Consumption and Nationalization: Death Knell of the American Lifestyle

Two former Wall Street titans, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have made it through the first waves of the Great Depression: Act Two, still alive and sailing under their own steam... until now. As of this morning, it appears that the last remaining independent investment banks in the Unites States will receive cash injections from the American government as part of Hank Paulson’s plan to buy stakes in financial institutions.

This news comes at the same time that Paulson, Bernanke, Bush and Co. are telling us that they misspoke and misstepped, and incorrectly targeted the the plan to ease America off its addiction to consumption and credit. Whether they are right or wrong is almost irrelevant now, considering the ever-expanding length and width of our collective global fiscal withdrawal pains. What is relevant is the fact that the geniuses who shoved the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 down our throats so quickly are already changing the the rule of law from the back door, without the unwanted encumbrances of the House of Representatives, because the result could have been better.

The hell, you say.

My stomach is in knots for so many reasons this morning, but two main reasons are dominant:

1. we had time, after all, to consider the myriad ideas that emerged in opposition to the one we had to pass or we'd all be under Marshal Law by Tuesday, and


2. the reason this horrible bill was ramrodded through Congress was to obtain the buy-in necessary to change the action items of the horrible bill into something so terrible it would never have obtained congressional approval no matter whose ass was on fire or how many thousands of points the Dow(n) was going to drop.

I don't know what style of government is running the US anymore; we certainly no longer live in a Democratic Republic because decisions are coming from the top down instead of from the bottom up. While we're pondering that, we also need to figure out what to call the economic system that's been adopted for us.

Whatever we call it, we can't call it capitalism anymore.

WASHINGTON — As international leaders gathered here on Saturday to grapple with the global financial crisis, the Bush administration embarked on an overhaul of its own strategy for rescuing the foundering financial system.

Two weeks after persuading Congress to let it spend $700 billion to buy distressed securities tied to mortgages, the Bush administration has put that idea aside in favor of a new approach that would have the government inject capital directly into the nation’s banks — in effect, partially nationalizing the industry.

I yield the floor to the gentleman from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/business/12imf.html?th&emc=th

How much of this can Americans stand?

Where is the outrage?