Author: KlatooBaradaNikto

In the 70’s and 80’s the economists from the IMF and World Bank would descend en masse in Rio or Buenos Aires or any number of capitals worldwide and lay down strict rules on how much the locals can spend on their food,clthing and shelter.

These economists were merciless in their programs of austerity depriving the already destitute peoples of these countries of bare living because the rulers of those countries,pampered by Washington, took up spendthrift ways.

You will find the same economists missing in action when the United States,in essence,is bankrupt today.

I have not seen a single economist propose a program of austerity to the upper classes in this country as it careens from one calamity after another.

And the sacred cow of defense spending remains untouched by any of these economists.

Considering how stupid many economists are,it is a relief to know that have finally realized who is writing their fat checks.

As they say at GE,”Progress is our most important product”.

So says Paul Krugman about John McCain’s campaign rallies.

The rage exhibited by these supporters resemble in many ways the so called PUMAs,the Hillary Clinton supporters.

It may be worth examining whether the two are the same and if money changed hands in inducing these crazies to show up at McCain rallies.

That was the term that Nixon used when he was confronted by having to maintain a two front war in Vietnam and Cambodia.He was afraid that even if the US was indeed strong,just the perception that it was getting beaten by two small Southeast Asian countries was going to diminish US credibility worldwide.That is a perception that a universal predator like the US cannot afford to acquire.

Last week’s meltdown in the financial markets represents an economic,not a military inflexion point in the continuing saga of US predatory assaults on other nations of the world.As John Perkins has described in his book on Economic Hit men,the money always comes first.If a man like Hugo Chavez does not do what he is told, the first threat is economic,through the banks and the oil companies.If that fails,the jackals move in and mayhem is let loose.

With the economic threat now fading away, small countries in Asia,Africa,Latin America can breathe a sigh of relief.All economic threats will ring hollow from now on.As the oil producing countries from Russia,to Venezulea and Iran wise up to the ways of Uncle Sam and the low hanging fruit are all gone,the US finds itself in a completely different environment economically.Countries like China,India,Russia and Brazil can offer all the products and services the US companies can offer, at more competitive rates and without threats.

Unless the US gives up hegemony as its goal,it is going to be expensive to compete against the more nimble competitors who do not have delusions of grandeur.

John Gray of the London Observer had the image right when he said “On the day when Hank Paulson was on his knees imploring Congress for an infusion of 700 billion dollars into the financial system,a Chinese astronaut was taking a space walk signaling that another superpower has arrived on the scene”.

Would it be too farfetched to visualize a day in the near future when Chinese comapnies can offer missiles and military hardware at a fraction of the cost at Lockheed-Martin,GE, in a WalMart for armament shoppers?

As Sara gets pounded everyday by pundits, talking heads, late night comedians and senators, congress critters and chauffeurs for the McCains, she was at wits end and ran to the one person that could calm her nerves down.I am not talking about the Reverend Muthee the witchhunter.I am talking about Chauncey Gardner.

Sara started the session.Chauncey, only you can help me in this critical situation.I am afraid to appear in front of that evil woman,Campbell Brown.What should I do?

Chauncey:Calm down Sara.Have a cup of my freshly made Assam tea.You will note that as I water my flowers,everything blooms.Pretty soon autumn will arrive and my beloved flowers will wilt and they will die away.

Sara: Of course.Why didn’t I think of that? They first loved me when I told them I said “thanks,but no thanks”.Now they are beating up on me like a red headed stepchild and I have to go hide at the UN.You won’t believe how difficult it was for me to find that building? It is not as though you could be sitting in your kitchen in Wasilla and look out the window and see Russia.

Chauncey: The flowers that died in winter will magically appear again in spring.But you have to care and prepare the ground properly for the flowers to prosper.I like to sing to them.

Sara: You have done it again,Chauncey.I should not let the evil spirits of Campbell Brown get me down.I have even met Henry Kissinger yesterday.That counts for something doesn’t it? Why do they call him a war criminal?

Chauncey: As each cycle is followed by another,the flowers get more and more beautiful.The only thing we have to do is water them with care and affection.

Sara: As I started to get the drift of foreign policy by looking out my window at Russia,talking to Henry,Hamid and Uribe, I understand that there is a financial crisis.How am I supposed to keep up with all this?I took six years for a normal four year program.I even went to five different colleges.Now John tells me that he doesn’t know anything about economics and expects me to bail him out on this.I thought that was Paulson’s job.

