Like Lambs to Slaughter

To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
--Hamlet (III,i), Shakespeare

“Probably right under our very noses. What you think, Jack?”
And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle
--Like a Lamb to Slaughter, Roald Dahl
________________

Ranger is not an economist. (To read one who is, see Dark Wraith in the sidebar.)

But he sees a simple trend: It does not matter whether the administration is Democratic or Republican, the bottom line is always the same. We the People are treated as objects which exist solely to provide the money for the Big Guys to play with. We are like Heidegger's Being-as-tool, a perversion of our rightful state of existence.

"The inspector general who oversees the government’s bailout of the banking system [Neil M. Barofsky] is criticizing the Treasury Department for some misleading public statements last fall and raising the possibility that it had unfairly disbursed money to the biggest banks."

"Mr. Barofsky’s office also says that regulators were wrong to tell the public last year that the earliest bailout recipients were all healthy.

"Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., for instance, said on Oct. 14 that the banks were “healthy,” and that they accepted the money for “the good of the U.S. economy.” The banks, he said, would be better able to increase their lending to consumers and businesses.

"In truth, regulators were concerned about the health of several banks that received that first bailout, the inspector general writes."

The inspector general said government officials need to be more careful when describing their actions and rationale. In a letter included with the report, the Federal Reserve concurred with Mr. Barofsky’s concern about the statements made last year, but the Treasury Department said that any review of announcements last year 'must be considered in light of the unprecedented circumstances in which they were made' (Report on Bailouts Says Treasury Misled Public.)”

It is the whore's promise: "Daddy, I'll always love you if you'll buy me this diamond necklace," and we continue to toe the line, feeling we are receiving our rightful due even when we are pinched almost beyond our ability to sustain. We gain an uneasy sleep with Ambien or Lunesta knowing that all is not right, but grateful for the purchase, nonetheless.

When elected and appointed officials are less than truthful and deliberately misleading, how can we pretend we are living in a democracy?

Democracy is not based upon lies.

Ediface Rex

Expert textpert choking smokers,
Don't you thing the joker laughs at you?
--I am the Walrus, The Beatles

The old soft shoe
He jumped so high, jumped so high
Then he lightly touched down
--Mr. Bojangles, Jerry Jeff Walker

Ooh, ooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell?
Ooh, ooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you.
--That Smell, Lynyrd Skynyrd

Isn't it pretty to think so?
--The Sun Also Rises,
Ernest Hemingway
______________

The more you think on it, the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) and the economic crisis and attendant stimuli are exactly the same.

Both are based upon illusion, false premises and a heapin' helpin' of unreal expectations. Smoke, mirrors, in fact, lies. Lies presented as obvious assumptions. Neither word belongs in policy or war making. We fancy we are a nation of warriors and consumers led by experts, but our experts are only masters of doublespeak.

They talk real pretty and look pretty nice, but a national life is made not of tap dancing and pretty words. The real estate bubble and bust was based upon predatory, faith-based lending and mortgage practices. The faith was in the outstanding aspect of America that allowed for limitless asset appreciation. The market could bear all. Bankers sold fairy dust and snake oil.

Both the home "owner" and the banker colluded in a commensal lie, and the balloon payment down the line got a nod and a wink. Denial and greed are the names for that most American of games. As Big Daddy asked, Didn't you notice the powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?

The PWOT shares many of the same features. BushCheney & Co. sold the war to Congress (= mortgage) to Congress (= the buyer) on the lie that the war would not exceed $50 Billion. D'oh.

The figure was a lie and everyone knew it, but Congress bought the fiction like a good sub prime borrower and signed onto the interest-only mortgage (= the congressional authorization to use military force to execute the PWOT.)

The bill was further bastardized when the terms were changed without a complete renegotiation and refinancing of the note. The original mortgage was the invasion of Afghanistan. However, this was unilaterally expanded to include Iraq.

This type of switcheroo would be unheard of in a mortgage or loan situation, yet Congress accepted the term change without so much as a whimper. The media mavens didn't summon much concern, either.

The extension of the mortgage to include Iraq was sold as a predatory loan. Bush sold Congress and the people the idea that the war would be paid with a balloon note payable in Iraqi oil assets. Unfortunately, Bush didn't ask the Iraqis if they were on board with his diktat.

After the war was won in such a spectacular manner it became obvious that the initial mortgage would not ever be paid, as initially promised. What to do? Take out a 2nd mortgage, renegotiate the note and pass regular ersatz "Emergency Funding Bills" to cover the interest only. Sadly, as with the bad mortgages, the balance is still due and is beyond our ability to pay at this time.

The wars and the stimulus packages are based upon faulty logic. Yet we continue stalwart down that road, as it's the only one we know.

The government exists for one purpose: to provide for the general welfare of the citizenry, rich and poor. That is our social contract.Effective democracy is the muting and accommodation of the extremes; it is the middle ground, which is no longer terrain traversed by either party.

Both parties favor big business and finance to the exclusion of the middle and lower economic strata. The government has abrogated its mandate when it permits predatory behavior, as it has done in the financial sector and the war making sector. Yet we call this predation, democracy. If so, democracy is dead.

Ranger sees a realignment of the political parties reflecting the economic realities of the nation. Power to the people, if they can surmount their hysterical fealty to divisive issues like gun control and abortion rights.

America will survive by adapting and abandoning policies that harm the majority of the citizens. It remains to be seen whether the divisive Rovian tactics can be trashed in favor of a national ethos. If enough things break down, maybe the citizens will coalesce in a unity of purpose.

