Varifrank: One Last Saturday Night

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One Last Saturday Night

All around the world, the financial world sits on the edge of a disaster. If the American liquidity crisis is allowed to sink the our banking system, there will be a stock market crash the size of which will make the 1929 crash pale by comparison. This crash will bring on an economic depression that will spread world wide in a matter of days.

We all know this, its been in the back of all of our minds for a couple of weeks now. Tonight I found myself thinking that the fate of 8 billion people around the world rests in the hands of 100 people in the Senate and 440 in the House and there probably isnt 10 of them that any of us would not find ourselves not immediately repulsed from and in dire need of a shower afterwards, if we simply shook their hands.

Worse, its in these law school rejects, half-wit pseudointellectuals and failed businessmen which comprise the whole of the body of the federal legislature, each of whom hates the other more than the man next to them; that the world is hoping that they will all work together to create a solution to hold off a disaster of truly biblical proportions.

I honestly have more anxiety tonight than I have had at any point since September 11th 2001. I have to sit here quietly and hope that congress essentially nationalizes the banking industry, this is supposed to be the upside. This is supposed to be the good news. The alternative is we go into another depression. Gee, thats some sort of choice we got there, slow death by strangulation or all at once with poison.

Given that the last depression lasted from 1930 till 1980 at a time when the world wasnt nearly as global as it is today, who knows how deep this hole could go.

And it all happened because someone said that it should be as easy to buy a house as it was to rent an apartment and then set about passing legislation to see that the entire banking system of the world could be made worthless because people with no basic economic common sense or credit rating were given more money than they even begin to handle. Then they passed legislation to make sure that no one was penalized for foreclosure or bankruptcy. Did they do it on purpose? Did they set about to wreck the joint when they went down this route? Or was it all just an accident?

Who knows, but here we are, all the same. Purpose or accident the damange is the same. The entire earth is all in the same boat, its not like this will just hit the US economy with everyone else swimming right by, the US goes down, everything else goes down with it. Communist, Capitalist, Socialist or barter-trade, it all depends on capital and capital is built on trust and the entire US economy has just gone NSF at the favor bank.

You know, its funny to me to think that the last time the entire world all sat and hoped for the same thing was when Apollo 11 was on its way to the moon...

Posted @ September 27, 2008 08:54 PM | Current Affairs

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This is an e-mail I shared with some friends:
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As I write this (about 10 AM, Mon, 09/29/08), a bunch of people whom we would probably never invite into our homes are trying to resolve a financial mess almost beyond comprehension.

Exploring the internet will acquaint you mostly with people bitch, bitch, bitching about the cost.

So far, I've not found ONE among those advocating "kill the bailout" that even attempts to go into the possible consequences of them
getting their way.

If they are saying this is all overhyped and inaction will not have serious consequences ("Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks." - George C. Scott in Dr, Strangelove),
they need to make that case. So far, I haven't seen it.

If this truly is a crisis, then I see it as like being trapped in a burning house, but with access to water and a hose. In such a situation, that is a really lousy time for someone to get into a snit and deny access to the faucet because he's worried about the water bill.

Hoping the next few days don't get TOO interesting.

Just a wee bit uneasy; I’ll admit that.

Posted by: Paul Gordon at September 29, 2008 08:23 AM