Country Joe MacDonald basically summed it up in his “I feel like I’m fixin’ to die rag” from the last quagmire:

Come on wall street don’t be slow
why man this war is a go-go
there’s plenty good money to be made by
supplying the army with the tools of its trade
let’s hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
they drop it on the Viet Cong

Mr turncoat, Alan Greenspan, has turned coat on his masters!!!! Well actually, I think he is of the Rockerfella school, so that would make him a closet Democrat, so perhaps this is no great surprise.

My mum came out here recently (hence I have not been posting). Per chance on the picturesque ferry ride to Manly beach I was quized about some of the local islands in view by a lady sitting beside me. She kept on using “we” when she was clearly on her own. Is this an American tradition. It turned out she was an Alabameran….er, or someone from Alabama. Or rather, let’s get this right, someone who had moved to Alabama from New York.

Of course [with APEC.....or is that OPEC] I asked if she had come here to avoid Bush (it was the day after he left Australia). With that she launched into a verbose tirade (devoid of substance or anything even remotely factual) on how the huge majority were absolute supporters of Bush and we were witnessing a, brace yourselves, media conspiracy hell bent on the downfall of the great man.

I responeded with a simple question “Why [do people support Bush]?”

To wit….I was greated with silence. Clearly she was not an unintelligent woman, even though she did have a preoccupation with shopping at Wallmart (or K-mart, Target…here) - places I cross as I walk by. My concern was her intrenched denial, her absolute unreasoned refusal to contemplate, devoid of compassion, swelling hatred in some kind of sinister, surrogate attempt to deitise everything patriotic. That is my concern with America and the World.

Let us hope her passion for hatred is not infectious.

I’m no Greenspan fan, but every bit helps. And the ‘assumption’ everyone knows this smacks it to anyone with their head still in the sand.

Bet his Christmas invite to the WH will be mislaid, lost, or missent this year.

Al Jazeera in English had an excellent piece today about yet another threat to Israel. It’s the Greek Church in Jerusalem. The Greek Church reports that the Israelis are trying to make Jerusalem all Jewish. So the Greek Orthodoxi, headed by a charasmatic priest who speaks Greek and Arabic, along with Palestinian Christians AND Muslims are going to form their own combined religion in Jerusalem. Together, these combined groups will outnumber the Jews in Jerusalem. The Greek church isn’t about to step aside for the Jews. The Greeks were there first, actually before and during the time of the Romans. The Palestinians are also descended from Greeks and Romans. Al Jazeera coverage in English is excellent!

GB

”Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 — it’s the threat against Israel,” Zelikow told a crowd at the University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002, speaking on a panel of foreign policy experts assessing the impact of 9/11 and the future of the war on the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation.

”And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell,” said Zelikow.
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23083

Not to mention the estimated million plus Iraqis who would have been alive today but for your efforts.

Those of us of the Lower Orders know, of course, that it’s our duty to go and die so that Brent, Trent and Chad can take their proper places at First Boston and UBS Warburg upon graduation without the inconvenience of national service.

My offspring have already been, the stepson to Afghanistan twice and my daughter, career military, still East of Greenwich. The stepson doesn’t believe, pursuant to his Asian Excursions, that any patch of earth outside North America is worth US blood - an interesting viewpoint for an immigrant who enlisted on 9/15/2001 and took a 65% pay cut for his trouble.

Female Offspring (Phi Beta Kappa, BS EE) has too much rank to speak out, but it appears that Even Full Commanders Get The Blues.

Me, I’ve made three round trips from CONUS to the Gulf hauling rolling stock since ‘03, and was busy as a beaver filling up the POL tanks preparatory to the Invasion’s start. And, of course, a couple of seasons in the Southeast Asia Conference a while back.

For the money we’ve pissed away on this fiasco, we could have vaccinated a millions of kids, built boocoo hospitals, and cranked out some very nice wind farms.

