The New – New World Order
Suddenly the United States is becoming a socialized capitalist consumer society.
We are entering a new and unsettling phase in the relationship between government and business, one that neither sector particularly wants but cannot avoid. One result is that the line between public and private interests increasingly is being blurred so much as to become unrecognizable.
Nowhere is that more obvious that at Fannie and Freddie, two massive enterprises that combined their government-sponsored creation and backing with publicly traded stock. Fannie and Freddie were perfect fodder for the sort of mischief that privatizes gains while socializing losses.
That’s what happened at Freddie and Fannie, which used their below-market cost of credit as much to reward shareholders as to fulfill their mission in providing secondary market liquidity to encourage homeownership. Meanwhile, the companies effectively lobbied Congress to keep their capital requirements lower than they should have been.
The federal takeover of Fannie and Freddie, which combined own or guarantee roughly half of the nation’s $11 trillion in mortgages, marks the biggest government intervention in financial markets in decades — arguably since the Great Depression. The ultimate cost of bailing out Freddie and Fannie alone could easily top the roughly $125 billion spent in the late 1980s and early 1990s seizing failed savings and loans and selling off their assets.
You may ask, Is it time to murder my neighbor and steal his canned goods?
That’s probably a little premature, unless he’s wondering the same thing, and is planning on murdering you. In that case you’re probably justified in murdering him a little bit, or at least sleeping in the nook behind your bedroom door with a loaded crossbow cradled in your lap. (stolen from Cracked.com)
China has apparently been issued the first foreign oil contracts in post war Iraq. Isn’t that surprising given that the United States has spent trillions there? Not surprising when you consider that China is now the first world power on the planet.
On August 23, Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani flew out of Iraq and headed for China. Five days later, he signed a $3b contract with the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). The agreement revived an earlier deal signed in 1997 for the development of the Ahdab field, located 160 kilometres southeast of Baghdad.
Contrary to post-invasion predictions, the first foreign contract for the development of an Iraqi oil field has not gone to a western oil major. In fact, the deal with a Chinese company has signalled that Iraq might have begun to strongly resist western oil interests, seeking a free run over its mammoth energy resources. The jury is now out on whether the deal with China will set a precedent that will derail the American oil project in Iraq.
And apparently, the end of the world has been put on hold until a transformer is repaired…of course, as I mentioned before, it will not be a sudden and violent end, it is more an end to the empirical and rationalist world views of the enlightenment.
Here is a question for you, who do you think lost more
1) the folks that were primary stockholders in mortgage banks that allowed predatory lending practices to drive the value of their stocks artificially high or
2) these folks in Wai’anae
Popularity: 1% [?]
Related Posts
