Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

I guess I mean "early 1929-era"-style events. Not Depression-era.

Maybe a good dose of socialized banking can fix the credit markets.
 

Isn't it amazing how, if you elect a bunch of people who believe that government can't do anything right...lo and behold, the government can't do anything right?

grumble. Can we survive another 300-some days with this leadership?
 

All I know is that conservatives hate government, generally, so, unless they perceive it as acting in the national defense, whatever they do with the government, they do half-assed. Generally.

The Fed almost nationalized Bear Stearns -- as an act of national defense, as far as I'm concerned. Rock on.

The fact that the shortsighted on Wall Street got the financial markets in this mess does not mean they shouldn't be "saved" -- because the usual roundup of everyday saps and the plain unlucky also will be saved. IF they do what needsw to be done whole hog and not half-assed.


TO the talking head chick I just heard on CNBC complaining that she expects to see a hammer and sickle put on the flag:

Shut the hell up.

(I didn't mean "socialized banking" as a negative.) :-)
 

LOL. I just heard this described as something less than a rescue -- "not Dudley Dooright rescuing Nell from the tracks and taking hert to dinner."


As I said. Half-assed measures will only prolong this.
 

There is what amounts to a run on an investment bank, and Bush comes out today and says, "The markets are still operating." As if that sentence means anything. This isn't some psychological thing we're going through; things are falling apart, the center isn't holding, and while anarchy isn't being unleashed and some rough beast is not slouching towards Bethlehem (at least, I don't believe that to be the case) we do face some rough times ahead.

I actually believe that conservatives don't buy that "government doesn't do anything right" crap - why would they want to spy on us, demand telecom companies give them unfettered access to our phone records and our actual conversations, demand unchecked domestic police powers, if they believed that? No, that is what is known as a post hoc justification for simple dumb-fuckery (excuse my mangled bad language), especially in light of Katrina and all that.

It might be necessary to remind ourselves, once again, that the Depression-era regulations existed not because the Democrats were and are a bunch of closet Marxists, but because unregulated financial markets tend to behave in ways that undermine the stability of financial markets; banks that diversify (like CitiGroup, with its insurance and investment arms) take actions that leave them less liquid and more open to disaster than a traditional bank; that corporations might just act in ways that are criminal, and such criminal acts might undermine the entire financial sector. Regulation exists to save these institutions from their own worst instincts. Yes, they do reduce revenue over the long term, but they also keep things moving along without general collapse.

It's sad that my children will tell their children about "the Depression", like my parents told me. It took us seventy years to forget that capitalism can fail, and needs to be saved.
 

Gasoline prices might finally end this dance, but Oklahoma historically is at opdds with the rest of the country as a whole, economically.

Early '30s, there was a skyscraper race between an oil man and a bank in downtown OKC.

in the '70s, '80s, oil-and-gas has Oklahoma City sittin' prettier than the rest of the country.

I'm hoping that since we sat out a tune or two, we won't follow the current energy boom with a crash. We missed the dot-com boom, and we missed the credit-housing bubble. In any case, we're gonna ride this one as long as it lasts, and keep our fingers crossed that gas doesn't go over $4 a gallon.
 

Oh, hey. Bubba is keeping the "Neil shows ass" post stoked. I don't think he'll let go 'til it thunders! :-)
 

Oh, and if the GOP doesn't hate government per se, then it must hate to sue it to help everyday people. But that's not news.
 

Ugh...Markets tank, then the Shrub comes out of his hole and predicts only 6 more weeks of winter, and the markets tank worse.

Can someone just nail the Oval Office door shut for the next 8 months?

"Bubba is keeping the "Neil shows ass" post stoked..."

Heh. Too many jokes there...

On the plus side, I have to admit, that insane little fuss-pot, busy-body, church-lady temper tantrum of Neil's drove my site stats up nicely. LOL Alas, I now have a bunch of disappointed folks stopping by my blog lookin' for some man-candy, and all I write about is LOST and my cats.
 

I, like most people in America, grew up being specifically taught that the Great Depression could never happen again, due to the regulatory structure put in place right afterward.

And when we were so busily dismantling same structure in the '80's and '90's, very few people mentioned it, and they were pretty much ignored.

When our economy has done well in the past, a lot of the time it's been due to fevered investment in things that didn't, per se, exist, (see the dot-com bubble)and this time it was people being told that you can mortgage anything indefinitely.

Real estate was supposed to be the only concrete, relatively safe investment out there, now that's gone too. I can't think of any fictional things to get people excited about investing in, and gold is only going to have worth to people who say that shiny rocks have worth. That market's looking to collapse, too.

Therefore, I recommend opium as the international currency. You only need to carry a little: it'll be worth a lot...I'm not sure if I'm joking.
 

Alan,

" LOL Alas, I now have a bunch of disappointed folks stopping by my blog lookin' for some man-candy, and all I write about is LOST and my cats."

But on the upside, we know that Neils' description of the action at your blog was so titillating that he can always find a way to make a living in writing gay romance fiction...under a psudonym of course.
 

I would invest in opium.