Thank you for the "Sustain Lane" aerial photo of Casa Friedman. This serial aider and abettor of everything from war crimes in Iraq to financial crimes needs to be put in the dock of public opinion and branded with the Scarlett Letter of complicity once and for all. Step one: Boycott Friedman. Don't buy his books. If you must read them, get them from the public library. Contact John Stewart and others who give him free media publicity and make your views known.

The timing of the disaster is the perfect camouflage for a lame duck criminal to leave office in. We can't get it together to prosecute the Bushies, gotta save the economy from going down the drain. Fannie Mae lending policy was already under suspicion a few years before Molly Ivins died. She wrote about it in dire terms. No one changed the policy. It was achieving just the desired results. The piratical goals of Cheney-Bush to shake as much out of the economy as possible using the extraordinary means of war, private contractors, a rerun of the Savings and Loan scandal on a much larger scale have met with screaming success all along the way. Save the disaster that hits closest to home for last, so that the newly fortified opposition is so busy putting out fires that going after the perpetrators is the farthest thing from its mind.

thank you, mr. schechter, for taking a blow-hard like friedman to task for his empirical point of view. perhaps this should be done with each article written by the jerk-off.

Summary from Spengler in Asia Times Online:

"Without leverage, the clever folk* around Barack Obama are fleas without a dog. None of them invented anything, introduced an important new product, opened a new market, or did anything that reached into the lives of ordinary people. They wore expensive cufflinks, read balance sheets, exercised regularly, sat on philanthropic boards, and assumed that their flea's ride on the Reagan dog would last forever".

*Spengler means Obama's economic team.

snydly
They're not so stupid---they're getting billions in bailout money.
This is the most magnificent transfer of public money to private hands in history.
Spread this gem: To Congress---Shotgun wedding of the big 3 with the 7 sisters. Let big oil bailout big guzzlers.

Before there's a crime, there has to be criminal intent. And before there's the elaborate scheme to scam everybody, the entire world or WHATEVER! there has to be a criminal personality hell-bent on analyzing and manipulating all the little legal loopholes, laws that need to be revoked (e.g. Glass-Steagall) tweaked, re-interpreted or passed (The Commodity Futures Modernization Act), agency heads who need to be corrupted or charmed and philosophies (such as Ayn Rand's nefarious Objectivism) which need to be championed. Tom Friedman is guilty of playing his very minor part in all of this. But it is really a dominant, decisive, charismatic criminal personality which is responsible for the bank collapse and market meltdown. It is a mentality found in Bush/Cheney and it has spread like kudzu throughout the culture. And... amazingly, it is, as Yogi Berra put it, "Deja vu, all over again." Just as the banksters of the subprime scandal had government "back-up" when the OCC (the Office of the Comptroller and the Currency) interfered with state prosecutions of the subprime fraudsters (noted by former Governor Spitzer in a Wash. Post op-ed), so did the CFTC (the Commodity Futures Trading Commission) once preempt the states' power to prosecute the imposter whom the FBI called "the ultimate con man." All this, including the complicity of corporate law firms, is laid out in Morgan Ibarra's short but incredible novel, Scamming God, which may just be the most sustained critique of conservatism--in all its manifestations--yet.

Could it be that our economy survives only because of its huge military outlay, its low credit, its serial bubbles (tech, housing and now ???) ?

And have the good times come to an end?

If so, is the empire over?

Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers

"To him (Friedman), the bankers and brokers were not driven by avarice and self-interest but by ignorance and idiocy. How patronizing!"

Would anyone really expect lap-dog Friedman to blame the predators on Wall Street? Seriously - this a guy who thinks the world is flat!

