A ponzi scheme that would make Charles Ponzi blush.

If socialism is the ideology of redistributing the wealth from the few to the many - then Obama can be called a kind backward socialist. The Obama banking plan takes the debt of the few and makes it the debt of the many. James Galibriath, who carries an intellect and pedigree that few can match, said this: The plan is extremely dangerous.

The massive debt the banks are now holding will be transferred to you and me and everyone we know, and for that matter, every American we don't know. Even Charles Ponzi would not have the balls to try a stunt like this.

I see no real reason to believe that banks will start making bad loans again. That is what fueled the economy for the past 7 years. That is not coming back. All of us need to ingest that little nugget. The era of easy credit is - and should be - over.

Do I think Geithner is a bad man? No. But this cannot be stated enough: Obama, after slapping us silly with "hope and change" for over a year, went out and hired the people who created the problem to be his closest economic advisers. They were never going to come to a solution that punished the bad players (the bankers who bought this crap) and saved the innocent (most of us, who did not take out sub prime mortgages on houses we could not afford) from all but the most unavoidable damage.

My sense is that Obama and his team think this is a good and fair plan. In the culture that these men move in - this "corporate socialism" seems equatable. They are financiers - committed to the idea that THEY run the world. If they are safe - all will work out for the rest of us. Another trillion in debt lathered on top of the "little people" is a small price to pay. The financiers will get back to lending, and the wealth will roll out...in other words the ponzi scheme that has been the American economy since the 1970s will kick back in. The bankers will inflate another bubble- which will last until November of 2012 - they hope.

Simply because the government (you and me) now owns this mountain of crap does not mean that is is suddenly not a mountain of crap. It is. The difference is that now WE will own it all. The intention is to have us pay 100 cents on the dollar for bundled mortgage feces that is worth 30 cents on the dollar. If that.

The more I read about this, the more I am convinced that the right thing to do was either to nationalize the bad banks for one year, clean them up and rewrite the rules for the entire sector so that never again would any one entity like AIG be able to hold us hostage.

Or to let them fail, and to take our damn cod liver oil. We will have to take it regardless. And now I fear the swallowing will take a generation.

President Chuckle's plan gives the bankers a pass - and passes the pain on to us and our descendants. Anyone who still believes that Obama is anything but an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill - is in a coma. The bill was presented on Monday.

For further insight please read Orlov's post called Welcome to Fluffland!

The truth or something like it.

Well, it is worse than most thought. The economy that is. It is an odd thing being a doomer. It was much more fun when things were about to fail apart - than it is now that things are falling apart. The rat a tat tat of economic doom is wearing me out. For most us - that is those who are not on Wall Street, or in the "think tanks", this period feels like we are in a well furnished, comfortable room and that walls are inching in. Sorry for the exhausted metaphor. It's all I have right now. The room is still comfortable. In fact, it is a little hard to believe danger is so close. But we all know the walls are closing in.

Admittedly, Obama can't win with me. If he's too far Right I call him out. He submits a spending bill - which I should, given my bent, embrace. But it is oddly - too timid. If you're going to cause high inflation, I at least want a job out of it. Nothing done would have been better.

Then he submits a budget that contains programs, elements and impulses I like. It is a "liberal" budget in many ways. (At least as far as I can tell.) Yet, I am left with this: It is a foolish budget for 2009. It is the budget I wish Clinton had submitted in 1997, when things were humming, and he'd returned us to surpluses.

Sadly, it is not 1997. Not even close. It is 2009 and things are bad. Worse than bad, they are rotten. Warren Buffett's mea culpa last week drives the last nail into it. At least for me.

Here is my wish: A leader would come forth knowing and saying that the crash has come. That any pretense that we can return to the 90s or the 50s is now is off the table. A leader willing to say the party is absolutely, completely, 100% over. And then - and only then - speak of hope, and a willingness to see us to the other shore. A leader willing to say- we will be different. We will contract. There will be pain. The expectations routinely fed us by American politicians are false. The American way of life is negotiable. It is being renegotiated right now - by others. We must take back our power but that power can only be based in the truth.

