Wall Street Slams Main Street - Who Will Pay and Who Won't?

The charts and graphs of the Republican Recession of 2007 tell all sorts of stories, yet all those stories have a certain nauseating commonality.  They were comfortably detached, theoretical disasters.  You know, on Wall Street and in the stinky back rooms of investment banks and hedge fund offices.  In fact, during the early stages of the crime, the only real screaming was coming from Dubai, the Peoples' Republic and London as a few select billionaires experienced a bit of "road rash."

MeanMesa watched along with the rest of the United States -- and, after a couple of weeks in 2008 while the rest of the planetary economy "caught up" -- the rest of the world, as the crippling impact of the "missing money" slowly descended through the various "levels of Hell."  The Death Cloud gobbled up home mortgages, bond values, stock markets and pension funds as if they were no more than tantalizing snacks.

Meanwhile, those of us comfortably insulated by personal financial positions far below the poverty line looked on with furtive hope that we might remain "under the radar" of the approaching maelstrom.  Our fleeting hope was that the monster would somehow realize that we had nothing to steal.

That was then.  This is now.

Even a quiet, modest haven such as Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a month or two, breathed a little more freely.  It seemed that only the great and magnificent would suffer after all.  This little town had been fairly frugal with its income, a reflection of the essentially agrarian, common sense roots of its citizens.  However, that was not to be the case.

The poverty ridden State of New Mexico found itself trying to accommodate a budget shortfall of hundreds of millions.  The City of Albuquerque found itself facing a budget shortfall of tens of millions.  The State government, very shortly after that, found itself populated with, well, New Mexicans.  Likewise, the City government found itself populated with Commissioners who had no "fast and loose" brokerage experience which might provide any comforting "slight of hand" tricks to meet the problem.  Or even delay it.

Out came the hack saw.  The budget would be cut.  The calamity had officially arrived.  Of course, New Mexico was not alone on this dark hill of self-realization.  In fact, as states go, New Mexico was not as far down in the hole as many of our neighbors.  Still, there remained the, uh, "hack saw."

The State government in Santa Fe and the City government just down Lomas a few blocks from MeanMesa's Galactic Headquarters had become President Obama's Main Street.  We finally understood what he meant when he spoke of Wall Street and Main Street.

For a relaxing and "fun" interlude (courtesy of Huffington Post) visit Most memorable quotes from Goldman-Sachs CEO.

So, let's look at the blood.  Who will be paying and who will be "delivered" from the hack saw?

We can look at a few local developments, but they will also serve as examples.  The same kinds of difficult decisions are being faced routinely by most states in the country.  Further, at such moments of decision, it turns out that almost everyone's "ox will be gored."  However, there are exceptions, and those excepted from the thrumping turn out to be just as illuminating as those who aren't.

The main corporate health insurer -- spelled "m-o-n-o-p-o-l-y" -- doesn't intend to have their "ox gored."  Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico just applied for the State Insurance Commission to allow them to raise rates by 25%.  Of course, these overly made up clowns danced into the Insurance Commission offices with the recently passed health reform bill clutched in their greedy little hands.

The mortgage bankers, when confronted with the prospect of reducing loan principals to reflect plummeting house values, adamantly insisted that, "No, the home owners must be skinned first.  As bankers, our profits are sacred!"  

Folks trying to live on Social Security checks were placed in the "pay" category.  There would be no cost of living increase for this year.  Of course, there was actually a cost of living increase, but that fact carried little weight in the bargain fest where everyone -- again, with a few exceptions -- would "suffer equally."

 The Republicans had carefully planned for such an encounter.  The "cost of living" included no concern for the cost of food, gasoline, natural gas or medicine.  All those prices went up.  The "cost of living," as modified by corrupt neo-cons in the Congress would be based on the price increases of V-8 pick up trucks and flat screened, plasma televisions from China.

One interesting exception was the "first responders" crowd.  Protected by a powerful union, no wage cuts or trimmed benefit packages would be extracted from the police and firemen.  Apparently, no matter how grave the city's deficit became, everyone else would suffer first.  Those suffering would include the public schools and the teachers.  They would pay.

MeanMesa watches the news reports from Greece.  The public employees there are the ones who, refusing to countenance even a modest pay cut to save the country, are presently rioting.  Could Albuquerque be another Athens?

So, MeanMesa visitors, keep an eye on just where your local and state governments are cutting costs as they try desperately to "make ends meet."  All of this is being settled now -- at least "hack saw-wise" -- but it will rise again just as certainly as tomorrow's New Mexico sun when the "gored oxen" show up for the mid-term elections this November.

