I disagree about free trade being responsible for the downfall of the US economy. Europe, since the fall of the Iron curtain, has free trade as well with the formerly communist nations of eastern europe who joined the EU, and has generally prospered from this, even though many of these countries have lower wages than the “old” western EU members.

Free trade has not only seen american auto plants move to Mexico but also German auto plants move to the USA (for example BMW in Spartanburg).

The sad shape the US auto industry is in is mainly a result of its focus on big gas-guzzling trucks.

It is nonsense to entitle “free trade” a situation in which the Federal Government is engaged in ever-more-spectacular orgies of borrowing money from abroad.  The chief factor in the US economy is the government, unlike in a free-trade scenario.

Those who favor actual economic freedom can take some solace in the fact that this behavior cannot go on forever.  Soon, the dollar will cease to be the world’s reserve currency, and then the borrowing will become much more expensive.  In the end, the Federal Government’s current behavior will have to stop, whether the debt-besotted American electorate likes it or not.

“Europeans on left and right ridicule U.S. money meltdown,” ran the Los Angeles Times headline. Italy’s finance minister compares us to corruption-ridden Albania, where “a nationwide pyramid scheme cost hundreds of thousands of people their savings and ignited anarchic civil conflict” in the 1990s.”

I hope that nobody expected the Europeans to be sympathetic to our plight. They will be disappointed.
I say, “Don’t bail out the foreign banks...let the Europeans take their lumps. After all, they were dumb enough to buy those bundled mortgages!”

Oh wait! We can’t do that; we’re linked to them with NATO, etc.!
Pehaps, it’s time to call it a day with NATO. It seems to be our burden and their benefit.

Also, let’s get out of Iraq and not make the mistake of continuing in Afghanistan (Now, thats a quaqmire!) Will this be the end of empire? Yep! and not a century too soon!

“To save the sheep who might have been wiped out in a general financial panic, we may have to save the pigs.”
Bad analogy.  Neither the sheep nor the pigs would be slaughtered.  A better analogy would be “to allow the pigs to continue gorging, overeating, rutting, defecating and generally destroying the environment, we are going to sheer the sheep.  In wintertime.  Now, the vast majority of the sheep will survive.  A few marginal ones might freeze to death.  And, sure, they’ll all be weaker next year.  In fact, we’ll probably have to cull some of them next time around, but, for heavens sake, we MUST KEEP THE PARTY GOING FOR THE PIGS.”
Let’s talk sheep vs. pig.  A 90% drop in the value of the average sheep’s 401k --if he even has one, drops him into the five figures range, if not lower.  So what.  He wasn’t going to retire to Hawaii on that anyway.  A similar percentage drop in the retirement package of a master of the universe just brings him back to orbit.  Nice to see you again.  As PB points out, the drop is coming anyway.  Why not sheer the sheep AND corral the pigs right now so we can fix the problem.  Saving the pigs so you can save the sheep is a lie.

Oddly left unmentioned or discussed by either Mr. Buchanan or those commenting are the following:

1. All of this is caused by the sin of Usury. All of it.

2. The privately owned “Federal Reserve”, with its ability to create money out of thin air - See number 1 above.

After letting those two soak in for a moment, revisit St. Augustine’s “Seven Deadly Sins” for further consideration. Perhaps even a read or reread of Pius XI’s “Rerum Novarum” Encyclical and the follow-up by Leo XIII, “Quarraesimo Anno” may prove enlightening.

Then how about Deuteronomy, particularly where it is argued that “The alien among you shall rise above you...”

Have a beautiful day.

At the end of the day, I bet we’ll see a whole lot of US assets ending in foreign hands. This whole mess might be just about that. After sending all blue collar jobs oversees, these financial rats are ready to retire. Their golden parachutes aren’t big enough so let’s get the taxpayer and greedy foreigners to pay for them to leave.

Perhaps this is some financial day of reckoning, where the system that owes all to foreigners must start turning things over to its owners.

I still can’t tell if this is the result of the stupidity and incompetence of our brightest financial minds or their latest stroke of genius/investment that is going to fill their pockets with billions.

The brightest minds always get the rest of us in the biggest trouble.

While there is blame enough to go around, rest assured that this is the capping achievement in a life of reverse triumphs for the serial screw-up who occupies the White House. It used to be that his family bailed him out of the various fixes he jumped into but they happily fobbed him off to the citizenry.