Instead we, with increasing desperation, convince ourselves that this stimulus, or that budget will save us. It won't. At a certain point an alcoholic can control or enjoy his drinking. Not both. If he controls it he does not enjoy it, if he enjoys it he's out of control. My sense is that this is where we are as a nation. We can either control our way of life or we can enjoy it. Not both. Mr. Obama seems determined to insist that we can do both. We will be responsible AND spend money that does not exist. We can inflate this balloon one more time. Sorry again for putting the metaphors in the blender.

Or we can look for another paradigm. I do not have a good one handy. My hunch is the best choice is to relearn what it is a republic looks like. ( This can only start if all elections are publicly financed. Even if a rich person runs.)

We've borrowed our "way of life" since at least 1970. It must end. It is ending. Knowing this is hopeful. I know of no one who cannot live with less. No one. Poverty once defined in this nation by hunger - is now defined by type 2 diabetes. I am for raising taxes on the richest. But not to fund programs that are fast becoming ridiculous.

I know, I know, Obama did say some things about responsibility last Tuesday. But, as he always does, he contradicted himself 2 days later with a budget that stinks of fantasy and delusion. He's the contradiction President. The Great Contradictor. I also know he'd have to ditch most of his campaign promises - and would have gotten endless grief for it, here and elsewhere. But imagine if Obama had spoke about austerity and responsibility on Tuesday and then presented a budget that was responsible and austere on Thursday. That would have been leadership.

As I said, I own that he probably can't win with me. Still, things are moving rapidly.

Liberals won't wake up from their delusions that we can be back in 1997 and spend, spend, spend on programs. A health care system that leaves 40 million (soon to be 50) uninsured does not work. Period. No one wants national health care more than me. I make no apologies for it. The systems in Canada and the UK are not perfect but they are better. I just do not see how this overtly liberal budget from Obama can work in 2009. There are elements that are so far Left that I can only assume he intends to negotiate them away.

Conversely, Conservatives fetishize the "free" market relentlessly. Since 2000 the "free" market has been borrowed. And it has not been free. Conservatives need to own up to this. Borrowing our wealth on the backs of off shored workers, our children, and from the Chinese - is hardly a good system.

A pox on both their houses. I want someone to look me in the eye and tell the truth or something like it. I don't want to be cajoled, massaged, manipulated, or ignored as decisions that affect me are made. Orlov landed it by comparing Obama to Gorbachev. The result was the end of Communist statism. But it has been replaced by 20 years of mob rule. Literally. Americans won't suffer that. We are not made of the same stuff. We'll fight and then break apart.

Yet, it is where we are headed. High government expectations lead by a charismatic, new leader. Followed severe breakdown after the government is shown to be utterly unable to deliver. All because no one said "We're in a whopper of a fix and we must really change, not pretend to."

I could handle that. Most of us could. The saddest thing of all: I believe a woman could deliver the bracing message, and we'd hear it. Call it sexist. Maybe it is. The real chance for change in 2008 was blown.

Lunch Break

Sign of Apocalypse: Rush L./P. Krugman both critics of Prez. Obamanomincs already failing?

ICountry: It is a crappy time to be a country that begins with I. Iran, Iraq, Iceland, now Ireland.

Soup For You!: Orlov on the next few years.
The theory states that the United States and the Soviet Union will have collapsed for the same reasons, namely: a severe and chronic shortfall in the production of crude oil (that magic addictive elixir of industrial economies), a severe and worsening foreign trade deficit, a runaway military budget, and ballooning foreign debt. I call this particular list of ingredients "The Superpower Collapse Soup."

Bristol Talks: Abstinence is NOT realistic. Bristol, you are correct. Conservatives are WAY off base on human sexuality. OR more on point they are FEAR based. Talking openly, removing shame about sexual desires, (including Gay and Bi impulses- homosexual behaviour with some members of a population is normal and healthy in many mammals.) being realistic and helpful about sex, STDs, and having contraception available is realistic. To think that human biology would change just because we invented High School in the 1800s, or because some ancient agricultural society handed us down a series of edicts that made sense TO THEM - is idiotic.



Music: From the 60s. Okay this was released in 1970. But it may be the last moment in American culture before irony was dumbed down completely. Imagine a pop song about a personal existential collapse in 2009. Country gets close on occasion. But Hip Hop is merely about being horny all the time. Rap is about giving legions of the talentless the impression they matter. Both have long since worn out their usefulness....and need to go.