And hell will freeze over before my kids would go either, but I care a great deal about all those killed in this war, Iraq and American.

Are the Banks In Trouble? by Mike Whitney

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18335.htm

If you don’t have time to read the whole article here is a revealing few paragraphs..

So, who’s to blame? The finger-pointing has already begun and more and more people are beginning to see how this massive economy-busting equity bubble originated at the Federal Reserve— it is the logical corollary of former Fed-chief Alan Greenspan’s “easy money” policies.

Economist and author Henry C K Liu sums up Greenspan’s tenure at the Fed in his article “Why the Subprime Bust will Spread”:
“Greenspan presided over the greatest expansion of speculative finance in history, including a trillion-dollar hedge-fund industry, bloated Wall Street-firm balance sheets approaching $2 trillion, a $3.3 trillion repo (repurchase agreement) market, and a global derivatives market with notional values surpassing an unfathomable $220 trillion.

On Greenspan’s 18-year watch, assets of US government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) ballooned 830%, from $346 billion to $2.872 trillion. GSEs are financing entities created by the US Congress to fund subsidized loans to certain groups of borrowers such as middle- and low-income homeowners, farmers and students. Agency mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) surged 670% to $3.55 trillion. Outstanding asset-backed securities (ABSs) exploded from $75 billion to more than $2.7 trillion.”( Henry Liu, “Why the Subprime Bust will Spread”, Asia Times)

“The greatest expansion of speculative finance in history”. That says it all.

But no one makes the case against Greenspan better than Greenspan himself. Here are some of his comments at the Federal Reserve System’s Fourth Annual Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C. April 8, 2005. They show that Greenspan “rubber stamped” every one of the policies which have since metastasized and spread through the entire US economy.

Greenspan: Champion of Subprime loans:

“Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. Such developments are representative of the market responses that have driven the financial services industry throughout the history of our country. With these advance in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers.”

Greenspan: Main Proponent of Toxic CDOs

“The development of a broad-based secondary market for mortgage loans also greatly expanded consumer access to credit. By reducing the risk of making long-term, fixed-rate loans and ensuring liquidity for mortgage lenders, the secondary market helped stimulate widespread competition in the mortgage business. The mortgage-backed security helped create a national and even an international market for mortgages, and market support for a wider variety of home mortgage loan products became commonplace. This led to securitization of a variety of other consumer loan products, such as auto and credit card loans.”

Greenspan: Supporter of Loans to People with Bad Credit

“Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately.

These improvements have led to the rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending…fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers.”

“Improved access to credit for consumers, and especially these more-recent developments, has had significant benefits.

Unquestionably, innovation and deregulation have vastly expanded credit availability to virtually all income classes. Access to credit has enabled families to purchase homes, deal with emergencies, and obtain goods and services. Home ownership is at a record high, and the number of home mortgage loans to low- and moderate-income and minority families has risen rapidly over the past five years. Credit cards and installment loans are also available to the vast majority of households”
Greenspan: Big Fan of “Structural Changes” which increase Consumer Debt

As we reflect on the evolution of consumer credit in the United States, we must conclude that innovation and structural change in the financial services industry have been critical in providing expanded access to credit for the vast majority of consumers, including those of limited means. Without these forces, it would have been impossible for lower-income consumers to have the degree of access to credit markets that they now have.

This fact underscores the importance of our roles as policymakers, researchers, bankers, and consumer advocates in fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers.” (Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan; Federal Reserve System’s Fourth Annual Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C. April 8, 2005
Greenspan’s own words are the most powerful indictment against him. They show that he played a central role in our impending disaster. The effort on the part of media pundits, talking heads, and so-called experts to foist the blame on the rating agencies, predatory lenders or gullible mortgage applicants (who may have lied on their loans) misses the point entirely. The problems began at the Federal Reserve and that’s where the responsibility lies.

Alan Who..??

Thanks Ray..great article…