No problem though, while we studiously replicate the 25 year and counting Japanese Deflationary Stagflation Period, McCain will get elected and he will sick Elliot Abrams on the world and the neo-conservatives will finish off what Wall Street Hath Started.

Stand back as a Populist Movement arises and the GOP will complete its transformation into the most blood-sucking force of big government farrago in the history of big government. It may be a fair bet that some Sky God Fascist will take ahold of this witless nation and embark upon a crusade to bump Mao and Stalin from the Mass Murderer Championship throne.

Right now though, we must suffer in silence as one of the most boring campaigns in history proceeds like a Jaycees Mothers Day Parade against the backdrop of a Raging Warf Fire whilst the party barge that left the docks chock full of luxuries limps back a reeking typhoid ship .

Greed did not do this alone, heedless stupidity and reckless patriotism added their own unique frisson of decay. That, and one of the more inane classes of tycoons and politicians since bulbs sold for the price of a years salary in the markets long the Prinsengracht. Great Britain and the Netherlands are better nations since their flirtations with self-love and grandeur...as is France. Perhaps we shall be too. Rest assured though, we will continue to listen to the morons who got us into this fix for longer than we should.

“Amnesty for the Stupid”???!!!

Well, let’s see.  Goldman and the other I-Banks leverage themselves up on risky securities, and for a while they do great.  Thus, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson ends up with his $500M personal fortune.

Then they start to do badly, and get the government to just bail them out, meaning that their remaining ownership stakes are protected against getting wiped out.

Doesn’t sound very *stupid* to me…

On the other hand, if the bailout goes through as proposed, I can think of some *other* people who seem pretty “stupid.”

@ Mr. Sabin

After reading your most prescient analysis of our woeful Zeitgeist, I can only think of
John Larroquette’s line in Stripes: “What we need around here is some ACTION!"(pulls grenade pin.

If as many experts say, the housing meltdown is only at best 50% of its ultimate destiny before market clearing re-establishes itself, then we will have a much bigger call for bail-out next year or so. Folly followed by folly.

Even if temporarily successful, these bail-outs will only postpone and deepen the next crisis. At best, we can hope for only a muddle-through over the next few years and the permanent Europeanization of our economy and life with stagnant growth and relative decline. More likely, long-term cycles indicate that this is the final climax of the West, and the impending end is not pretty.

I take issue with the title of this piece.

There’s plenty of blame to go around, sure, to both borrowers and lenders.

To think that america - and americans- can go on living byond their means forever is nonsense.

However, i’m quite sure the wall street wizards KNEW FULL WELL that there is no alchemy or magic to create wealth out of debt.  They KNEW what they were doing and they’ve long since made off with most of their ill-gotten gains.

Snake oil salesmen all, and this includes Bernanke, Paulson, et al. and all of the craven politicians who are going to roll over (after putting up some token resistance to the banksters) and give them everything they want.

It’s called CUPIDITY, not stupidity.

Talk about adding insult to injury.

Well well well:

we seem to have come full circle, friedmans’ monetarist theories are dead, Keynesian state intervention is in, history has not ended, and the 5* clowns running the show have given the whole circus away!
This is no black swan event, you could have seen it coming when RCA and Zenith were put on a heart lung machine by Sony way back in the early 70’s, when IBM sold its PC business to the Chinese...Pat has seen this coming for perhaps 15 years....
The fact is that the interests of the “globalising” corporations don’t coincide with those of the U.S. “middle class”..
Our economy is now a hollow structure, the events of last week show that the last Ponzy scheme where the “owning” society is discovering that it owns little more than summons to the liquidators office is truly tragic.
We have shown once more how easy it is to believe in delusional ideologies and shove facts under the carpet till they come back as Black Swans…

Every few years we have this conversation, and each time we treat it as if it were something new and unusual, something surprising and alien to the very nature of capitalism. But it is not. Bailouts and other gov’t shenanigans in favor of the rich are part and parcel of capitalism. 3/4ths of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations is devoted to a detailed analysis of the subsidies given to the mercantilists, the older name for capitalists. The history of capitalism is the history of gov’t support for the capitalists, and without gov’t power, there can be no corporate power.

condor: oddly left unmentioned...etc.
I wonder why myself. You think he can’t for some reason?

