Through the looking glass

The American public has pulled an Alice and stepped through the looking glass into an upside-down world of morality and justice. Unaware, and insidiously we have accepted, and rewarded, criminal behavior if it is of grand scale, while continuing draconian punishment of criminals if their offense is of minor scope, affecting only a few.

Examples: AIG , Merrill, Goldman Sachs, Countrywide Bank, etc. The financial whiz kids at those firms devised financial instruments based on inflated valuations, false appraisals, and in complete avoidance of sound risk management principles. These were marketed to investors, banks, pension funds, foundations, etc,
without recourse. The purchasers were induced by AIG, which sold them Credit Default
Swaps. Those guaranteed face value reimbursement if the investment lost value, usually as a result of default by the borrowers.

For reasons already known, the investments lost most of their value, damaging the capital structures of the banks which had purchased huge amounts, exposing AIG to claims far beyond their capacity to pay. Failure to pay the claims could result in bankruptcies and collapse of the entire banking and credit structure of the nation.

The whiz kids who designed and marketed those toxic assets and credit default swaps should be punished for the fraud they committed and the enormous losses they caused. RIGHT? Almost half the world's paper wealth has disappeared. Instead they have received enormous bonuses as an inducement to stick around and unravel the chaos they caused and identify the co-conspirators (so they can receive bonuses?)
and victims, before they take off for a luxurious European vacation. But a poor, laid off worker, who in desperation snatches a purse or sells a joint, faces 10 or more years in prison.

The moral is "if you are a big enough scoundrel and thief you will be rewarded beyond your dreams. Just don't be small scale in your plundering."

A doleful anniversary

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war, a day on which the U.S. abandoned
all reason and went to war to break Iraq as it was, and make it over into a western style Jeffersonian democracy. We now own it and are stuck with it. We now recognize our illusions and are groping to salvage a trace of positive outcome in a morass of conflicting interests among the Iraqui ethnicities.

We forgot the lessons of all wars. War STINKS. It makes heroes out of kids by tearing their bodies to shreds, and depriving them of their future, and the future they could give to their families, community, and nation. It turns them into legal killers and dulls their souls against the horrors around them so they are forever
scarred in body and mind. And for what? Are there any winners in war? Certainly not humankind, or the dead and maimed,the children deprived of fathers and mothers, parents deprived of a son or daughter, wives and husbands left bereaved and devastated. Yes, there are victors, but no winners. We honor the heroes, but the fact that we do so testifies to our failure of statecraft, and as "intelligent" creatures. Victory is never worth the noble lives it took to gain it!

And now, on to AFGHANISTAN where we once again
forget the lesson of war to our peril.

The more things change.........

As a tireless worker and supporter of the Obama campaign I expected that he, unlike all the previous candidates elected, would keep his campaign promises to change the way Washington does business, and to eliminate pork from the bloated federal budget.
I saw him as the outsider, a knight in shining armor, mounted on a white charger, slaying the dragon of corruption in congress.
By accepting a congressional budget containing an estimated $7.7 billion in pork, he has turned from knight to page, mounted on a donkey, carrying the baggage of the corrupt congress. His justification for the turnabout is that he has to bribe congress so that his next huge bailout request will get a favorable reception.
That is a delusion. Having successfully rolled the President this time, when the next bailout bill comes to them, congress will demand another bribe in the form of even more pork.
In this case even the appearance didn't change.
I believe that the President underestimates the support the majority of our citizens would give him for a firm position on a pork free budget. The $7.7b would save a lot of homes from foreclosure, repair a great many run down schools, raise teacher salaries, reduce class sizes in the early school years, and perform many other tasks which are vital to our economic recovery.
With sadness I contemplate ending my support of the President.