All the "non-payers" will continue to insist that the jobs they do are so important that no pay cuts will be tolerated.  So far, they have done fairly well with that approach, but the "times, they are a'changin' "

Oh, lest we forget.  The "Masters of the Universe" on Wall Street will be included in the "non-payer" category.  Miscreants such as the pirate hooligans running Goldman-Sachs, having been frightened ever so slightly by the Security Exchange Commission's law suit for corporate fraud, are willing -- finally -- to say "What we did  was not illegal.  It might have been wrong, but it was not illegal.  However, we intend to keep the money, so screw you!"

We all know that the exact reason that Goldman's business practices are not illegal is because they purchased enough Republican Senators during the autocracy to make sure such a law was never passed.  Never discussed.  Never considered.  The only consideration regarded just what such an oversight might be worth.

When the "hill billies and the bigots" begin to bleed a little, they will become even more racist than before.  The attack on Arizona's Mexicans is only the warm-up.

A Post Posting Script: (PPS)

In the middle of this post, MeanMesa went downstairs to catch the local weather forecast.  New Mexico enjoyed a fairly normal day of spring-time wind -- the highest gusts were 99 mph.  Of interest, however, was not the weather forecast but an unusual commercial.

It was Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico!  Naturally, there was no time to mention the 25% rate increase.  Instead, the message was:  "We don't care about Wall Street.  We care about you."

Egads. 

The Presidential Pardon Party -- Happy Holidays!

The last act of the strange dark drama in the White House?

Don't count on it.

Think of it as a office gift exchange. 74

Two almost identical young men stood waiting outside the Oval Office in a line with several dozen more, every one an almost perfect copy. All aspiring young attorneys from K Street or elsewhere, they seemed to have arrived from a call to central casting. The hair cut of each one was conservative, identically short and stylish. The well scrubbed, boyish faces all emphasized the overpriced, tailored suits and the multi-hundred dollar silk ties. The practiced mood of subdued reverence was one obviously mastered for missions such as this one.

“Are they doing this in alphabetical order?” the younger of the two asked, turning to face the man next to his position in the line.

His slightly older friend whispered an answer. “Sort of alphabetical, I guess. They started at about 10 AM with Jeb, Harriet Meiers and a list of secret pardons from Cheney. A big bound book of Wall Street names took an hour after that -- we’ll never know who was in there. They did Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham early this morning, than a bunch of rapid fire ‘B’s’ -- you know, Bolton, Blackwater, Blackwell, and Brownie, et cetera. Giuliani and Rumsfeld came as twin drag queens.”

“Michael Scanlon and Tom DeLay’s attorney were here early yesterday. But, after those two, they did Bob Ney and Ralph Reed. An attorney even got the gay guy, Gannon, pardoned. His lawyer didn’t have much of a cash bundle, so I figure they must have had a little dirt of some kind. I guess the male prostitution business isn’t so lucrative anymore.” he continued.

The door opened momentarily to discharge a small group of the previous supplicants. The line inched forward as another small group of the young attorneys entered. The younger of the two quietly peeked through the crack for a glimpse at what was awaiting him when his turn arrived.

The scene was a surreal theater.

All the normal furniture of the Oval Office had been removed, replaced with garish things suggesting screen props from an 1950’s version of Alice in Wonderland. The place was filled with potted ferns and roses. Geese, goats and gerbils seemed to be rushing around in the open area, each contributing its voice to the clamor. Providing background music, a quartet costumed as Cheshire Cats with banjos and harps struggled along with a faint timbre of what might have been some cheerful Transylvanian folk dance had it been produced with more suitable instruments.

A single drummer, dressed as the traditional hooded figure of “Death,” beat out a melancholy, yet consolidating rhythm on a solitary snare held by a suspiciously decorated leather strap around his neck and shoulder. His drumming seemed to inspire the animals, at least the geese, to attempt to synchronize their squawking with the beat.

The President was seated at one end of the room on an elaborate sort of medieval chair. He was dressed in a theatrical lime green tuxedo with tails. Obviously inebriated, even though still early morning, he slumped with the detachment of a depressed imperial indifference to the events in the room. He wore a great, green top hat, probably made of foam rubber, adorned with rhinestones and peacock feathers in a long flowing plume.

A troop of immense, bare chested wrestlers had just completed their performance. Staffers were hurriedly ushering them out the far door. A dance team of young women dressed as Vestal Virgins waited impatiently for a signal to begin the next entertainment act. Some had already begun to throw rose petals onto floor at the center of the room.