"Furthermore, as outlined in the interagency Expanded Examination Guidance for Subprime Lending Programs,1 "predatory lending involves at least one, and perhaps all three, of the following elements:

1)Making unaffordable loans based on the assets of the borrower rather than on the borrower's ability to repay an obligation;
2)Inducing a borrower to refinance a loan repeatedly in order to charge high points and fees each time the loan is refinanced ("loan flipping"); or
3)Engaging in fraud or deception to conceal the true nature of the loan obligation, or ancillary products, from an unsuspecting or unsophisticated borrower."

http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2007/fil07006a.html

Sounds to me like many banks engaged in at least one of the aforementioned elements described by the FDIC as predatory lending. Sadly, it appears the FDIC has no intention of prosecuting the criminals involved in this scam.

And while Friedman continues to defend the slime on Wall Street, the rest of us must live by the law: IGNORANTIA LEGIS NON EXCUSAT - "ignorance of the law is no excuse...the fact that defendant did not think his act was against the law does not prevent the law from punishing the prohibited act." - Barron's Law Dictionary

Is there anyone left in this government that has the cajones to prosecute these criminals?

It was George W. Bush's wink to the criminals of America that started it all. He knew he would have to bolster the criminals to lubricate his own criminal agenda. Hence, two wars and an economy that blew up in his face. Makes you think young Icarus's mission from the beginning was to destroy America. By the way, jail Bush.

The solution is gonna be whatever happens after the system totally fails which is coming during Obama's first term.

Lots of good Ideas are posted on CD. Keep them in mind.

The system of unpayable debt being added to more debt seven trillion at a stroke is going to fail because of mathematics.

The exponential rise of debt has hit the wall going straight up as the math tells us...no conspiracy here just plain facts.

We can call the solution new regulated Capitalism, or new mixed system or socialism... but it won't matter what we call it and the names we chose will only keep the dividers happy since socialism is a demonized word just as capitalism has become more and more.

But after the total collapse becomes self evident in the pain and misery and chaos and continued bailouts of the corrupt pyramid scheme of our monetary system, I suggest we start first with the scraping of the FED and renounce the new Debts that they are piling on, Declare Bankruptcy and encourage nations to take ownership of their own money.

After that we can argue over what we will call it.

Cheers...

Most people here voted for the criminals or their co conspirators-Democrats and Republicans.

Most Americans just voted into power that black fellow; even though he is mixed race, idiots call him "black." They call him black cause they can maintain a racist stereotype, but feel good about themselves.

Shut up and row, idiots.

How about a solution to the problem?

http://www.thoughts.com/RedNeckPossie/blog/a-way-to-give-power-back-to-the-people-184665/

Knock 'em out, Danny!! - - Great article.

Friedman is doing his bit as part of a massive damage control effort - if the people of the western world understood the nature of the theft that has gone on, and continues before their very eyes, there might be some serious unrest amongst the marks. Ultimate Sting http://www.rudemacedon.ca/sting.html - and more here -

Banketeering http://www.rudemacedon.ca/banketeering.html

Obama's recent comments about "getting the economy back on track" worry me, even though I voted for him. The last thing we need is a continuation of this economic nightmare we have lived since Reagan. Mindless, unregulated consumption and unbridled greed in the face of a reality of diminishing resources will continue to be a prescription for disaster. We need a decentralized, local rather than global economy. Corporations are predatory dinosaurs that need to be helped to extinction and not rescued. All these bailouts are only prolonging the inevitable as they cripple and waste our collective future.

You're a clerk in a convenience store with a good chance to become store manager and your wife works for a dentist and housing prices are rising 10% per year. You're Hispanic and you want to be Middle Class. Real estate is the best investment. Housing prices never fall because there's so many people in the world who want houses. Maybe you can't afford it right now, but you don't get ahead if you don't take a risk. In two years when the teaser rate changes, you'll be manager, the value of the house will have increased 20%.

Is this guy stupid or irresponsible? Is the doctor who has oil companies and defense contractors in his portfolio stupid or irresponsible because he's bought into price gouging and war? Should this same doctor be taken to the guillotine because he feels entitled to an income of $450k a year and is the cause of bankruptcies and misery?

