http://news.goldseek.com/bullnotbull/1174066033.php<snip>
The point here is that when (not if) Financial Armageddon is upon us, don't expect much more from your government than denials of culpability and a shirking of responsibility. Perhaps something like: "I don't think anyone could have foreseen a dollar crash," or "I don't think anyone had any idea that the nation's retirement system was bankrupt," might do. But considering the kind of appointees sitting on the Board the Federal Reserve these days, such denials may in fact even be true! (Kevin Warsh (Kevin who?), the latest appointee to the Federal Reserve Board is a 35 year old complete unknown among economists--even among the economists who have populated the Bush administration. The only qualification that jumps out at you is the $165,000-plus his father-in-law (the son of Estee Lauder) has donated to various Republican committees since 2002.)
This is how our government apparently functions these days - its all just politics. When disaster strikes, your best bet is to assume that you'll be on your own. So it was with Katrina. The first responders were overwhelmingly average citizens, stepping up to the plate, neighbors risking their own lives to rescue and assist neighbors. Lee interviews many of them, including Sean Penn. I don't know what he was doing down there - it wasn't explained - but he was out there in a boat day and night, along with other Samaritans, trying to help as many people as they could. That is how it had to be, since the Federal government didn't show up in New Orleans until five days after the storm, in spite of all their grandiose promises. The Royal Canadian Mounted police were in New Orleans offering help before the Feds and the National Guard ever arrived. Where was the rest of the government? Bush was vacationing on his ranch in Texas; Cheney was off somewhere fly fishing; Michael Chertoff was in Atlanta at an unrelated conference and Condoleeza Rice was shoe shopping in New York.
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