I was sitting here watching Maddow talking about Halloween candy when it hit me. Did China finally make the call?
I know this is out there, but for a while now China has been making some ominous pronouncements about the state of our economy. It's not JUST China, many nation- lenders have been appalled at our lack of fiscal sanity.
But China is a financial juggernaut. If they decide the game is over, it's f***ing over. They have quietly but repeatedly told Washington that the present course is unsustainable. In view of the wholesale dismantling of empires currently on display on Wall Steet, is it not possible the phone finally rang.
Section eight of the sparse three page document produced by Henry Paulson not only provides him blanket authority, but a complete hold harmless.
Number two. Emerging blinking from the chambers into the harsh light of day over the weekend, our Senate and House leaders were somber, shaken and seemed willing to do the Secretary's bidding without further adieu. Their meeting was revelatory and seemed to remove any faint hopes of continuing down the primrose path.
What could possibly cause all the cockroaches on the Hill and in the financial sector to emerge proclaiming such an odious and impossible document?
Let's face a few facts. If you or I run out of money, can't pay the bills, we go bankrupt. I would expect that firms on the Big Board would roughly parallel that behaviour if times got tight. Even banksters have got to have a little pride. All these years of them extolling unbridled free market policies, up from the bootstraps etc. Running to the Fed looks so kindergarten after all the high flown hyperbole. The big Boyz have already cleaned out the shop before belly-up time, so what gives?
I think it just might be possible the Shrub got a person to person from the Chinese minister of Finance, saying life as we know it is over unless you give a promissory on the entire Fed. We've used up our private paper, we are in fact a junk nation financially.
The Fed's all that's left. If we don't bail finance and insurance to catch up those payments we so dearly owe the Orient, the Chinese might call their markers.
That's what they mean by a complete meltdown. Maybe that's what they don't want to tell us. Really, what has anybody told us? Exactly how is the American way of life going to end this coming Friday?
The Chinese and Saudis et al have trillions banked. Banked. They can touch it, they can spend it. They don't need to borrow squat. They own it. We gave it to them. We need them far more than they need us. There are other markets emerging and they have the means to weather the implosion of the once mighty USA, the greatest consumer nation in the history of the world.
But I think they don't want to leave any money on the table.
Just a thought.