But I like the thought of watering the flowers and keeping them alive for another season.I wish I could just run away from it all and get into my tanning bed at the Wasilla mayor’s office.

You,Chauncey, as always are a lotta help.Thanks for your tea.

When Sara Palin was first introduced as McCain’s running mate,Rick Davis, the campaign manager announced that this election will not revolve around issues but on how the electorate perceives the candidates in a general sense.

Though many of us in the progressive communities of the blogs and even some in the MSM dismissed Davis’ statement as that of a campaign manager who does not have a strong candidate in either McCain or Palin, I think Davis may be on to something.The selection of Palin is part of a strategy that is going to make issues irrelevant.

Taking Palin first.She is clearly not an intellectual and lacks any credentials of a politician in the normal sense.She is a fundamentalist Christian, opposed to abortion, stem cell research and evolution.Considering the demographic base Davis plans to appeal to,i.e. rural white voters, these are not such a bad combination of attributes.Further, for a large number of even urban lower middle class white voters, the appeal of a gun toting white woman going up against a black man evokes a past that has strong appeal   even today.

These core groups would not care if Sara has ever heard of Iraq/Iran or Pakistan.To them all the muslims and Arabs are the same and should be killed and/or conquered on any pretext whatsoever.Their petroleum resources belong to us and if Sara can beat it out of the Muslims, that makes her that much more attractive to these voters.

McCain can supplement these voters by broadening the appeal of the ticket to embrace moderate voters in suburbia because of his unquestionable patriotism and the suffering he endured as a prisoner of war.There is a die hard group of voters who will forgive any gaffe or lack of knowledge on the part of McCain precisely for the reasons I have stated.

Together,the two candidates offer an iron clad team that cannot be penetrated by invoking arguments about the economy or their statements on war or foreign policy.

It is this argument that Davis was advancing and I think he has a good basis for believing it.Sara’s hair style, her dress and demeanor are all part of the calculated strategy he has devised.She has to project an image of an unsophisticated rural woman, not a New York type of a cosmopolitan.This is why her hair style is shown as a spare one almost resembling the women from the polygamist compound.Her description as a moose hunter toting a high power rifle was also a deliberately planned image to show that the uppity black man better be aware who he was dealing with.

By showing McCain as the weaker link in the team and Sara as the stronger person, Davis hopes to show that a weak old white man can rely on his woman to protect him.Many frontierswomen did that during colonial days and those types of images never hurt anyone seeking to create the image of independent Americans and not “whiners”.

IMO, this strategy,properly executed, has a chance of succeeding.The beauty of the strategy is that these two,McCain and Palin, do not have to endlessly argue the minutiae of policies to make a connection with the voters.And that is what Davis is counting on.

As I write,it is 9:30 PM EST.Lehman Brothers,one of Wall Street’s most venerable powerhouses has declared itself bankrupt and sought protection.Merrill Lynch another big fish in the ocean has acceded to a shot gun wedding with Bank of America.AIG is close to breakup and word is that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are also on the verge of bankruptcy in what Professor Roubini has called a systemic crisis.

From the news trickling out today, it appears a wholesale bloodbath can be expected on Wall Street tomorrow.

The collapse of the American model of capitalism will be more cataclysmic to the world than the breakup of the Soviet Union.

It portends the end of US hegemony around the world.

No one can put humpty dumpty back together again.

The enormous demand for steel by the US armed forces in Vietnam paved the way for Japan’s small steel industry to grow several fold during the early sixties.That,in turn, created the opportunity for Toyota and Honda to penetrate the US auto market.

A similar opening is being provided to the Indian Services providers by the mad rush into Iraq by successive Republican administrations.While one could say that call centers in Bangalore evolved from some of the needs of our markets,their growth and diversification into markets not foreseen ten years ago is making the growth of India’s service industry inevitable.

Two very well publicized instances will suffice.Large legal firms based in new York and Washington are retaining Indian lawyers to prepare briefs at a fraction of the costs incurred here.Large pharmaceutical firms like Eli Lilly and Pfizer are outsourcing their research and drug discovery programs to Indian firms.Once again the driving force is lowered costs.

