Stealing Made Legal. How Cool!

Except this isn't cool at all.  

I've come across an article from my newfound 'personal newspaper'.   On the one hand, I've found it too disturbing to fully distill here.  I'm afraid of my hyperbolic potential.  Plus, this blog isn't intended as a home to geo-political commentary; I'm just not a very geo-political person.  On the other hand, my moral compass impels me to share it.

Therefore, with the reader's understanding, I'll summarise the facts as I understand them.   A recent law was passed by the US Congress requiring the Fed to open its books on the bailout.  Firstly, well done Congress.  It’s a testament to democracy.  Commentators are just starting to pick through the mountain of paperwork - apparently over 21,000 transactions.

In itself, I found this number shocking.  I thought the bailout was just a few payments to a few large banks.   Am I alone?  I've read two books on the crises, and although I'll admit they were more about the general financial conundrum than the specific bailout decisions, I felt educated and would have guessed 50 major bailout transactions.  Twenty-one thousand?  So there were 21,000 separate and distinct payments, bound my contractual law, agreed in the haste of that financial and political cauldron?  This number alone, in that environment, began to prepare me.  

I've always understood corruption existed in America.  I've factored it in alongside poor Referee/Umpire decisions in sport.  Sure, the Braves would have won (at least) 3 World Series in the 90s without crap umpires, and yes, it was amazingly painful to be the best team of that decade but lose that official mantle to the team of Mickey Mantle.  But we had our chances and that's the way the cookie crumbles.  The Braves were not robbed.*  We simply lost a few close games by a few inches, and since we won a few that way, all was right in the world (if not exactly fair).  This was my perception of corruption in today's America: both common and criminal, but hardly a major factor in the general swing of things.  Was I naive, ignorant or stupid?

The article to which I refer was just published in Rolling Stone.  Whilst Rolling Stone is certainly a left-leaning publication, a) this article criticises left and right equally and b) their standard of journalistic integrity is strong to my knowledge.  I'll only include an excerpt.

"Instead of lending directly to car buyers and credit-card holders and students — that would have been socialism! — the Fed handed out a trillion dollars to banks and hedge funds almost interest-free.  In other words, the government lent taxpayer money to the same people who caused the crisis, so that they could then lend that money back to the taxpayer on the market virtually risk-free, at an enormous profit.

"Cue your Billy Mays voice, because wait, there's more! A key aspect ... is that the Fed doles out the money through what are known as non-recourse loans. Essentially, this means that if you don't pay the Fed back, it's no big deal. The mechanism works like this: Hedge Fund Goon borrows, say, $100 million from the Fed to buy crappy loans, which are then transferred to the Fed as collateral. If Hedge Fund Goon decides not to repay that $100 million, the Fed simply keeps its pile of crappy securities and calls everything even."

Out of respect for anyone who doesn't read me for politics, I'm stopping there.  But this is simply the most easily digestible excerpt.  There's more (like the $200 million given to a banker's wife).

I hope this article isn't accurate.  I hope it's a bunch of invented hippy claptrap.  But it sounds to me like it might be the tip of the iceberg.   If it is, I hope it is.  It would be an unfortunate boon to the capitalism inferred in the Federalist Papers by James Madison (vs Alexander Hamilton or Adam Smith's faith in business/elite).  It would perhaps be the painful truth needed to stem the tide of the plutocracy America seems to be becoming.  

Hope springs eternal. 

At least you see why I'm not very geo-political.  This stuff is too bloody serious.

Rick.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411?page=1

* Do not talk to me about the '93 series against the Twins, and definitely do not bring up the name of umpire Drew Coble.

Man Motivated by Poem.

While enjoying a beer with a friend recently, he confided his start-up business idea.  It was based on some clever sounding technology, the weather and Twitter.  The conversation soon turned to the 'social media revolution', of which I have been at least a skeptic, at worst a cynic.  So I railed.  I lambasted the shallowness of trawling the internet for opinions.  I ripped into the emptiness of tweets about trivia.  Yet here I am.


Two separate 'logs' broke the camel's back.  The first and smaller log was my friend's description.  He informed me that one isn't required to follow Charlie Sheen or Lindsay Lohan; one can choose to follow Malcolm Gladwell, for instance, who may be a greater 'social media revolution' skeptic than myself.  Interesting.  Employing the vehicle against itself.  He also informed me there were several other regular tweeters and bloggers whose links were thoughtful and enriching.  Like Andrew Sullivan, TED and the New Yorker.  Essentially, he described it as having the ability to publish your own newspaper.  I began to feel both stupid and inspired.

Of course, the immediate drawback to publishing your own newspaper, for me, is the risk of constantly reinforcing my own views and never challenging my intellectual comfort zones.  See Michelle Bachmann.  But this could be countered by following a breadth of commentators.   I have done this, but I'd be grateful for any recommendations.  I've already found choosing who to invite into my Twitter feed is quite a commitment!

The second 'log' was a poem.  I tried to cite it when chatting to my friend, but whether it was the beer or the decade since I'd last read it, my version was woeful.  Written by my favourite poet, e. e. cummings, here's the text in full.

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

It stills makes me think, 'wow'.  I first read this poem when I was 17.  After a childhood raised in the Bible belt, 'even if it's Sunday may I be wrong' hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.  In the two+ decades since reading this poem, I still find it's message overwhelming.  'For whenever men are right they are not young'.  Simple.  Beautiful.  It invites us to be open-minded and willing to learn.  So here I am.