|
Shhh listen, do you hear it? The rhetoric over Iran has grown quiet. The plans haven’t changed one iota and still move forward. But the public’s negative response to the administrations plans has only forced the U boat to submerge but not to change its course or unload its torpedo tubes.
This week it’s Brother Love’s traveling salvation show and the man with nothing to say travels to Latin America to say it to those who have no desire to hear it. Like the plantation owner of old, after the workweek is over he gathers his slaves around him and reads from his Bible to them. Whether those in bondage want to hear the good news or not, it is important to the master to share God’s love with them if only to show them his own love and compassion.
But the ship of state seems otherwise rudderless and adrift, the firings of federal prosecutors and the attorney Generals head on the block, turmoil in the stock market,
the 1.25 trillion dollar sub prime mortgage crisis threatens the realistic possibility of a complete and total meltdown of the American home building industry. Neighborhoods in Detroit and Denver and Atlanta are beginning to look like Love canal, with thousands of homes abandoned or foreclosed. This cycle exacerbates it self as the sea of empty homes and unkempt lawns bring down the values for the rest of the homes for sale in the area.
Home values have fallen for three months in a row and experts warn this is the end of the beginning not the beginning of the end mortgage crisis. For if the bank lent you $250,000 for a home that is now only valued at $200,000 and in a glutted market they would be lucky to sell it for $150,000 X’s 1.5 million homes. So what’s a Bush administration to do? Juice the market that’s what!
The castle walls aren’t abandoned yet there are still troops on the firing line. Wednesday March 14, I began to watch the stock ticker about 10:30 up around twenty-five points but as the yen appreciated in value the market began to fall, fifty points in twenty minutes. Then came neutral good news gasoline volumes were adequate and GM only lost 14 million dollars in North America and the market starts to rise again. Then drops again a 136 points from the opening and then as if by magic rises again ending the day up over fifty points. The markets in Asia and Europe were all down the yen was up which is supposed to be bad news yet almost inexplicably the Dow Jones average was up. Was there an unreported good news story somewhere? It defies logic; even the talking heads used adjectives such as remarkable and amazing to describe its recovery. I personally prefer the adjective juiced.
Call it paranoia or just a general mistrust but would an administration with no qualms about trashing the constitution lose sleep over juicing the stock market? After all what do banking regulations mean to men who debate what the true definition of torture is. After all Dick Cheney’s investments all moved off shore last year. But the chickens are coming home to roost, a CNBC survey found faith in the economy depends on your income 77% of those with incomes over $100,000 thought the economy was moving in the right direction while only 37% with incomes under $50,000 were in agreement. Ignoring that in the income pyramid there are ten to twenty times as many people in the second group yet both figures are given equal weight in analysis, a simple case of figures don’t lie but liars figure.
When Henry Ford introduced his model A it was hailed as the industrial comeback of the century. Fords market share had steadily eroded as his competitors made improvements and price adjustments to their models. But the model A was going to turn all that around and it was an initial success but within a year Ford’s River Rouge plant would be padlocked. You can’t sell cars to people that don’t have any money The model A had a V8 engine an electric starter and a fuel gauge and millions more would have been sold except you can’t sell cars to people that don’t have any money. The car was innovative for it’s time and a remarkable value but you can’t sell cars to people without money.
The auto industry like the home building industry is cyclical if the economy is strong for three or four years new cars sales will still decline as the pool of those available to buy new cars have already done so. But we have broken the wheel of our economic cycle with the disappearance of good paying middle class jobs the pool of those who could buy or could have bought has dried up and now the economy is backing up. With a possible 1.5 million home foreclosures looming those at the waterline know first when the ship hits the iceberg while those up in the grand saloon are asking, “What was that?” those in steerage are already getting wet.
The sub prime mortgage market grew from 5% to 15% of all mortgages from 2001 to 2006 this wasn’t an accident or a mistake. If they wanted to sell houses they had to make accommodations for declining real wages. “Ok, Mrs. Smith it says here you’re a cashier at Wal- Mart and you make $60,000 a year well that looks good.” Every department and agency pushing the risk onto the back of next department or agency hoping like the bagman in a swindle that they will be long gone before the sucker opens the bag.
The sub prime mortgage market is that iceberg and the passengers have yet to notice that there are not enough lifeboats. Captain Queeg has been using other country’s cash to fuel his warship of state. If the other nations discover the hole in our SS Minnow their funds will disappear faster than a FEMA official in a hurricane. Some in the markets waters will sink some will swim some will just take a bath. Like a recalcitrant child whose been changing F’s to B’s on his report card the day of reckoning is soon at hand.
Those of wealth segregate themselves and I will dispense with meaningless party labels and they have since before the days of Hoover insisted that they have the where with all to run the economy. They live in gated communities and shop at exclusive stores. They belong to private clubs and take vacations to private resorts and thus fully insulate themselves from the generic term of them. This segregation causes them to genuinely believe that there is no connection between us that the US steel industry and auto industry can fail and will have no impact on them. The underlings the steel worker, autoworker or factory worker the untermeschen the great unwashed, you know, them. Those millions of Americans whose jobs have been outsourced or discontinued those Americans whose only crime is the generation of their birth. They will teach us the lesson yet again, that we are one people and that we will rise and fall together that we are all in one boat together and God help us, Gilligan is at the wheel!
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(854 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