Even though the war in Iraq has not directly created this problem, its indirect impact on costs is what is driving the exodus of these services to India.And the tail end of the services tsunami has not begun yet.I mean the outsourcing of medical care to medical centers in India is just beginning and will reach tidal wave proportions within the next decade.

Any sentient being can see that the wars launched by the Republicans have managed to deliberately impoverish the nation even as they keep boasting that that they have made the country secure.

He keeps saying that ordinary citizens are sick and tired of politics.

What he has not realized is that there is a virulent class of citizens who do not relish the thought of having black and brownskinned people as citizens with equla rights.They will fight tooth and nail to relegate such people to second class citizenship, either by disenfranchising them or committing outright fraud.

Sara Palin appeals to these citizens.Putting up Palin as a counterforce to Barack Obama brings out all the primal fears of this class which at its core envisions that white women will be raped by black men with big dicks if they are given equal rights.

I think Rick Davis has hit upon something which more than a century after the Emancipation Proclamation has such force on the minds of people.

That is the phrase the Rude Pundit uses in his latest post on his blog after witnessing the false modesty of John McCain at the Republican Party hate fest in St.Paul.Evoking his own torture at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors and not mentioning his capitulation to the tortures of Iraqi civilians by their American wardens at Abu Ghraib, McCain proceeded to parade his self flagellation in front of the all white crowd.

That brings me to my observation of why the Republican Party has become a latter day reincarnation of the KKK in suits and ties.From the very beginning of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,the objective of white racists in this country was to disenfranchise black and other minorities to second class citizenship with every available means.During the Nixon administration it gave birth to the Southren Strategy and voter intimidation tactics presided over by none other than William Rehnquist.As the years rolled by,Katharine Harris and Antonin Scalia appeared on the scene stealing an election from Al Gore.Now we see the injection of the white woman,Sara Palin against Barack Obama, evoking another primal fear in the hearts of white men,the raping of white women by the big black beast.

I am sure that Rick Davis, the manager of the McCain campaign had all these things figured out when he launched his new product,Sara Palin, at this crucial moment in the cammpaign.He is also right that this campaign is not about issues anymore.It is about personalities and their world views.

Their world view of course involves the images of castration of the black man by a gun toting bible thumping woman.

No wonder McCain has seen a big bounce in his poll numbers.

In a culture increasingly dominated by lies of all kinds,it should not come as a surprise that bankruptcy will be a constant threat in all walks of life.

Take McCain.Having squandered the moral authority he had earned as a POW by supporting a war based on false pretexts and even worse, aiding and abetting the torture of prisoners, McCain finds himself in the arms of a racist  fundamentalist from the school of Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.Even his constant evocation of his status as a POW now elicits derision.

I believe that the embrace of Palin by McCain is a sign of desperation of a man realizing he is totally bankrupt.Expect more and more bizarre acts up until election day.

Not to be outdone by the politicians of our day, GM, the king of all auto makers in yester years, now says it needs up to 25 billion dollars in cash infusion to produce fuel effecient cars.What is left unsaid is why in a market overflowing with fuel efficient cars made by many nimble competitors, anyone even has to consider buying a GM product.It is the same trap the United States finds itself in after many years as the undisputed ruler of all it surveys.The world has moved on to what Fareed Zakaria calls the Post American World.GM,in its own blindness does not realize that the world has changed, for the worse for GM.

Someone once said Time and Tide wait for no man.In a paraphrase we can say Time and Tide do not wait for GM to produce a fuel efficient car.GM’s days are gone,never to return.

Lastly,a sorry chapter in American excess will also draw to a close as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two Government sponsored enterprises (GSE’s) will also bite the dust.Much of the excesses of the mortgage industry were underwritten by these two giant institutions which were used as piggy banks by the mortgage banking business and run to the ground.I am tempted to say that the death of these two institutions will mean better behavior in the future on the part of Americans.Their insatiable appetite for luxury homes and McMansions caused a collapse of massive proportions dragging the poor into this disaster.

As the lies proliferate,it is impossible for us to find a single personality that has the courage to utter the truth about any of these failings.

That is because at its core our failure as a society is moral.Only a spiritual awakening can rectify that.

Meanwhile, I am now looking at the revolting image of Cheney in Georgia condemning Russia for invading Georgia!