"The bailout is likely to prove controversial, because it effectively puts taxpayer money at risk while protecting bad investments made by A.I.G. and other institutions it does business with," writes the Times. "The nation needs a new perspective on the markets, one that acknowledges the self-destructive bent of unfettered capitalism and its ability, unchecked, to wreak havoc far beyond Wall Street."
Plunder, it seems to me, in a word, will be the legacy of the Bush administration. Plundering the environment, traditional executive privilege, the economy, other countries, young lives.
Meanwhile we're all sitting around wondering what form these invisible threats will take when they show up at our individual doors, aren't we?
4 comments:
Bleak stuff, yes. We're just watching the wreckage left behind unregulated greed.
Meanwhile, I thought this was interesting:
http://edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html
Thinking about you lots and checking here daily. More posts, more pics. I'll send an email soon.
-e
Today I called myself.
And left a message.
Because I was away.
Beating the shit out of myself.
For writing a great poem.
On your blog.
But then deleting it.
Fuck.
You know what I mean.
It was great.
Soaked
In what you might call
Greatness.
Steaming.
Sitting.
Motionless in the fog
On the sidewalk.
Exploding into morning.
Filling everyone's nostrils.
Lining their Starbucks
With SCIENCE.
But now it's gone.
And all I have.
Is this one.
Just this.
What can one do.
When confronted with this feeling.
This overwhelming desire
To Time Travel.
Back.
This sucks.
I can taste it.
It's like a hot shitty Geyser
In my 2 Tube.
A snake in my gut
Tripping acid.
Reaffirming
That I failed
To properly Save
My data.
You post pictures that clearly display a depressing squalor: crumbling dwellings that cost a fortune to rent; meager, ugly and hazardous public facilities: parks, playgrounds, stairwells, roadways, sidewalks; food staples that cannot be had, are expensive or poisoned, dirty, foul-smelling air and sickening, polluted water. You provide vivid narratives about wilting encounters with bitter "natives" who seem bent on frustrating your searches for goods, services or help of any kind.
I have been only marginally entertained (more than a little alarmed, actually) by your charming struggles and adjustments to life in the capital of the "former" Soviet Union, but your wistful foray into politics, especially under your current circumstances, is a meandering intellectual drug dream that makes Sarah Palin's uncomplicated candor even more refreshing.
Your handle on the "big picture" is flat, horizontal -- i.e., real time, current, comprised of journalistic sound bytes. There is no vertical perspective of enough decades behind you to temper an inclination to change at all costs -- a common malady among the post-modern "learned".
Righteous indignation about "corporate greed" is disingenuous, since it has long been a fact of life, so spare me your hand-wringing over global pain rooted in U. S. corporate malfeasance! Further, this is the only place on the planet where there is any transparency plus consequences, however unsatisfactory you might deem it. Taxpayer money was even more at risk in the situation prior to the shakeout, and the upshot is that these economic crises do trigger reforms. Yes, someone has to pay the price, and yes, the taxpayer gets the bill -- because the activity is not necessarily criminal, though if such can be proven, penalties should and will apply. However, we've got laws in place that protect against being charged with a crime if it's not yet (or no longer) considered a crime. And yes, corporate mindset has always operated on the exploitative premise of obtaining anything and everything it can in order to generate a profit. So what else is new? Even "ethical" or "green" investments must function this way. The phenomenon is, as A. would say, market-driven, but is it "unfettered capitalism"? Not quite. Rather, we have regulations and supervisory panels in place here to enforce the rules and see that the loopholes get plugged as demanded. Does it always work perfectly or even smoothly? No.
Ironically, I believe you are presently awash in unfettered capitalism, courtesy of the Moscow oligarchy, a bunch of hard-line-nationalist bureaucrats. The collapse of communism launched Russia into an orgy of free enterprise, and naturally, in a vacuum of either regulation or accountable supervision, the economic surge has spiraled upward without hindrance or pause. The restricted availability of heating for dwellings is a peculiar exception, and aleftover from commie policy that merely dramatizes the roughness of the economic transition. Nevertheless, where you are now, there are no safety nets or method of redress in place to protect against the many pernicious ills plaguing access to the fundamental needs of citizens, and to which you have enthusiastically, graphically testified: clean, affordable food, water, air and housing, adequate available and/or comprehensive medical/emergency health care, quality controls for products/services/workmanship, etc. Those who have only known communism don't seem to be able to imagine anything better, and are consequently willing to accept a formalized disregard for their rights that keeps them at a standard of living far below that of Americans. Those who HAVE known something better (A?) and intentionally embrace such a hazardous, unstable system must be either foolish or desperate indeed.
Don't "sit around and wonder" TOO LONG. I'd scrap the cosmic rhetorical musings and focus instead on the impact on your family of a corrupt regime studiously indifferent to the welfare of its citizens and openly hostile to Americans. You've put yourself and your loved ones in harm's way!
Oh, by the way -- congratulations on the cosmopolitan cultural distribution of your kitchen appliances, and what, oh, what is so very wrong with Mark?
Here's a message I'm sure Mark won't mind my sharing:
Don't reply to this message.
Just read it and delete it.
You represent no one's warped philosophy but your own.
It is shared by no one.
1. Don't ever stick your polluted opinions into our world ever again.
2. Make no more entries on the blog.
3. Don't ever send me Catholic Literature again.
Do this:
1. DIVORCE your lame dick husband.
2. Enter a convent where you won't harm anyone.
3. Chalk up your 30 year adventure with "family" as a failure, and try to forget the fact that you ever had children.
I have long believed, and still do today, that you and your FIRST lame dick husband should never, never, never, have been permitted to breed.
I don't know what you pray for, but what I pray for is that some day
(SOON) you will realize that your existence is damaging to your offspring's lives, and decide to respect them enough to let them be.
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