The quote from Farenheit 9/11 was held at a “comedy night” meeting of major hoo-has and was meant ironically and in jest. The sad part of it is how true it rings.
Rush Limbaugh was on the radio explaining that tax cuts are necessary to help pump up the economy. In theory, this could be true.
But tax cuts come in various varieties: those that actually benefit consumers who would then be encouraged to spend more in the domestic economy, and those that benefit investors, who put their money wherever it gives them the higest rate of return.
Back in the days of predominantly national economies, that meant more investment in America and more job creation. But now it means more money to invest overseas, where wages are lower and the margins higher.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Aug 21 2007 14:55 utc | 3

Rising powers have the US in their sights

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States stood tall – militarily invincible, economically unrivaled, diplomatically uncontestable. and the dominating force on information channels worldwide. The next century was to be the true “American century”, with the rest of the world molding itself in the image of the sole superpower.
Yet with not even a decade of this century behind us, we are already witnessing the rise of a multipolar world in which new powers are challenging different aspects of US supremacy – Russia and China in the forefront, with regional powers Venezuela and Iran forming the second rank. These emergent powers are primed to erode US hegemony, not confront it, singly or jointly.
How and why has the world evolved in this way so soon? The George W Bush administration’s debacle in Iraq is certainly a major factor in this transformation, a classic example of an imperialist power, brimming with hubris, overextending itself.

Also see,
Capitalism not to blame for debacle

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard points the finger at the central banks that created the credit bubble.

The current economic crisis reminds me a great deal of the S&L disaster in the 80s, which looking back, appears to have been an intentionally contrived situation to benefit Bush/CIA drug runners and money launderers at the expense of the taxpayers.
We had a saying back in the day, “shit rolls downhill”. In other words, if the above classes are fooked, you know the below classes are really really fooked.
“If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched.” — George H. W. Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 21 2007 17:43 utc | 5

The current economic crisis reminds me a great deal of the S&L disaster in the 80s, which looking back, appears to have been an intentionally contrived situation to benefit Bush/CIA drug runners and money launderers at the expense of the taxpayers.
You are certainly on to something there. The Fed lowering the discount rate, an ineffective move as this is not a liquidity- but a confidence-crisis, is only to bail out Wall Street (with an unprecedented Fed engineered short squeeze last Friday).
The mortgage debt-obligations now owned by mutal funds will be sold to pennies for the dollar to private equity firms, those who already have lots of money. Then those folks will make sure that the slaves pay back to the last penny of their mortgage.
Carlyle, where the Bush family and other rich folks have invested, planed for this. In a letter to its investors the CEO wrote back in January (pdf):

[T]he fabulous profits that we have been able to generate for our limited partners are not solely a function of our investment genius, but have resulted in large part from a great market and the availability of enormous amounts of cheap debt.
…
This debt has enabled us to do transactions that were previously unimaginable (e.g., Hertz, Kinder Morgan, Nielsen, Freescale), and has resulted in (generally) higher exit multiples than entry multiples.
…
I know that this liquidity environment cannot go on forever. .. And I know that the longer it lasts, the worse it will be when it ends. And of course when it ends the buying opportunity will be a once in a lifetime chance.

He prepared accordingly – hording cash getting out of debt and waiting for the crunch to happen. Carlyle investors will come out of this with 30% profits. Some homeowners with 100% losses.

Posted by: b | Aug 21 2007 18:41 utc | 7

Thank you, Berhard! I wasn’t an economics major in college and am not overly knowledgeable in the fine line between different terminology. Learned something new.
But you steered me in the right direction. According to the US Census, in 2005 the “average individual median income” was $25,149 for Americans over the age of 18.

Posted by: Ensley | Aug 21 2007 18:55 utc | 9

@b, re #7
I don’t know if you ever watched “How the Grinch Stole Xmas,” but that Carlyle letter reminds me of the scene where the last thing the Grinch takes from the house is the bread crumb for the mouse. And those guys ain’t gonna hear us singing our poor little odes to joy and have sudden heart-expanding epiphanies of philanthropy.
Barstards.

Posted by: catlady | Aug 21 2007 21:06 utc | 11

Barbara Ehrenreich, on the “diabolically clever” new revolution to bring down capitalism.

I wish I could report that the current attack on capitalism represents a deliberate strategy on the part of the poor, that there have been secret meetings in break rooms and parking lots around the country, where cell leaders issued instructions like, “You, Vinny — don’t make any mortgage payment this month. And Caroline, forget that back-to-school shopping, OK?” But all the evidence suggests that the current crisis is something the high-rollers brought down on themselves.
When, for example, the largest private employer in America, which is Wal-Mart, starts experiencing a shortage of customers, it needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror. About a century ago, Henry Ford realized that his company would only prosper if his own workers earned enough to buy Fords. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, never seemed to figure out that its cruelly low wages would eventually curtail its own growth, even at the company’s famously discounted prices.
The sad truth is that people earning Wal-Mart-level wages tend to favor the fashions available at the Salvation Army. Nor do they have much use for Wal-Mart’s other departments, such as Electronics, Lawn and Garden, and Pharmacy.