Several young men from the same waiting line were in the Oval Office moving respectfully around what seemed to be a Bush administration version of the “stations of the cross.”

Wide eyed, the young lobbyist attorney again turned to his more experienced acquaintance, puzzled. “What in God’s name is going on in there?”

His friend answered calmly. “Relax. If you’d been here last time, you would understand everything. I spoke to a guy from the Chief of Staff’s office yesterday. It seems that the Bush wanted to avoid the Berlin Bunker atmosphere for the pardoning ceremony. The President choreographed this whole thing himself.”

Again, the first young lawyer stumbled. “But what does all this mean?”

His acquaintance answered. “In 2004 the motive was the Crusades. This year, it’s the Mad Hatter. Didn’t your boss tell you anything about this?”

The younger man responded, glancing down at the huge suitcase of 1,000 Euro notes handcuffed to his wrist, “All he told me was to make sure that the currency counting machine was stopped after the batch before me before I put all these Euros in it. He said it might not look like it, but that the exact amount of cash was important. He said it was something like a contribution to the Presidential Library Fund or something.”

His friend offered, “Well, it’s good that you’ve got that part straight. What happens in the room is simple enough. You go directly to the Attorney General -- he’s the one dressed in the Supreme Court robes. He will give you a parking ticket with your boss’s name on it.”

“After that, you take the ticket to the tall guy over by the windows. He’s playing the role of the Great Confessor. He’s the one dressed up as a medieval abbot. He’ll ask you if your client wants to voluntarily confess to the charges on the ticket. He means your boss, of course. You raise your hand and say ‘Yes, Great Confessor. My client confesses that he is truly guilty as charged.’ At that point, all the judicial stuff is done.”

“Then put all your Euro’s in the currency counter in front of Paulson.”

He could see Secretary of the Treasury sitting on a great wooden throne, elevated above the remainder of the room. Costumed as an extravagant courtier, he was heavily made up with bizarre cosmetics. Flamboyant lipstick had enlarged the outline of his mouth to reach from ear to ear suggesting a threatening psychopathy. Every detail of the man’s appearance was darkly grotesque.

“Let his little elf there in front of the throne run all the cash through the counting machine. When it’s done, he will whisper the amount in Paulson’s ear. Paulson is the one made up as the Exchequer for the Queen of Hearts. They’ll throw your boss’s, uh, donation in that big pot, and the ‘Exchequer’ will nod at the President.”

Astonished, the first young lawyer asked, “And then?”

His friend answered, “And then the Mad Hatter will wave his hand and the bunch from the Justice Department will issue your boss’s blanket pardon. You want to slowly and reverently back away -- withdraw ceremoniously toward this same door. Bowing subserviently wouldn’t hurt.”

The newer man asked, “What’s the parking ticket’s part in all of this?”

His more experienced associate responded, “That’s important. Blanket pardons can’t be issued without an admission of guilt. Now, we both know that the exact details of the, uh, ‘guilt’ involved here could hardly bear the light of day, so confessing to the parking ticket is a way to cover everything. Think of it as a symbolic act of contrition. Once you confess in your boss’s behalf, the pardon becomes legal. Of course, it centers on the confession to the parking violation, but, once that’s in the bag, the blanket pardon covers everything else. Slick, huh?”

The young man whispered back, “This is nuts. Does anyone on the, I mean, on the outside have any idea what’s going on here?”

His friend answered, also in a low voice, “No, of course not. You’d better believe it’s better that way. This has been going on a for a couple of days now, but the news black out is holding. Murdoch and the rest of the media CEO’s are scheduled for later today.”

He continued, “I plan to record as much as possible on this belt buckle I got through the security screen. I’ll blackmail my boss if his pardon goes through. I’m sure he’s already budgeted enough to pay me off. After all, he is a K Street lobbyist, right?”

“Wow. I work for an investment banker. They’re a little meaner than K Street guys. You know, a little more violent and pragmatic.” He paused for a moment, clearly deep in thought, then continued. “Gosh. All these people getting pardons. They’ve been running everything for eight years.” He mused pensively. “If they’re all gone, you know, pardoned and everything and gone on back to their regular lives, who’s going to run the government?”

This post proves that pardons can be fun! If you'd like to try it yourself -- with just a few actual facts -- link away!
http://news.muckety.com/2008/11/27/in-final-days-bush-likely-to-pardon-more-than-turkeys/7551