Today,
Ben Bernanke tells us the recession "very likely" has ended; but, from the voter's perspective
his words are falling upon deaf ears. This is due to
compelling truths outlapping the current spin from Washington.
Unemployment at record levels. Those falling off of the unemployment compensation train will hit deep into the six-figure-range this month, alone. Those same numbers will be well into seven figures by the end of the calendar year. We are told, by some, that unemployment will remain unacceptably high for a decade, possibly two decades or more by others. Folks see what's going on in their own backyards. These problems come home to roost--like everything touched upon herein--they trump the media, IMHO.
Poverty which is now defined in no less than draconian terms by our government these days--is eclipsing the high mark of the past generation, and then some. Real poverty is far, far worse in the U.S., many observers tell us. What was once the upper, middle and lower classes is
quickly morphing into a two-track economy of haves and have-nots.
Consumer Spending long heralded as the primary means by which we have overcome past economic downturns is tanking at depths never before measured. And, we've learned of late that even the very numbers used to quantify it--and the well-being of our economy in general--are pathetically off-the-mark from a reality-based point of view.
Consumer Savings Rates are, in fact, being totally propagandized. Sure, the top 10% (the upper class) is saving more...much more. But, what about the other 90% of us?
Housing, which accounts for the largest transaction/investment made by the majority of the population's consumers, is devaluating at record levels--and some say still dropping--even though our government now provides, or backstops, almost all of the funds for it (more than a whopping 90% of those purchases). Frankly, for all intents and purposes, there would not even be a housing market if our government hadn't stepped in over the past year to support it. And, the level at which our government supports the housing market is increasing, not decreasing.
Healthcare, and the debate currently going on in our government about the nationalization of it, has quickly become the poster-child issue as it relates to the corporatization of our society--a society where it's now acknowledged that some people are more equal than others--and where the corporation's own personhood is now the most powerful "person" of all, while 50,000,000-plus Americans are just one illness away from bankruptcy.
The "Free" Markets are anything but we're now finding out, from our own legislators, no less; and like most of the legislation that comes out of Washington, it's being written and introduced by our corporations. Whether it's unethical lawyering vis-a-vis the Bernie Madoff case, Wellpoint drafting Max Baucus' version of our corporatized health care plan, or Goldman-Sachs having no business being in the room when the AIG bailout decisions were made, the point is, our elected officials aren't calling the shots, the corporations, the status quo and their respective lawyers are running the show.
It's only over the past few months that people in our own government have finally decided to tell us a basic truth: Wall Street owns our government.
Business Rules and Basic Laws of Sanity are changing so quickly--and mostly in ways which are hidden from the majority of the population--that the entire process appears to many to be little more than a street-level game of three-card monty. In the past week, we had our first bank failure from a major bank that somehow--legally--had absolutely no "bad loans" on it's balance sheet! See how easy that was? If you don't like one plus one equalling two, just change the rules of mathematics.
There's always a plant in the audience for that, acting like they're just a lucky passer-by; when, in fact, the entire purpose of their presence in the deal is to encourage everyone watching to participate in the rigged game, spurred on by the basic human emotion of...greed.
Suckers and chumps are we all?
But, haven't we all heard so much about how it was greed, itself--the greed of Wall Street and the free-market mentality of those myopic economists holding sway over the Reagan administration, and/or the personal greed of you and I when we refinanced our homes over the past decade, depending upon which party's doing the spinning nowadays--which got us into the hole we're in today?
Some say the answer to getting ourselves out of the hole we're in is to keep digging.
Others tell us, relax, it's just a recession, things are returning to normal...a new normal.
Yeah, this won't hurt a bit...enjoy yourself...go out to dinner...everything will be fine...go see a movie: "Gordon Gekko character still resonates on Wall St."
Gordon Gekko character still resonates on Wall St
Tue Sep 15, 2009 12:34pm EDT
By Basil Katz
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Twenty-two years after appearing on the big screen, and one year after the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers, the film character Gordon Gekko continues to resonate on Wall Street.
The "strip and flip" corporate raider played by Michael Douglas will make his comeback in Oliver Stone's "Wall Street 2," which began filming in New York this week. The sequel is set in 2008 during the run-up to the financial meltdown with Gekko emerging from two decades behind bars.
Stone is bringing back the character famous for his "greed is good" mantra at a time when other titans of Wall Street have fallen from grace and the excesses of the financial industry have come under fire from the White House and an angry public.
"It is mystifying to me to see people lionize this crook who went to jail," Stanley Weiser, who co-wrote the original Wall Street with Stone, told Reuters.
Stone called it "a quintessentially American story..."
--SNIP--
...But his character has remained popular among financial professionals who saw him as a hero...
--SNIP--
"People thought the greed decade was over but it never really ended, and it came back tenfold. People said about the movie, 'Oh, it's outdated.' Then came Bernie Madoff and the thousands of others like him."