Posted by: catlady | Aug 21 2007 23:18 utc | 13

@askod — good rundown on median and average. seems to me that we are looking for something more like stdev to express degrees of inequity, no?f

Posted by: DeAnander | Aug 22 2007 1:14 utc | 15

Addendum:
Back in 03 Mark W. Anderson wrote a series of articles entitled, An Escape From Freedom: extended reflections on the development of an American dystopia in it he has this:

Let’s be clear: American fascism, if it comes, is not likely to come on the form of a charismatic leader pulling the political wool over the eyes of right-thinking Americans – for that, the common sense of most American citizens will do just fine in beating it back. But it is likely to come on the form of denigrated civil liberties in the face of governmental and corporate absolutism, coupled with expanded militarism, a structured class system, and an alienated, psychologically disenfranchised citizenry, among other characteristics. The day is hardly likely to come, then, when American jackboots parade down Main Street, but certainly could arrive when that all government policy is centered on “national security” issues as defined by a narrow set of corporate self-interests and ideological perceptions about foreign policy, complete without any true recourse by the citizenry.

The whole four part series is bang up good, but the above in particular is a bullseye dead ringer. Bushes base, aka the elite robberbarrons have boxed us in like pigs to slaughter, herded like sheep. And as another MOA wrote, –I forget who– American fascism will be different than 1930’s fascism, it will have a distinct oder to it; I’m thinking shit sandwhich, I’m wondering how it tastes to you guys.
Never has any people endured it’s own tragedy with so little sense of the tragic ~NA

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 22 2007 2:43 utc | 17

Uncle that’s a superb quote because consider – isn’t that the particularly gestalt that americablog & kos & other so-called “liberal” blogs support? If not, where would they differ? I’ve never seen anything on his site that interfered w/the creation of a neo-feudal police state. Yes, may prefer no “police state”, but shucksypoo folks is scared & endangered…That link you posted recently about kos joining CIA & calling it “very very liberal” was awesome. LIberal is ridiculous enough; very liberal way out there. But “very very” can only peg him as a far right winger. To me most interesting question is who got him tog. w/Soros, who as we’ve noted from published sources, funds things that CIA used to fund before Piratization took its death grip.

Posted by: jj | Aug 22 2007 3:29 utc | 19

out on the interstate over the w/e, passed an eighteen-wheeler whose side had been subversively turned into a semi-desparate traveling billboard — spray-painted in big, red letters was the astute observation we sleep they lie. watched in the rearview mirror as it faded into the setting sun, half expecting to see it veer into the ditch at any moment.

Posted by: b real | Aug 22 2007 3:51 utc | 21

Investors Say That Fed Must Do More for Markets

Wall Street thinks the Federal Reserve is running short of time.
…
Analysts now say that the central bank’s move last Friday to restore confidence by encouraging banks to borrow directly from the Fed at a lower cost has had only limited impact so far and that the Fed will need to take more drastic action by cutting its benchmark interest rate soon if it fails to see more progress.

In short: “Wall Street screams for bailout (and will get it), Congress ignores homeowner problems”
Yes, Wall Street will get a bailout, the Fed will lower rates and it will not work. To restart the credit cycle, the rates would have to go down as low as 1%. That would kill the US$.
Rates don’t create confidence … the only thing to regain confidence is for everyone to publicly show how much bad debt they own. To unpack their MBS and CDO paper collections so there original content is visible and can be publicly rated, and then to dermine their prices. Lots of losses will be made, but so what.
Unless the banks and hedgies are willing to do so. The crash will continue.

Posted by: b | Aug 22 2007 4:17 utc | 23

ECB throwing more money at the markets:

The European Central Bank said it will lend 40 billion euros ($54 billion) to banks for three months in a further step to support a “normalization” of the money market and indicated it may still raise the benchmark interest rate.
(snip)

*******
b @23, “the only thing to regain confidence is for everyone to publicly show how much bad debt they own.”
But if they did that, quite a few countries would have to admit their GDP figures for the past several years were based on illusory wealth. And that wouldn’t do at all.

Posted by: Alamet | Aug 22 2007 15:14 utc | 25

Ensley,
now I am blushing again. Has not happened since annie called me the future leader of the free world or something. I will shift rapidly over to indexes:
DeA

@askod — good rundown on median and average. seems to me that we are looking for something more like stdev to express degrees of inequity, no?

I think the Gini coefficient if you want to compare inequality in different countries. The drawback of it is that it is not very intuitive. Sweden has a Gini coefficient of 0.25 and Bolivia has 0.61 (according to CIA) does not give you any feel for the differences in inequality. In general I have a theory about statistics (or probabilities for that matter) not being very compatible with the human psyche, we are more prone to thinking in cathegories, like if food is dangerous or safe (generally it is a bit of both).
When it comes to development I think the best indicator of a society is how badly the worst are fairing. Are there homeless people on the streets? How well fed and dressed does the homeless look? Can they find somewhere to sleep? Are they chased away by cops or offered shelter? Does addiction to dangerous substances get you treatment or prison? And how is it changing over time? By this index I say Sweden has got poorer the last 20 years, though I know that both average and median consumption is up.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Aug 22 2007 21:18 utc | 27