Tick Talk

Jan (not real name) asked me this question today: “Who do you trust?” Then answered for me “nobody?” That’s right, nobody. 

Here are some developments that seem really fishy to me:

1. Government Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF)  - Isn’t that just another phrase for “new bonds exchange?” (aka “debt grab”)

2. Governments taking control of banks and bad debt (aka ”money and land grab”).

3. Governments funding public corporations. (aka - “stock grab”)

4. Goverments “collaborating” on a global economic crisis. (aka - “tax grab”)

All of this power mongering is scaring the masses (me included). I keep thinking ”absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Is it just me, or does anyone else see the only entities with power to command armies (i.e. governments) making coordinated efforts to control more of everything?  

But why?  My best guess is that we are seeing the implementation of a new world order. It is framed as the cost of avoiding economic chaos, but it feels like consumers (me included) are getting a new, stronger master.

Last thought - the timing of economic distress and wars (the former precedes the latter). Hitler rose from such an environment. WWII is considered by some to have ended the Great Depression. So when Senator Obama mentioned his intention (if elected) to double the “peace corps,” I coughed at the thought.  Furthermore, from the perspective of calloused administrators (the ones who refer to human life as “collateral” [on loan from whom, is uncertain]) if the economy is failing and men (5:1 vs. women) are voluntarily killing themselves (see earlier post), then why not put those lives to good use by employing them in warfare?

p.s. Here is Bernanke’s speech, the one wherein he affirms my six-point explanation that corporations took advantage of the government *(paragraph 6: there were… ”problems arising from the conflict between shareholders’ objectives and the government’s goals…”)

p.p.s. Here is the THE FOURTH QUADRANT: A MAP OF THE LIMITS OF STATISTICS [9.15.08]
, an article by Nassim Nicholas Taleb wherein he refers to his now prophetic 2006 review of Fannie Mae and compares FNMA’s risks to a “barrel of dynamite.” The tableau he shares in the article is printed and pinned to my wall. I love it!