700 WHAT??!!

I have always believed that dadaism and it's stepchild, surrealism, are art forms. But like other art forms they have been usurped and co-opted by the present corporal-political society. The presidency of George Bush is in itself, über-surrealism. And it all just gets more fantastic. And less artistic.

Because of the non-regulative policies of the present government, Wall Street—and its financial camp followers (originally, in previous centuries, these were the whores and shysters who followed armies around trying to remove the soldiers' pay from their possession)—has gotten itself into a real financial sinkhole. The willfully reckless sub-prime mortgage business with attendant bank failures, Bear-Stearns and Merrill-Lynch buyouts, the bail-out of Freddie and Fannie—poor Lehman Brothers had to chew on the cyanide pill—then the gov't takeover, essentially, of AIG. And much of this happening in the past week.

And now it's so bad that the US Gov't is taking on all the "toxic" debt itself. All of it. (Don't you just love that term "toxic debt"? I've got some of that myself-don't see anybody at my door trying to buy me out). Our financial leaders, Bernanke and Paulson, have sold the gov't on this task. They may actually be promoting the best course. I sure don't have any better idea. Unless it's to take the assets of all the investment companies and their CEOs and use that to guarantee the debts. But even those disgraceful earnings may not be enough for that task.

Instead it's you and me brother, who are buying up these debt vehicles, mortgages etc.
Don't be looking for any dividends or flying in a corporate jet tho. 700 billion and it's coming out of our pockets. Well i just looked and I've got 23 bucks in my wallet and maybe another 15 in change in my piggy bank.
What I have in my checking account is already claimed by the bank, the utility companies and the nice people at our friendly credit card companies.

I'm not sure how i can give much to that 700 bil bill.

Amazing how Wall Street greed and foofaraw has cost us more than the Iraq war has cost so far.
I'm not including here the incalculable loss of human life because of this abominable and needless, useless war. No way to make up for THAT.

Just remember the next time you hear someone waxing eloquent about deregulation and keeping government out of people's lives ("people" in this case means corporations. Those who talk like this could give a rat's ass about you and me—maybe we ought to incorporate. The American People, INC.—sounds good to me), that it will cost you dearly to follow their policy. Of course these wingnuts have no compunction about making our librarians reveal our reading preferences—as long as we don't make corporations reveal how they make decisions. THAT would be government interference in people's lives. God forbid. The competitors would take advantage.

This situation is so bad irony just seems lame in the face of it.
Too bad, I always liked irony.
So it goes, as Vonnegut used to say.

You think $700 bil is the end of it?
Hah.

Even Bernanke and Paulson don't know where the end is.
I know where the end is. It's right over there on the kitchen counter in that leather thing with the $23 in it.

Sleep well, my loyal readers.
Both of you.