The imperfection of riches, as has been said, may be observed not only by the fact of their appropriation but also in the danger that accompanies their increment; and since more of their defect may be perceived in the latter, the text makes mention of that alone, saying that for however great they are, they not only do not bring peace, they bring more thirst and make men more defective and less self-sufficient. Here we should understand that defective things may bear their defects in such a way that they do not appear on the surface, but are concealed beneath the guise of perfection; or they may bear them entirely exposed, so that the imperfection is recognized openly on the surface. Those things that do not reveal their defects at first are more dangerous, since we often cannot place ourselves on guard against them, as we see in the instance of a traitor who on the surface shows himself as a friend, so that he compels us to have faith in him, while beneath the guise of friendship he conceals the defect of enmity. In this way riches are dangerously imperfect in their increment, for by subverting what they promise they bring about the very opposite.(46)

These false traitresses always promise to bring complete satisfaction to the person who gathers them in sufficient quantity, and by this promise they lead the human will into the vice of avarice. For this reason Boethius in his book The Consolation of Philosophy calls them dangerous, saying, “Alas! who was it that first unearthed the masses of hidden gold and the gems, those precious perils, which sought to remain hidden?"(47) The false traitresses, if one looks closely, promise to take away all thirst and feeling of want and to supply complete satiety and a feeling of sufficiency. This is what they do at first for every man, by guaranteeing the fulfillment of this promise when they have increased to a certain amount; and then when they have been accumulated to this point, instead of satiety and refreshment they produce and instill an intolerable and burning thirst in the breast; and in place of sufficiency they set up a new goal: that is, a greater quantity to be desired, and once this has been realized, they instill a great fear and concern for what has been acquired.

Consequently they do not bring peace, but rather grief, which before, in their absence, was not present. Therefore Tully, in his book On Paradox, says in denouncing riches, “Never have I ever considered either the money of these men, or their magnificent mansions, or their riches, or their lordships, or the delights by which they are altogether captivated, to be found among things good and desirable, since I have certainly seen men who abound in these things covet the very things in which they abound. For never is the thirst of cupidity satisfied or satiated; and not only are they tormented by a desire to increase the quantity of those things which they possess, but they are also tormented by a fear of losing them."(48) These are the very words of Tully, as they are put down in the book which has been mentioned. Evidence of even greater importance bearing on this imperfection is found in these words spoken by Boethius in his book The Consolation of Philosophy: “Even if the goddess of wealth were to lavish riches equal to the amount of sand tossed by the wind-driven sea or to the number of stars that shine, the human race would not cease their lament."(49)

Since further evidence is required to establish proof on this point, let us summon up all that Solomon and his father cry out against them, all that Seneca, especially in his letters to Lucilius, all that Horace, all that Juvenal, and, in brief, all that every writer, every poet, and all that truthful Holy Scripture cries out against these false harlots who are steeped in every defect. In order that our belief may be supported by what we see, let us consider the lives of those who chase after them, and how securely they live when they have amassed them, how satisfied they are, how untroubled! And what imperils and destroys cities, territories, and individuals day by day more than the accumulation of wealth by some new person? Such an accumulation uncovers new desires which cannot be satiated without causing injury to someone. What else were the two categories of Law, namely Canon Law and Civil Law, intended to curb if not the surge of greed brought about by the amassing of wealth? Certainly both categories of Law make this quite evident if we read their beginnings (that is, the beginnings of their written record). O how evident it is, indeed how exceedingly evident, that riches are rendered fully imperfect through by their being increased, since nothing but imperfection can come from them, however great their quantity!
Dante Convivio IV xxii

“What else were the two categories of Law, namely Canon Law and Civil Law, intended to curb if not the surge of greed brought about by the amassing of wealth?” Dante

The two categories of law that modern men reject (Justinian Codex & Canon Law) so that greed can rule the day. Re-introduce both categories of law in modern society and you will curb avarice.

None dare call it treason.  But when we gave away the Panama Canal to Panama’s Dictator, our chief negotiator was a member of the board of Chemical Bank in N.Y.C. (Sol Linowitz).  He was appointed in a violation of the spirit of the law if not the ‘letter’ for one day *less than six months, so he would *not be subject to Congressional oversight and approval.  We know this beause the deal was signed to give away the Canal, the very day prior to Linowtiz’s one day less than six months’ term being up.  Why did we give away the Canal, which now is controlled by the Chinese at both ends of the port?

