Bank failures, by gimleteye

The photos of bank account holders waiting to withdraw funds from Indymac remind me of airport screening lines. Both admit to powerlessness.

Reuters reports, the Reuters/Zogby Index, which measures the mood of the country, dropped to 88.7 from 90.4. The index fell to near its record low of 87.7, recorded in March. The rating for economic policy suffered the sharpest fall, earning positive marks from just 10 percent of Americans -- down 4 percentage points from June.

Today's news is that consumer prices jumped in June at the fastest rate in 26 years. But most Americans who are not economists or Beltway spin masters know that inflation has been raging for years, far in excess of the stated "official" numbers.

There is something, here, in explaining the controversy of the Obama cartoon on the cover of The New Yorker. Why do so many people feel it is tasteless?

In The Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts writes this morning: "Somewhere between the stained blue dress and the vice president shooting a guy in the face, between swift boat lies and ''war on terra'' alibis, the absurd became the ordinary, facts became optional and satire became superfluous."

But Pitts is off-base. The sting of the Obama cartoon is not the satire, but in a second level of coded threat. The images represent the worst reversal of American power. They become symbols of corrosion: Obama as a Muslim and his wife as Angela Davis, a powerful armed black woman.

Satire is never superfluous

The Onion, "America's Finest News Source", shows how satire works best on a visceral, gut level: "A panel of top business leaders testified before Congress about the worsening recession Monday, demanding the government provide Americans with a new irresponsible and largely illusory economic bubble in which to invest." ("Recession-Plagued Nation Demands New Bubble To Invest In", July 14, 2008)

Now there is effective satire.

The Bush ideologues who arrived in Washington DC on the heels of Bill Clinton, determined to bring their orderly brands, their junior chamber of commerce values, punctuality, loyalty, crisp dress and clean values laid the national economy to waste. One thing is for certain: the US government can't print money around economic woes any more than we can drill our way out of the energy crisis.

In the widely perceived lack of truthfulness about these facts is the real threat to the nation's banking system. Americans don't believe either the Bush White House, Congress or the economic interests that Paulson, Bernanke and Cox represent.

I predict the Democrats will win the White House and Congress in the national elections but wonder whether this inevitable transition of leadership has been wired like an IED.