The welfare of America is not the welfare of corporate CEOs.

Fiddler Crabs

We live in an age lit by lightning
After the flash we're blind again
--Over You, T-Bone Burnett

Blessed are the peacemakers:
for they shall be called the children of God
--Matthew 5:9

Somebody, help me now
(I'll take you there)
Help me, y'all
(I'll take you there)
--I'll Take You There,
The Staple Singers
________________

We support. . . fill in the blank.

American's reality has been condensed into bumper sticker slogans. It's all we have time for. It is a patriot's duty to have a flag lapel pin and a magnetized yellow ribbon. However, the simplicity of our rhetoric fails to encompass our reality. Shibboleths do not substitute for rationale.

Ranger feels a free-floating anxiety when contemplating the changes occurring in the U.S. To say we are moving towards socialism is inadequate to the complexity of the problem. All eyes are on the economy, but the bailouts are merely symptomatic of an underlying disease and are merely palliatives.

America has become a sound byte parody of what we once were. The dearth of rational thinking destroys the concept of democracy as the bailouts destroy the concept of capitalism, as practiced in the recently deceased U.S.A. (of blessed memory).

The slogans guide us, like, "Too Big to Fail." What does this mean? Simply: The fat cats in government that grew fat through financial dirty dealings are bailing out the fat cats who are too big too fail, in a masturbatory cycle. The government and the financial houses are now interbred and have become common law partners.

The Obama bailout is exactly similar to Bush's. Paulson and Geithner are pressed from the same mold. The national treasury is being transferred in large part, and the voters have no control. It would be instructive to have a congressman -- any congressman -- discuss the long-term consequences of the success or failure of the bank bailouts.

It seems the U.S. government and the taxpayers have become underwriters for big finance, while the little guy is always one flush away from catastrophe. If the bailouts are successful, are our leaders going to break up the banking interests, or will it be business as usual until the next crisis? What is this griffin financial beast that has the government and taxpayers in a stranglehold?

Everybody wants the president to succeed, thereby allowing the nation to do so; to wish otherwise is absurd. But while the bank bailouts may help the bankers, it is not addressing the underlying systemic problem. It is time to get real and beyond any cult of personality. There are no national saviors.

Bush, Obama, et. al. are meaningless constructs re America. It is not the man that must succeed, but the nation. If the man falters, Congress must take the lead. Disturbingly, they have not shown that ability in the past eight years.

If Chrysler has a 60-day window to come up with a successful business plan, our leaders should be held to the same stricture.

But Wait -- There's More!

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending
--The Lie, Sir Walter Raleigh

At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark
--You'll Never Walk Alone,
Rodgers and Hammerstein

It could probably be shown by facts and figures
that there is no distinctly native American criminal class
except Congress
--Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain
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Today's world is rife with sensory overload.

Forget the hopeless muddle that has become Lost and the 5-second cuts in almost every domestic cinematic production -- the bailouts and stimulus bills + two wars provide more than enough distraction for one country. Add to that a President who is not quite ready for Prime Time and whose message of Change is melting faster than a double-dip of Rocky Road in a Tallahassee August and you get -- pressure.

In psychology, it is hypothesized that schizophrenia is caused by the inability to filter out the extraneous stimuli that surrounds modern man. This personal psychoses could be extrapolated to our entire society.

The problems are so great and manifold that the organism (=society) enters a shocked, protective posture which is called mental illness when manifested in the individual, but market anxiety or any number of euphemisms when characteristic of a society.

The cures that are being thrown at the problem also seem schizophrenic, or at least overlaid with a heavy veneer of denial. Paul Krugman wrote today, the Obama administration seeks to maintain the current financial system, "albeit somewhat tamed by new rules," whereas he [Krugman] sees the "failure of a whole model of banking (The Market Mystique)."

We give away the farm, then criticize a wolf (A.I.G. executives) for killing a chicken.

Analogizing the U.S. banking system to that of a distressed patient in crisis, early intervention went lacking, so the patient's condition is now stat, on its way to being code. What do the professionals do? That's right -- administer a heavy-duty palliative, like morphine. Everything feels better, while on the way to the morgue.

If the patient should survive, he can be warehoused on life-support for some time, albeit in a radically underfunctioning state. To vie with the president's recent crass comment on disabilities, The Really Too Big To Fail banks become like Jerry Lewis's Muscular Dystrophy poster children: they will never walk alone. (But we won't call it socialism, no sir.)

And all the while, the taxpayers are ridden for all they are worth while they get to "hold" some of these toxic assets; yet if any profit is to be made from this situation, it will go back to the private investors who will take a soft "risk" by buying them back. So the bankers will further profit from the problem they caused.

But what is to be done when the citizens see the irony of their situation through little glimpses like the A.I.G. brouhaha or Mr. Madoff's scheme? Those were ones we saw, but how many have gone unseen? The Congress, President and Secretary of the Treasury act duly outraged toward the bonus-takers, but it was their policy which enabled the rip-offs.

This can only happen because members of Congress are in bed with these guys, though we have the illusion of their separateness. However, all one must do is filter the chatter and isolate the facts. Facts -- unlike politicians -- do not lie.

The fact is that everyday loyal, hardworking taxpaying Americans are the victims of our government and financial institutions, both of whom prey upon our lives. The taxpaying citizen is the pivot man in a national circle jerk. We have reached a point in our history where being a pimp is more honorable than being an investment banker.

At least with a pimp, you know you're getting taken for a ride.