sorry, but you are wrong, and please tell me what the President Carter economic plan of Obama and Hillary will do besides take the economy down further?
This is happening in the so-called "renewable energy" sector as well. Teensy pittances with no buy-backs (other than cheapo "net metering") for we, the people to generate renewable energy on our property, but FREE RIDES with enormous subsidies, guaranteed buybacks, free and cheap capital, the ability to amortize costs across the entire grid, etc for Big Energy, which then turns around and kills off a million acres of our federal wilderness for their massive "renewable" power plants and power lines. Then they turn around and tell us how residential and small-scale point of use renewable energy is not "cost effective," as though we are competing on a level playing field.
Who has cheerleaded them, of all people? NRDC and Sierra Club!! They are so blinded by CO2, they are willing to sacrifice an entire ecosystem and forget about reducing consumption or using previously developed land for renewable energy. It's the same "socialize the costs and privatize the profits, including killing the planet for profits" mentality that brought us Big Coal and Big Oil and Global Warming, but now they are greenwashing it!!
We need to speak up and DEMAND home and business renewable energy systems that are cheap, and that allow us to play in the free markets by forcing buybacks of our energy - just put us where the Utilities are and let us share the wealth and energy security renewable power could offer!
Hear, hear! You're talking about my 75 year old mother- in-law, who is struggling to get through another bitter central Montana winter on less than $600 a month, and so is no longer able to afford to use her home's furnace. Friends ask why she doesn't just move -- but it isn't that simple. She owns her ramshackle house free and clear (except for taxes) and would have to leave her small town and everyone she knows to pay rent in an unfamiliar place for her few remaining years. Naturally, she continues to hope it won't come to that. Seems that people in this administration are determined to force her out of her home, though -- while their cronies laugh all the way to the bank.
This is what you get when you live in a society that places so much emphasis on acquiring debt and actually penalizes saving (e.g., taxes on CD interest etc.). At last check, Americans had a negative savings rate due to credit card, mortgage, and other debt. How long can this keep going on?
Bush as president = the cult of personality. Wake up people!!!
No, no, don't blame Bush it's the fault of umm, market forces! Yeah, that's the ticket! Market forces, those wildly American impulses that we should leave alone and never interfere with! And Bush has absolutely nothing to do with the current price of oil. Of course, that didn't keep him from criticizing Clinton about it when oil was $32/barrel. Or Reagan from criticizing Carter about it. But, no, we can't criticize Bush about it now, no siree! We'd reveal ourselves (and Bush and Reagan) as economically challenged.
HuffPost's Pick
The invisible hand has given us the invisible middle finger.
I was going to say the same thing: The Grover Norquist-ites of the world want the Federal Gov't to "leave them alone?" Well it should leave Bear Stearns alone and see what happens.
can't wait till Wall St. starts up their 'carbon trading' pits
I try to not listen to conspiracy theories but this is starting to seem like a long bumpy road that is headed for a cliff. Perhaps the plan is to break the back of the America that we know and rebuild it into some modern version of medieval Europe. With Dukes and Earls owning everything in their fiefdom and we will simply be the serfs allowed to live on our masters land, given that we follow his rules or else.
What if this is some kind of a 100-year plan that is only now coming to fruition? Is this what they talk about at the Skull and Bones ceremonies or the Bilderberg meetings?
Everything is going up, our military is almost broken, our healthcare, social security, and infrastructure are broken as well as our economy. Most of us are swimming in the murky waters of debt that we were sold on as the cure to all our needs.
I do not believe that any of this is an accident any more. There have always been iffy thing that the government has been involved in and during the last 7 years of Bushco we have seen the instillation of people into upper level jobs with no reason to be there but to break the systems. They have done a great job and will continue to give away anything of value to their friends, with little or no concern to the effects on the population or the opinion of the population.
I fear it is too late to react.
But we should try.
Viva la Revolution.
This place has already gone back to medeival times. Try not paying property taxes and you'll find out that the government owns your property. A government, as we see, of the lords and ladies of the ruling class. A vote doesn't count for much at all. We are all under-represented, 535 plus a president ruling over 300 + million. The system has been rigged to evade an issuacnce of three, four or five political parties and thereby stiffling our voices. Look everywhere you go and find the corporate investment pool deciding what goes where and who gets work.
