More notes from the edge
“Rumors went spreading through the country in whispers of cynical terror–yet people read the newspapers and acted as if they believed what they read, each competing with the others on who would keep most blindly silent, each pretending that he did not know what he knew, each striving to believe that the unnamed was the unreal. “
- Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
"You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that man's sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster.“
- Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
“This is like Science Fiction. It’s just like ‘Atlas Shrugged’ in reverse, where the right has deregulated us into this mess. And their solution, when this happens, is to turn around and say ‘You needed to deregulate more, you didn’t go far enough.’ – Patrick Flanagan
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Here we are on the edge of the actual precipice, staring into the actual void of financial ruin and collapse. And what do we see? Well, there’s the bail out package, and while that might help, in the short term, after looking into this as deeply as I could, I am convinced that it will only postpone the inevitable. There are lots of articles out there detailing the collapse so I won’t talk about that. Needless to say it’s really, really bad. In response we’re nationalizing loss and privatizing profits. Add to the situation two wars, a few natural disasters and, well, as I say, here we are. We’re not looking at any mere variety of recession; we’re talking about a total global depression. The Great Depression 2, a sequel of sorts, just like the first one sans the whimsy.
Of course people are in denial about this. No one wants to come out and say what I’ve just said, but that’s the case. The truth is we can’t borrow our way out of this mess. Also it’s not that we need more regulation. The regulations already exist; they were simply not enforced. So the bailout won’t work, more regulations won’t work, what will work?
I don’t know, but I am buying lots of non-perishable goods
. . .
and maybe a gun.
6 comments:
Nobody wanted to acknowledge the vortex we were circling the past few years and, now that we are in too deep, they want us to start swimming. Who knows what is at the bottom?
Frank;
Basically, we're not even just on the verge of The Great Depression 2(which I'm hoping will at least have a score by John Williams)...we're headed into a remake of Americathon, that seldom-remembered John Ritter movie.
If Grandpa(McCain) wins, we're going to have four years to come of even worse economic chaos wherein mortgage foreclosures and repossessions become the order of the day, while Grandpa continues to assure us things will get better...which means his rich friends will stay rich.
If Obama wins(hopefully), he's going to be more busy during the next four years digging us out of this mess, which is going to distract him from what his real job's supposed to be: running the country.
While I am rooting for Obama(whom I think did quite well in the debates), I think that either way in these next upcoming years We The People are seriously fucked.
This economic fiasco represents the failure of socialism; the idea that you can steal from capitalism the money to "help the poor." This principle is a Marxist maxim inaugurated by the Democratic party in an effort to provide housing to people who did not have the means to pay for that housing. It did not matter that they could not pay; what was important was that the state provided that housing for them. This is the principle of Karl Marx, the Democratic Party who created Fannie, Freddie and AHF (ACORN) and who threatened private financial institutions and loosened lending practices which created thousands of worthless mortgages. Today, we are attempting to "fix" this problem by capitalizing these worthless loans, sending good money after bad money and making the good money worthless. This ridiculous socialist response to a failure of socialism will only prolong the problem and possibly forever enslave every man, woman and child in this country. It is no coincidence that the original bill that Bush created to fix this problem, which was rejected by the Republicans, included a provision to provide additional funding to ACORN which is an organization whose philosophy caused this mess. ACORN is an Obama supporter and a voter fraud organization who helped the poor get loans they could not afford to pay. The effort to fund ACORN in this bill is an effort to create an organization of stormtroopers to support the takeover of the United States by a group of socialist radicals bent on destroying the capitalist system and enslaving hard working Americans for the sake of the poor, uneducated and unmotivated. This bill will accomplish that enslavement.
We are seeing the collapse of our society in a similar fashion to what Rand wrote about in Atlas Shrugged and with the same causes; socialism and caretaker government. This may truly be the end of freedom in America.
Mr. Diego's comments do not represent my point of view, but in the interest of fairness, I thought it best to publish it and hope that others will take up the challenge.
F.
I disagree with Mr. Diego.
This crisis was caused by Lenders and banks outright greed and desire so bleed the american public dry. Coupled with almost total deregulation under GOP rule. Greed and no rules got us. Predatory lending, no credit check or employment check mortgages (who thought that was a good idea!?!?)A shadow market where debit was bundled into CDO's which were improperly rated as a triple A loan because nobody understood them. Then traded around unsupervised like they were worth something. Businesses allow to leverage themselves to kingdom come in pursuit of the all mighty dollar. (who thought this was a good idea!?!?) I could go on and on and on.... so do not sit there and tell me socialism caused this mess. This is the fault of unbridled capitalism and excessive greed. Socailism and tightly regulated business is the way out of this mess. It worked well for Sweeden whos population is now one of the wealthiest per capita in the world.
If you'd like a great explanation of exactly what government manipulations of the economy brought about this mess, read this article - written 8 years ago - which predicted the whole thing:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html
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