Because bankers wanted to AVOID all Congressional oversight.  And what was created as a part of the giveaway in what is known as the Canal Zone is a ‘free-banking zone.’ Even BEFORE the deal was signed (on that day before Linowitz’s departure), months & months before that - every multi-national American bank was there putting up their buildings, and others from around the world seeking to avoid ANY KIND of supervision and so ours as well as others are there today - with their international money systems & with NO OVERSIGHT OR REGULATION.  That’s how they get around it - with YOUR MONEY no matter what Congress does.  It’s the fleecing of America, and none dare call it treason.  *None dare call it treason.

Wake up (even if the news is bad. You’ve got your eyes closed in the dark.) *Wall Street is a culture as well as a financial institution.  The *culture is that money trumps everything, even nations (including one’s own.) *But none dare call it treason.  That’s because the Federal Reserve Act passed back in 1913 creating the private corporation mis-named the ‘Federal’ Reserve Board set up an essentially fascistic system apart from our Government only pretending to be both democratic and Constitutional except it is in Fact neither. … If the United States Government does not take back its own financial system from the Federal Reserve which is not Federal but a private corporation that simply uses and abuses the United States Treasury for purposes of its multi-trillion dollar bailouts.  Then, due to NO REGULATION, it takes too much risk (with YOUR MONEY) & gets into trouble & this problem will never be solved until we take back our own financial system.  It’s our money.

Right now all of the risk that these bankers take is with other peoples’ money (the American taxpayers) and when they win they make hundreds of millions of dollars (they pocket for themselves); and when they lose WE PAY HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, OR EVEN TRILLIONS.  And these bankers, altough their system is publically underwritten, publically insured, publically leveraged, - it’s PRIVATELY owned.  And they refuse to submit to ANY kind of regulation.  If there is any regulation coming from Congress it’s ONLY to fake out the American public…which is the very reason for the existence of the Canal Zone.

Wake up – can I use the ‘n’ word.  It doesn’t matter what color we are – in the U.S. we’re all pretty much not automatically predjudiced like we used to be and even my black friends kiddingly call each other ‘nigger’ joking around.  So along with my black friends, I can say wake up America – we’re all ‘niggers’ now (or slaves) of this STUPID banking system.  You know it, and I know it.

It’s a culture and their *culture is (the way they’ve bribed Congress over the years to write the laws, which really are unConstitutioanal – unless they bribe the Supreme Court as well) is that *they’re Up there on Olympus – and we’re down here pretending to be a democracy and obeying a Constituion.  While in reality they use us – any way they want – for their profit, and at OUR EXPENSE!!!! 

And none dare call it treason, because the proof is in the pudding and they have ALL the power; including the mainstream MEDIA which isn’t free either – since they OWN it.  And none dare call it treason.  RUSH to war, because they want it.  RUSH to bail them out because they want it.  NO meaningful questions about it at all in the mainstream media – except to make it sound like it’s what’s needed.  Even if it is needed CHANGE THE SYSTEM so it NEVER happens again – or face the fact, face it - that we are now ALL slaves of New York.  No?  Of course.  Be honest.  Wake up ‘niggers’ all we all through.  Yup.

What would the distinguished Patrick Buchanan say about this – does he *dare?

What about Barney Frank (Barney Hotdiggitydog) or Senator Dodd (Senator Dope-?-with his sporty new haircut), whatdo they *say?  Or how about Alfred E. Obama - I don’t hear him flapping his lips about any of this...does he or they *dare?  No of course not because all of their power collectively is as nothing to the fact that Wall Street has in effect and thus literally STOLEN your own tax-based and tax-pooled national money supply long ago and owns SYSTEMICALLY as a result just about everyone and everything including and most or really least of all (they come cheap) our the Pirate before Congress is asked if Wall Street should apologize to America he says no. And he adds I don’t America actually knows all that we do For them.  He’s being tongue-in-cheek and really means (I’ll translate) ‘since we stole the money supply 8 or so decades ago and now own it to do with what we want whenever we want any way we want, I don’t think stupid Americans yet understand, we completely OWN them on main street as well. (Sometimes these things do get a bit lost in the translation.) But he *knows what he and ‘it’ means.  He knows who butters His bread, and it ain’t the American people.  Right big Ben?  *None dare call it treason.

