Retraining the ‘Beast’: the latest manifestation of deregulation has diverted US assets

In looking at the latest pronouncements of salvation for Wall Street and congressional sanctification of the three quarters of a trillion dollar or more open-ended bailout, I just keep coming back to Ronnie Raygun and his ‘starve the beast’, kill big government philosophy.

All told, I think we are forgetting ole Ronnie Raygun and his “starve the beast” policy when it comes to sabotaging “Big Government”. If one creates a “crisis on Wall Street” (something many non-bought-off economists have been predicting for years) and divert the nation’s resources from Main Street and “the projects” to Wall Street, “the Beast” has essentially been tamed and redirected to sustain investment bankers instead of the nation’s poor and elderly.

Retirees on the edge, retirement investments crashing, bail out bill passes despite questions, welcome to the Brave New World of diverted assets and redirected federal dollars.

Around the nation, people continue to feel the terrible effects of a tanking economy. The world’s largest economy is crashing, thanks to the greed of Wall Street and a complacent, complicit Congress, which allowed deregulation, financial piracy and larceny to run rampant. Now the birds have come home to roost—or should we say the vultures have landed, ready to gorge themselves on a taxpayer funded bail out, which some say is only throwing good money after bad, temporarily forestalling the inevitable.

Hot off the wires, comes news that Republicans and Democrats in Congress have agreed to a Wall Street bail out “in principle”. A leading senator says he expects the bill to pass, according to newswires.

According to the Associated Press, Sen. Bob Bennett, a Utah Republican, told reporters: "I now expect that we will indeed hvae (sic) a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate (and) be signed by the president." Dodd is a Connecticut Democrat who heads the Senate Banking Committee.

Now, Congress and the President are going hand in hand on a bail out that nationalizes Wall Street debt and privatizes profit. But, only for the fat cats and unindicted criminals who continue to infest, infect and afflict Wall Street and our financial institutions.

Many say the cancerous debt which many Wall Street investment houses have allegedly been hiding and playing shell games with is so massive, that even a $700 or $800 bail out is but a drop in the bucket when it comes to shoring up the holes caused by more than an alleged trillion dollars worth of bad debt, uncollectible mortgages, and financial fall out in this latest version of “financial dominoes” .

Housing starts have dropped more than , For years, Americans have been told to set up their own retirement plans, 401k’s, and be prepared to exist off the perhaps soon to be extinct Social Security grid. Unfortunately, that has not come to pass, as the value of retirement investments, which many retirees planned years ago, have dropped like rocks, depleting and diminishing retirement funds.

Mary O’Connell, 76, and her husband, S. F., 78, of St. Peters, Mo., retired without pensions and with meager benefits from Social Security, counting on income from four stocks. But the bulk of the stock was in Bank of America, whose stock has dropped by nearly a third since the start of the year, including 10 percent last week. “It’s been horrible,” Ms. O’Connell said. (AP)

Mrs. O’Connell says they can’t cash in the stocks, because the value has dropped so dramatically that it wouldn’t be worth the effort. The O’Connells are not alone.

Millions of Americans are sitting on the edge of an abyss, as the value of their retirement portfolios drops like a rock, leaving them bereft of a great deal of their investment value. The middle class, particularly the middle class elderly retired in this country are seeing years worth of investment, hard work and financial security fade before their very eyes.

And, through it all, as they see their half a million retirement funds dwindle to pennies, and contemplate years of slinging burgers at poorly run fast food restaurants to make up the difference, the telly announces that Congress and the President have come up with a zillion dollar plan to bail out the Wall Street bigwigs who launched this economic turd missile.

One wonders why folk aren’t foaming at the mouth, protesting in the streets, screaming on talk radio. Well, I got me an anwer.

I think it’s tranquilizers.

What else could it be but tranquilizers in the water or air, or some sort of subliminal message beamed out over millions of televisions, soothing the savage beast?

How else can you explain the relative “I’m fine with the Universe” atmosphere, which seems to have anesthetized this nation? How else does one explain the veritable nonchalance that the nation is taking news of what could be a meltdown of all that we hold dear—our bank accounts, investments, retirement funds and pensions?

Our home values have dropped so far, that many Americans now owe more on the mortgage than their homes are worth. And the federal government just came out with more statistics today, noting fewer housing starts.

Where are our leaders? I mean, real leaders, who do more than whine, hold emasculated “hearings” and generate reports fit only for use as substitute toilet paper?

We need a hero. Oh, well………………Better start looking in the mirror on that issue.

That said. What is it going to take to be your own hero in this mess? What do most of us have to do to prepare for economic catastrophe?

Some have suggested a return to the barter system—that’s nice, providing you have something to barter.

What do we have that we could trade for the “necessities”? And, in a catastrophic world, what exactly are those necessities—food, clothing, shelter, what?

Right now, at this very moment, Americans are more vulnerable than we have ever been. Most of us have long since lost or purposely shuttered ages old survival skills as, “old fashioned”, “ghetto”, “country” and the like.

We just had a major storm in my part of the country. Hundreds of trees are down. At least one city park was closed because of downed trees. And, what is happening?
Well, hoards of tree trimmers, saw blade artists and tree totin’ trucks have descended on neighborhoods, cutting, chopping, chipping and hauling what could become a very valuable commodity in the months to come. Unfortunately, nobody is thinking along those lines, because we have been trained to manicure our lawns, board over and close fireplaces, and live like there’s no tomorrow when it comes to using our must have central air.

Things which could stave off cold houses and chill are casually discarded, as we continue our lifestyle of leisure, lunacy and excess. We’ve lived on the edge of bankruptcy for years, both as individuals and as a nation. The only thing supporting our profligate ways has been the faith of the rest of the planet in the value of the US dollar and the strength of our economy.

Well, if the Fat Cats on Wall Street have bailed, putting billions in off shore accounts, what makes us think foreigners will continue to support our unsustainable spending?

Perhaps the clueless and empty headed will salute this microscopic ‘bail out’, but the spit has yet to hit the fan. With the rise in joblessness, the shuttering of even more businesses, and Congress bending over for a few corncobs from Wall Street, the man or woman in the street is getting more vulnerable by the moment.

And, as I have said before, the real bad news hasn’t cracked us upside the head yet. More than two million mortgages will drastically increase, as adjustable rates rise in 2009. More unemployment means people with ANY kind of mortgage will find it increasingly more difficult to pay their bills, and even worse, those who have “traditional mortgages” are seeing the value of their homes drop so drastically, that their home is worth less than the mortgage on it.

When millions of homeowners can’t pay their mortgages in the 2009 adjustment of interest in those Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs), when more businesses shut down, cut back, and retrench, we will see more sectors of the economy crash, taking down others like falling dominoes in a tidal wave.

The elderly, many of whom followed the rules and invested, planned for their retirement are now seeing the value of their retirement funds drop like a rock. The middle class, the sustainers of the economy are getting laid off, fired, and thrown away. Whereas in the past, they supported food banks, now many of those who used to give to food banks are standing in line for assistance from those food banks.

And the poor, many of whom depend on ‘safety net programs’, have seen bad times, but the worse may yet to come. With all of the federal dollars going to support two wars and the biggest bailout in US history, how much is going to be left over for the most vulnerable among us?

How many people will suffer because their “guaranteed income” is no longer a guaranteed amount?

We have just seen the tip of the iceberg here. Most of the reporters have been focusing on the devastation on Wall Street. Few are talking about Main Street and the catastrophic drop in income waiting in the wings.