L-R: Henry “Goldman Sachs” Paulson, George Bush Jr. and “Helicopter” Ben Bernanke have the American economy well in hand!
March 18, 2008 – Lugano (apj.us) – There I was yesterday, sitting on my bed here in Italy at 2 PM New York time yesterday, with my two giant schnauzers. We were watching our idiot President. The schnauzers were growling.
Mr. Bush was deliberately wearing a Reaganesque brown suit and tie so we will all feel reassured. He told us that he has his eye on the financial ball and then, get this, thanked Secretary of the Treasury Paulson profusely for actually working this past weekend to avoid a depression… pardon me, a recession.
The mainstream media, eager to show this economic calamity as exciting, mentioned often that bankers, ministers, and tycoons were sitting up all night and actually using that newfangled thing called a “teleconference” to communicate nonstop about how they could rob us blind… excuse me, save their silk-covered asses.
Many of us are yet under the "recession impression" and believe that what's is really going on around the world. A giant monetary enema bag with its tube stuck in Wall Street will be fixed in place by "D" student George Bush, whose grandfather was most (in-) famous sixty years ago when his own investment bank assets were seized by the United States government because he and the Harrimans were laundering money for Germany's Nazi Regime while their friends the Farishes were engaged in similar monkey business with the Third Reich while our parents and grandparents were dying on the front lines of western Europe and the Pacific.
The Farishes and Bushes are still together, and now that Bush has teamed up with Henry Paulson – certainly to be trusted because, after all, he is a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, yet another investment bank – and "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke, everything will be fine.
Federal Reserve Chairman and saxophone player Bernanke believes that he can fight deflation as well by simply printing more money and “dropping it by helicopter” over the New York Stock Exchange as once suggested by economist Milton Friedman.
Well, at least he does what he promises.
After watching Mr. Paulson being grilled by dimwit celebrity “journamalist” Wolf Blitzer this past weekend, I knew we were in full-size trouble. Paulson was unable to reply even to a single one of “The Beard’s” softball question with a straight answer. He had decided, and actually said, that the immorality of lending taxpayer money to rescue a high-flying low-judgment investment bank (a fancy term for stock tout) was less important than stabilizing our financial system. He termed it avoiding a “moral hazard” by bailing out “errant institutions.”
What he meant was that doing something sleazy so we could all keep living in a criminal dream world, something similar to that which Bear Stearns established so well, is just fine.
The next thing I know, CNN and the BBC reported that JP Morgan Chase had purchased ill-reputed (and today nearly worthless) Bear Stearns in the dead of night for the bargain price of two bucks a share – or less than the value of Bear Stearns' high-rise office building in New York! At the same time, I learned that Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve have loaned JP Morgan around $30 billion to enable them to do it!
You mean, JP Morgan couldn’t afford to buy Bear Stearns on its own? Is this the Twilight Zone?
Bear Stearns' former claim to fame was that it was run by a mortgage investment cowboy named Jim Cayne who lives in a Disney Fantasyland best evidenced by his statement that he believed Bear Stearns was worth four times its book value – a bizarre thought then, a terrifying one today. Bear Stearns' supplementary big wheel, Allan Greenberg, is risibly also a practicing magician.
I suppose these two pillars of society thought sleight of hand would cover their tracks. At least one thing is true – they did have nothing up their sleeves.
Mr. Paulson – who, Praise God, must have been working up a torrential sweat over the weekend for his President by lowering interest rates for his buddies at the banks, but not for you, and by another full one percent – will most likely toast Mr. Bernanke at Le Cirque today when the Fed Chairman lowers interest rates yet again and makes the dollar worth a rupee in the twirl of a turban.
A second toast at Le Grenouille for Bernanke will surely come to pass this evening for his “honor scout” action of pumping our tax money into those “trustworthy” brokerages for the first time since the Great Depression.
Thus far the every average American family of four has loaned these Three-in-One-Combo Burger banks, investment banks, and brokerages – nearly $4-5,000 in income tax money which you have not even paid yet. That does not include the 160 million “rebate checks” Mr. Bush is writing and sending you this month, each valued at some $600 to $750 per taxpayer – money which you will pay back, with interest, in income tax hikes next year.
Keep in mind that this money is not going to you. It's going to go to the American companies whose American products you must buy. Remember, you're supposed to spend it, not sock it away under the mattress. If you do hide it, the next thing we know Sears will be forced to sell its products somewhere else!
Hillary Clinton may have put it best yesterday:
There certainly are.
Jeff Koopersmith is a political consultant, opinion research authority, policy analyst, and self-described "renegade lobbyist." He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.