It's over...for them.

The persistence of the illusion that economists know anything is astonishing. Tuesday Mr. Bernanke, who apparently couldn't be bothered to warn anyone of the coming collapse last fall, said the economic recession is over.

Phew! That wasn't so bad. Bailout the banks by forcing a nation into decades of debt, print piles of cash and BANG! It's over! Whoo hoo!

Here's the dirty little secret Bernanke and his crew avoid: When they say the recession is over - they mean it's over FOR THEM. It's over for the banks who hauled off billions tax payer cash. It's over for Goldman Sachs and AIG. A lot of loot got shovelled their way in the last year. It's over for idiot financial news talking heads who pull own 6 figures for blathering happy nonsense into a TV camera everyday. It WAS over for ACORN until that whole sex slave mix up. (Those darn moralists who don't think the U.S. government should be abetting statutory rape! Always ruining the party!) It's over for the health insurance companies. In fact, the party is just starting for them. Chicago Slim is about to criminalize anyone who won't or can't buy health insurance.

Yes indeed, it's over. The recession has been a success. When Bernanke types talk about the economy they don't really mean you and me. They're talking about their pals in penthouses on the upper west side and in mega mansions in the Hamptons. The transfer of wealth from the middle class to the very rich has been a wild success. The little worries that they might not pull it off are now behind them. Looking forward, the only concern is how to keep China in line. No small task. Still - the recession is OVER! Let's leave the bone crushing debt to China for another day - or another generation.

Meanwhile back in reality: 10% unemployment and the collapse in credit marches on. That 10% figure is an absurdity wrapped in a lie covered with bullshit sauce...and we all know it. I'm not an economist (A fact I'm increasingly proud of - and it's easier than saying I'm not an overpaid, gaseous, mole person.) still it doesn't take a doctorate from Yale to know that the economy - such as it is - ain't returning to its bubbly glory days anytime soon. Sure Ben B tells us it will be a slow recovery - which is code for "You are debt slaves that are provided with bread and circuses so we can continue to loot. Circuses will now be available in the short term. Bread will be on hold for a bit. Perhaps the local mini mart has some yeasty food you can eat for the pittance clanging about in your pocket. Or you can grow turnips on the lawn of a repo-ed house in your 'hood."

Wee wee-ed up bloggers in the internet backwaters did see the meltdown coming - the one that best and brightest overlooked - and now many of the same folks say the problems in the economy are nowhere near fixed. So who are we to believe? Big Ben and his cavalcade of "experts" or the "nuts" on the fringe who got it right?

I'll take the nuts for a thousand, Alex.

Redistributing wealth...up.

The level of corruption in American society has reached a Soviet scale with the announcement this week by Goldman Sachs of 3.44 billion dollars in profits during the second quarter. Matt Tabibbi - once again - explains the amorality of "banks" like Goldman Sachs:

Taken altogether, what all of this means is that Goldman's profit announcement is a giant "fuck you" to the rest of the country. It is a statement of supreme privilege, an announcement that it feels no shame in taking subsidies and funneling them directly into their pockets, and moreover feels no fear of any public response. It knows that it's untouchable and it's not going to change its behavior for anyone. And it doesn't matter who knows it.

This is simply more proof that representative democracy is dead in this country. We have become a country for Goldman Sachs, run by Goldman Sachs so the Goldman Sachs will not perish from the earth. Both libertarian Glenn Beck and mega liberal Amy Goodman have spoken out on Goldman's rapacious greed. To say those 2 are strange bedfellows is to misunderestimate the world "strange". Surreal is more like it. Let's take the pairing as an early sign of my prediction that we'll all be libertarians in the end.

I'll add to this old joke:

What's a conservative? A liberal who's been mugged.

What's a liberal? A conservative who's been served a subpoena.

What's a libertarian? A conservative or liberal who's country has been sold off to pirates in Armani suits.

As anyone who comes around here knows I am deeply cynical about our ability to survive this latest - and,I bet, last - round of looting that BushBama has unleashed. (One could argue that Obama's economic policy is a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs.) The glue that adheres us could easily be blown apart by the financial rape of the entire middle class.

Why we have not rebelled yet is anyone's guess. We are distracted constantly? We are all twittering while Rome burns? Most people are so overfed on some version of corn product that we can't be bothered to get off the couch? Everyone is mellowed out on anti-depressants?

One can dismiss the idea of "class warfare" but in reality it has already been declared - by the criminals at Goldman Sachs.