Who cares about the problems of ordianary American citizens. The purpose of the US Governement is to make the rich richer, and kill people around the world for imagined reasons for Corporate profit.
America is a Nation in the gutter. The fat, ignorant citizens can't even grasp what is going on - the American dream is over - the American nightmare is just beggining - the bill for Iraq will soon be do.
Americans will be burning their furniture to stay war, selling apples in the streets, and standing in soup lines - just like granpa - except worse.
Meanwhile, America's supre-rich will be taking space tours on Richard Branson's Virgin Spacecraft.
Disgusting.
No, we would not all crash to nothingness while the golden parachute crowd slowly come to earth were there to be a crash. Yes, we would be hurt, BUT with what they are doing, we are STILL going to crash, probably sometime shortly after November, but NOW we're going to have hyperinflation to go along with it!!!
And to add injury to insult.
Aren't they continuing to buy oil for the Strategic Reserve? Which, of course, takes that oil off the market and increases the price incrementally.
Although I have no doubt that somewhere in year three of the Obama Administration, the Justice Department will have finished their investigation of Gail Norton's Interior Dept and find the Repukes were pumping oil out of the Reserve all along.
And giving it, at no cost, to their friends.
HuffPost's Pick
Bush has been accused of stockpiling oil in excess of what is reasonable for a few years now. Where are our checks and balances? This government is out of control and so big that no one can sort out just what exactly is going on. For our own president to be condoning behaviors that work against the people of the country is unconscionable. Where is the news media coverage of what is happening to the U.S. economy, as well as the world economy, in the name of the American good-old-boy political network?
People cry for more drilling of our reserves. You mention the Interior Department investigation...it's obvious that the management of drilling in the U.S. is just as corrupt and shoddy as the rest of the oil industry. Why should we give oil companies another free ride at our expense. I think it is going to take someone stronger than Obama to break the hold that big oil has been given on a silver platter by the current administration. Those who are close to what is going on--i.e., Congress--are just as responsible. They have done nothing to stop the money grubbing tyrants.
So sad that there are several hundred comments about Tina Fey's lack of funniness, but ony five here thus far.
that's the d*mn truth
The gov't gets thier profit as well-
How about a 50 cent a gallon increase in fuel tax ?
http://www.house.gov/dingell/carbonTaxSummary.shtml
God help us (this congressman has no clue what we have to pay - probably gets a limo!)
Since our Constitution and our Government is now controlled bye Corporate America, I think it is simply common sense to put our vote up for bidding. A Market Price per vote is better than a stock certificate.
Congress continues to transfer power and taxes to Corporate America and it gets the means to do it absolutely free at the Polling stations. Its time to reverse what is described more and more on these blogs about taxes are for the poor, welfare is for the rich.
Great article. Once again, we have become "slaves" to corporate interests by electing congressmen/women that promote corporate welfare and disregard for their constituents. This is the issue everyone should be discussing but we're caught up in the news media ongoing distractions. My fellow American citizens, PLEASE WAKE UP!
THEY WANTED DE- REGULATION !!!!
THEY GOT IT!!!!!!!!!
LET THE WALLSTREET GAMBLERS DIE WITH THEIR INVESTMENTS!!!!!!!!!!!
JUST LIKE THE POOR PEOPLE THEY SCREWED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RIGHT ON, dad!
I just read JUMP POINT by Tom Hayes and I am more scared than ever. While we are distracted by these small side fires, the world is getting more competitive by the day. Soon, we will hit that mathematical "jump point" and the world economy will no longer be our country club. Our institutions are trailing reality today--our corporate tax code is ridiculous, our patent system archaic, our education system a joke. We don't have much time and we are wasting it on fights over table scraps.
I haven't read the book, but I think the loss of the Boeing contract for the refueling tanker tells us we have ALREADY hit the jump point.
This catroon explains the bailout by the Fed !
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20080317/cx_jd_uc/jd20080317
Posted March 20, 2008 | 09:38 AM (EST)