Is the slick Wall Street securitizer stupid or irresponsible because he believes in the theories of Nobel Prize economists and the "law of large numbers"? He's no more culpable than the subprime borrower. They may have irrational hope, but there is no one out there to explain why the DOW is not going to hit 20,000 and why housing prices will crash.

The political leaders and the intelligentsia, in particular cheer leader Tom Friedman, should have known better, but are they stupid and irresponsible because they can't se the forest for the trees and want to get rich like everyone else in Ronald Reagan's delusional free-for-all. Do you blame certain cows because they're part of the herd?

There was irrational exuberance on the Titanic and unwarranted confidence in the future and a dearth of common sense. They all went down together, first class and steerage. Who do you blame? White Star Lines?

You blame the architecture. You pity Alan Greenspan. History will be his guillotine. The guy went from Maestro to nothing. Tom Friedman is nothing. Nada, zip!

We have a financial system that is not the be-all and end-all of financial systems, in spite of all the nonsense that has been preached from political pulpits since the fall of the Soviet Union. It looks like a ship going down, a complete disaster. There is no discussion of alternatives and no awareness of the structural problems in the architecture of the system we have. Re-regulation will not reboot the system to normal functioning. Unless basic changes are made in the system architecture, we won't get out of crisis mode.

The core problem is usury. Is capitalism possible without usury? It is. But it would be a very different kind of capitalism.

Think about it.

In the mean time the food crisis is inextricably linked to GMO/monoculture/IMF/WB import / export and starving millions and trickling up.

Regional economic models, corporate accountability especially for pollution especially as the titles change hands as in Ecudor and so many other places.

Localvore

No Clothes in the Garden

Please clothe the master’s of the universe
for in their haste they may wish to propagate
or prime their post to a pre garden state
for there is much joy in folly
and the jolly stooges of desire
don’t look good with much attire
for bogus paper ain’t all bilk
and transparent thread ain’t all silk

for..
the bad news is just beginning
this is hardly the second inning
the masters ain’t even thinning
bogus clothes is in the spinning
so don’t please clothe us
bugger us...
at least until the bonus
and all the foamy phony bailing
is lost inside the O

Oh mercy O
Oh..... only a banker
stuck in the till
like a skid
for a thrill
or a pacifist less an
oh bomb ah

As a business and real estate law practitioner of 30+ years experience, it is clear to me that the present national financial situation would not, could not, have occurred except for deliberate misrepresentation and/or reckless disregard of safety of other people money, many of which were probably done as part of a loose conspiracy to profit by such deception. They could not have helped but know what was likely to occur because there were plenty of warning signs as well as historical precedents for what happened, not to mention common sense. Yes, Virginia, simply because conspiracy theories have been given a bad name, does not mean they don't exist.

In any event, whether criminally intent on defrauding or merely recklessly indifferent as to who is harmed, both are grounds to take to court almost every individual and company that participated. In other times, if those responsible wore fedoras and had names ending in "o" or "i", we would have called it racketeering.

To prevent those responsible from getting away with it and to prevent it from happening again, some should do jail time starting with company CEOs who since the Enron debacle are no longer allowed to pretend ignorance of their company's financial affairs. All should pay huge fines if they don't go to jail. And, those who made the most obscene profits should be required to disgorge their profits from the crimes and misdemeanors, including their personal assets.

Too bad we can't also do something about the journalists who aided and abetted the crimes by gullibly reporting the frauds for years as magical new ways to earn money for nothing. If we had public stocks where we could shackle financial crimes cheerleaders and boo them, I would start with Friedman.

Stupid? Yes, people were stupid as Friedman suggests, but it will be terminal irredeemable stupidity only if we do not put some billionaires in jail and convert them back to at least no more than millionaires. If will be unforgivable stupidly only if we do nothing.

