IMF paying a visit to the USA....

[RadioRaheem84]

The U.S. Treasury says America has now agreed to get a stability assessment from the IMF. The announcement didn't get much attention, but officials at the IMF expect to start examining U.S. finances in the next couple [of] months."


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94617079 (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94617079)

The shit is hitting the fan HARD.

Not even the Asians will touch our failing economy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/business/worldbusiness/18asiainvest.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

Also, why is the US bailing out the companies? Why not pay the debts of the people foreclosing? Wouldn't taking on these companies and nationalizing them be taking on their risks. Now the US government is a giant hedge fund!

[RadioRaheem84]

Why aren't people in the streets rioting? A fucking 700 Billion dollar bailout?!! All this bullshit talk about how Social Security is broken and there is nothing there, but 700 billion is going to bail out some ponzi-scheming crooks!

Why does McCain still have a fucking base?! His top economic advisor Phil Gramm was the prime politician behind the subprime mortage bills in congress, telling the people NOT to regulate the firms.

How did the US allow COMMERCIAL BANKS to acquire INVESTMENT BANKS? Do they not know that this creates an even bigger risk with less oversight?

How come there has been no mention of Private Equity and hedge funds in all this? They're the real enemies in all this.

[DancingLarry]

Why aren't people rioting? It's gotta be the soma. Remember, fellow Bokanovsky Group member, a Gramm is better than a damn. And the elliptical bumble-puppy finals are coming up next month!

[Bilan]

DancingLarry, what are you talking about?

[La Pasionaria]

How is that the financial system can collapse, the global economy teeter on the brink of failure and the capitalism lead to crisis after crisis .....and yet people fail to see the "inherent contradictions" and merely talk of some minute reforms? Is it the Left's fault perhaps that it cannot organize itself sufficiently to counter the capitalist propaganda machine? ...to win this war of ideas? to throw over capitalism even at its weakest?

[Raúl Duke]

DancingLarry, what are you talking about?

He's just making an allusion to a "Brave New World" (a book by aldous huxley).


How is that the financial system can collapse, the global economy teeter on the brink of failure and the capitalism lead to crisis after crisis .....and yet people fail to see the "inherent contradictions" and merely talk of some minute reforms? Is it the Left's fault perhaps that it cannot organize itself sufficiently to counter the capitalist propaganda machine? ...to win this war of ideas? to throw over capitalism even at its weakest?The left may be weak in the U.S....

I think the reason people are talking about minute reforms is due to the upcoming elections (and an overly hyped politician promising "change we can believe in").
Also, sometimes the shit has the hit the fan hard for people to be radicalize (i.e. like an economical depression). Actually, the U.S. (according to some sketchy numbers from the CIA world fact book) doesn't have a text-book recession....yet.... (but Puerto Rico has already, over there we have negative GDP growth. Actually, sometimes I think the bad economic stuff happens in PR first and then spreads over to the U.S., since we were talking about recession for a longer time then the U.S! Yet people aren't rioting or anything over there...but there's a spirit of discontent/cynicism and we don't have any hyped up candidate like the U.S.)

[Bilan]

Yeah, I know that. :tt2:
I meant what does that have to do with anything? :lol:

[Bilan]

How is that the financial system can collapse, the global economy teeter on the brink of failure and the capitalism lead to crisis after crisis .....and yet people fail to see the "inherent contradictions" and merely talk of some minute reforms? Is it the Left's fault perhaps that it cannot organize itself sufficiently to counter the capitalist propaganda machine? ...to win this war of ideas? to throw over capitalism even at its weakest?

Capitalism isn't at its weakest right now, it's declining to that stage. The worrying bit is the state of the Left, and its ability to combat it.

[Raúl Duke]

Yeah, I know that. :tt2:
I meant what does that have to do with anything? :lol:

:tt2:

(Another thing...when I first entered this thread I thought it was going to be another WTO/IMF meeting to crash!)

[DancingLarry]

DancingLarry, what are you talking about?

I was answering RadioRaheem's question as to why there weren't public manifestations of resistance to the whole trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of the Wall Street buccaneers. Granted, I was doing so metaphorically, but my point is that the public has been sufficiently numbed, either literally with medication ("antidepressants" and similar other mood-altering drugs) or the psychic and cognitive equivalents (infotainment, distraction, bread and circuses) as to make public uprising among the American public almost impossible to even imagine.

The final line was a pun, a lame one I admit, playing on the Fordist slogan in BNW, "A gramme is better than a damn" with a reference to Phil Gramm, the author of much of the deregulatory legislation that set the stage for this financial panic.

Is it necessary for me to always write literally on this forum without use of metaphors and allusions?