So Pat, you dare call it *treason, or no - you want to keep getting those books of yours published. Right? So you too know who butters your bread?! 

Pat will come back and indicate the guy whose head they blew off JFK said ‘life isn’t
fair.’ So in Pat-world, that makes it all ok.  Oh dear readers I forgot, I take it all back.

Life isn’t ‘fair.’ Sorry.

The crisis and the “bailout” is nothing more than a coup d’etat by the Globalist to inflict a stranglehold over the world financial system.

The BEAST is salivating.

I loved what CM Collins said: “A better analogy would be “to allow the pigs to continue gorging, overeating, rutting, defecating and generally destroying the environment, we are going to shear the sheep.  “

Personally, I rejoice that pigs are responsible for some of life’s chief delights - such as (a) Bacon, and (b) Pork Chops. Perhaps in the near future we shall be able to indulge more liberally in these pleasures.

Don’t save the pigs, hang’em High with a fist full of dollars stuffed in their filthy mouths since they love green strips of paper; and don’t save the sheep but just shear them - sheep are good for
the wool to be utilized. Right! Pat’s not a LION (like say Sam Francis was) he’s more of an old goat. So he’s too soft and fond of being allowed to be on TeeeVeee.

Instead of spelling disaster, the financial collapse offers a unique opportunity to fix all of America ’s ills.
Hang ‘Em High! -By Israel Shamir

Seven years after 9/11, we witness another, greater and even more enjoyable collapse, that of the American financial pyramid. It took some twenty years in building; its collapse took only a few weeks. Let us cut the hypocritical crap: this was a wonderful show, no ifs, ands or buts. The US stock markets boomed when they bombed Baghdad and Belgrade , they prospered when they robbed Moscow and squeezed sweat from Beijing . When they had it good, they had plenty of money for invading Iraq , threatening Iran and strangling Palestine . In short, when it was good for them, it was bad for us. Let them have a taste of their own medicine!

“They” are not the Americans, and “we” are not the rest of the planet. “They” are a small sliver of the American population, the get-rich-quick crowd from the East Side of Manhattan and similar places. The last twenty years witnessed a great shift of money upwards, to a smaller and smaller pack of greedy beasts. While the majority of Americans lost the ability to send their children to universities, these fat cats bought themselves villas in Florida and houses in Tel Aviv. Worse, they spent their billions buying up the media in order to subvert American democracy and send American soldiers to fight wars in far-away places. A big part of the stolen money was siphoned off to Israel , where apartment prices went through the roof and are still rising.

Continue reading...at Shamir’s site

MY comments: Congress NEEDS to realize or remember the ‘Federal’ Reserve is NOT federal - (feral, maybe but not federal.) Cancel the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and if Congress wants to bolster OUR (and Congress’s) economy use the $700 Billion to start their OWN Actual federal bank, and stop playing into the filthy hands of the greedy shadow Government known as the Federal Reserve as it currently IS. Who do they think they’re kidding.  This ambiguity simply allows ‘them’ to have it both ways at the expense of actual Americans and at the *expense of our elected officials.

Globalism, members of CONGRESS… read my lips has ALREADY died of thin air, corruption, greed and it’s own *impossibility. Congress - Stop sacrificing the possible, on the altar of the impossible. If you FEED the beast this new $700 Billion, since they *can’t go global with it, the beast will only turn around and devour THEM/you (our government) and US *actual Americans. That’s the only place they now can find new blood. Do you understand this-?-[MORONS.]

Start the REAL, the Actual Bank of the United States, idiots - that’s what a government IS, and does.

That’s what is Constitutional - otherwise give the beast the $700 Billion - we’re all done for. Get it?

Why does EVERYONE else in the World UNDERSTAND this, except the American govt. Answer: the beast’s MEDIA, kids has brainwashed you - that’s the next thing to get into… break up the media. Idiots! Please wake up - you’ve got your eyes closed in the dark.

Not only the usary of dollars, but the bartering of unborn babies affects the clarity of mind of the government.