Signed: Lawlessone [for more irreverence, see resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]

As a business and real estate law practitioner of 30+ years experience, it is clear to me that the present national financial situation would not, could not, have occurred except for deliberate misrepresentation and/or reckless disregard of safety of other people money, many of which were probably done as part of a loose conspiracy to profit by such deception. They could not have helped but know what was likely to occur because there were plenty of warning signs as well as historical precedents for what happened, not to mention common sense. Yes, Virginia, simply because conspiracy theories have been given a bad name, does not mean they do not exist.

In any event, whether criminally intent on defrauding or merely recklessly indifferent as to who is harmed, both are grounds to take to court almost every individual and company that participated. In other times, if those responsible wore fedoras and had names ending in "o" or "i", we would have called it racketeering.

To prevent those responsible from getting away with it and to prevent it from happening again, some should do jail time who since the Enron debacle are not longer allowed to pretend ignorance. All should pay huge fines. And, those who made the most should be required to disgorge their profits from the crimes and misdemeanors, including their personal assets.

Too bad we can't also do something about the journalists who aided and abetted the crimes by gullibly reporting the frauds for years as magical new ways to earn money for nothing. We should start with Friedman.

Stupid? Yes, people were stupid, but it will be terminal irredeemable stupidity only if we do not put some billionaires in jail and convert them back to at least no more than millionaires.

Signed: Lawlessone [for more irreverence, see resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]

This piece brings a couple of thoughts to mind. The first is that Friedman is using a variation of "Let he who be without sin cast the first stone," figuring that enough of the populace partook of the stupidity while it was happening. Second, in regards to the bailouts of the big white collar companies, while most everyone else is screwed with the bill, one of Charlie Chaplin's greatest spoken lines ever, from Monsieur Verdoux, "Numbers justify."

www.wunderman-comics.com

Even hear of buyer be ware?

The people who took out the loans on their houses knew or should have known what they were financially getting into.

The people who voted for Bush or McCain or Obama should have known who they would be trusting their government too.

Yes, Mr. Freedman is like a broken clock-correct twice a day; but in this case when he blames the idiot citizen, he is right.

Full Spectrum Economy: building an economy that counts….

We have such a lopsided view of what counts in our world. So lopsided that ‘geniuses’ on Wall Street cooked up a scheme called Derivatives, Hedge Funds and Credit Default Swaps and sold them to the world as if they had counted or had value. Because making money is the thing that counts more than anything in our economy it made sense for Wall Street to do this. The more money, the better.

But now it’s been discovered that these investment instruments were made up out of thin air and have absolutely no value! Of course all the investors—who themselves were after the only thing that counts---money—want to be paid off for these fake investments. Imagine everyone’s surprise when it was found out that Wall Street investment banks don’t have the money to pay everyone off. (Value of all these investments--$180 trillion which is 3 times the gross domestic product of the world).

The world’s citizens don’t appear to be at all outraged that this is happening. They may not like it, but since money is what counts— and is so much more important than clean water, health care, education, etc., its obvious that the only option available is to put all our attention on finding a way to make more money. So, Treasuries of the world are working around the clock to find ways to provide money to banks, large insurance companies and perhaps even “too big to fail” businesses like the 3 major car companies. Everyone takes it for granted that this has to happen.

But is money what counts? Or have we gotten so sucked up into a myth that we can’t see that this isn’t true at all? And that means Wall Street folks, Alan Greenspan (who has acknowledged his theology about the economy is wrong), general citizens—everyone is so habituated to this story that no one even questions its validity?

