I happen to have some gas but apparently no one else can get any. All the gas stations up here in the mountains are out. I won't despair...even though I am heading home tomorrow. If I can't get gas I will just stay somewhere and wait.
Does anyone out there realize how bad the economy is? The financial world is collapsing and everyone is focusing on stupid stuff: gas, the premiere of "Dancing with the Stars", the destruction of Yankee Stadium, the Emmys, etc. Where are people's priorities?
I was listening to NPR talking about the massive bail-out. We are using taxpayer money to bail-out the financial institutions stuck with the bad debts of taxpayers -- the same institutions that knew full well they were buying bad paper and they also knew that mortgage brokers were getting incentives/kickbacks to sell taxpayers risky loans on homes they couldn't afford. So the poor Joe's out there, who were suckered into bad loans, are being foreclosed on and are not getting bailed-out, no, they instead are getting screwed twice! They are still on the hook for the debt (the lender will sell the house for peanuts, and in most states, can go after the foreclosed victim for the difference) and to add insult to injury: these people have to pay taxes to bail-out the institutions that helped screw them. Lousy day.
4 comments:
I agree with u 100 percent and that no one seems to care or see thru the media is just amazing. I mean its amazing to me that the taxpayers are not even buying failed strip malls or condos like during the savings & loan crisis but notes/paper that exist only in fiction of bank/investment firms/insurance companies accounts. The government is really getting nothing but the scams of ivy league trained con-men. Imagine what kind of better society we could have build for this kind of money and instead we are giving it to the people who need it the least and gave us the social/political/economic problems that we needed to solve in the first place. That they are creating the "market" downturn to hold the people of this county hostage and force their bailout is just amazing. Maybe the people should strike if capital wants a strike. Really, this is like classic naked 19 C capitalism without the radical left. Capital wins and everybody else (homeowners, retirees, working people, etc.) loose. This is a perfect opportunity to
a)nationalize the health insurers
b)force the speculators to pay a new tax to pay for their own bailout
c)re-think the whole real estate speculation economy model
d)squeaze Wall Street's political power
e)reform labor laws to reduce the huge levels of inequality that these financial transactions help create.
Instead we are getting a reverse New Deal during this Depression, where only the rich get bailed out and the poor/workers must foot the bill, wow...
Genius, gas is not a frivolous concern.
It's our bum luck, which maybe we deserve, that the worst financial crisis in our history arrives in tandem with Peak Oil, and that, moreover, the peaking of our domestic supplies in 1970 helped set us up for this debacle, in that our manufacturing economy died as we lost our own home oil supplies, and so we replaced a productive economy with one based on Ponzi-styled finance... which can only end just the way it is playing out right now.
We are probably now past the global peak of oil production, for Deffeyes and Simmons have pegged the peak in 2005. This has the most dire implications for our chances at recovering from this debacle anytime soon, or ever for that matter. For as people are losing jobs, incomes, and borrowing power, the outlets of recovery are being closed off by the northward spiral of fuel prices, which is cascading throug every sector of the economy.
I consider Peak Oil to be vastly more serious than even the current financial disaster, in terms of destruction that will be wrought on us in terms of opportunity, standard of living, day-to-day comfort, and even things like reliably pure municipal water supplies, essential medicines necessary to combat common infectious diseases, and our basic food supply.
During that same NPR program a caller said the financial sector should be made to wear "financial ankle bracelets". In other words, track their every move so we don't EVER get in this mess again.
The caller went on to suggest we would be better off paying everyone's mortgage rather than bailing out wallstreet. What a stimulus package that would be!
What I meant was, they were so focused on getting gas, they weren't even aware that their 401K's were in jeopardy. Yes, North Coast, gas is not small potatoes but personal gas is certainly less important than personal fortunes. It was amazing to me that I went through the radio dial on AM and FM and could not find the hearings on the bailout being broadcast. There were a lot of fire and brimstone radio shows on the air in North Carolina.
What I ask is:
Why are priorities warped?
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