In her book, “Whole Life Economics”, Barbara Brandt talked about how this money is what counts” got started. In the early 20th century, the men in the market and government sectors could see that continual recession/depression cycles (there were 13 of them in the 1800s) created chaos. Wanting to create a more stable system—they had 3 options available to them at that time—
A. They could let the current system continue to run its course. This did not look like a good choice by market and government folks as it resulted in continual depression/recession cycles. This was not a good thing and destroyed many people’s lives.
B. They could build a capitalist, unlimited growth and consumption economy. This is the current 3 sector economy: markets, government and illegal sectors shaped around the primary value that “money is what counts”. This seemed doable in 1905 and is obviously the choice that was made at that time. It required government and markets to manipulate the system and control the chaos of Option A. Resources were plentiful, consumption at very low levels—the capacity to make money seemed unlimited.
C. They could broaden their view of the economy and foster a system that balanced human and earth needs. This would be a Full Spectrum Economy—a 6 sector economy that includes markets, government, illegal sectors that we have now and to this we would measure/count as valuable—the household, unpaid volunteer work and the natural sectors. Unfortunately—this option was a bit too visionary for the folks of 1905. Can’t blame them really—because option B—unlimited growth and consumption seemed plausible. No one was thinking about resources running out, population topping 7 billion in less than 100 years, and we’d barely tapped the creativity of the markets for new ideas.

So, we went with Option B and it seemed like a good choice. Ah…but 100 years go by so fast, don’t they! Now, Option B—unlimited growth and consumption with money as the most important determinate of value appears to have run its course. Global warming looms, continued consumption at the pace we had over the last 100 years is not sustainable for another 100 years. Population can’t continue to grow—yet this is necessary for a consumer economy. We have hit what Brandt calls the “Unavoidable dilemma” of Option B. Eventually, continued growth is impossible—we either have enough of everything—consumption has run its course or we run out of resources—either way, this option can’t keep going. .

But because we are so habituated to the ‘money is what counts’, we’ve spent the last 20 years trying to find ways to keep that story going. And the Hedge funds, Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps---making money out of thin air is the ultimate end point. If we ever needed a more obvious example that Option B has run its course—this would be it.

The world is on its knees trying to figure out how to get this crisis fixed and get the old story going again—but perhaps its time to try Option C: A Full Spectrum economy that broadens our view of what’s important. Instead of money—maybe what’s most important is caring for humans and the planet and building a 6 sector economy that puts money back into balance with what’s truly important—LIFE.

That’s the question before us now: What counts—money or humans and the planet? If we pick money—and the continued limitations of a 3 sector economy—government, market and illegal (drugs, crime, prostitution etc.), we might not be on this planet in another 100 years. If we give ourselves permission to expand the view to a Full Spectrum, 6 sector economy—we can redirect our energy to building a world economy on what really counts—caring for humans and the planet.

for the folks wondering how this could have happened?? look at the winners!! of course we are seeing the end game set up many years ago..and to the folks worrying about falling house prices..should a pack of pall malls fall at the same rate, then whats the difference?? i think the answer to that is debt, as it would also have to fall at the rate..this is what the fight is over i think..to the average jo(len)e deflation is no problem as s(he) in general does not live an inflated life style..
ken

I disagree with the author: WE ORDINARY PEOPLE DID SIN! But the sin was not about carelessness in our personal finances. Rather, it was about leaving responsibility for our government and for our economic system to the 'experts.' The great advantage of democracy is that the people get precisely the government which they deserve.

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

--Thomas Jefferson, 1787

What's troubling to me and many in this country is how this could have been allowed to have happened. It is not just sufficient to say it was greed up and down the line and end of story. The real problem was the relaxation of oversight, the deregulation. We would not say that we're going to reduce police departments by 75% and trust citizens to stop at stop signs, not engage in robbery and burglary, etc. So why would we trust our real estate and banking system to be free of oversight? Alan Greenspan says there was a flaw in his philosophy--he didn't believe CEO's would act against the interests of shareholders. Hellooo?? We're finding out that these guys were as clueless or crooked as the common burglar. And this has happened before-- Enron, Long Term Capital Mgt,the S&L crisis, in business before the 1929 crash, etc. And for Greenspan, who was an afficionado of Ayn Rand, to think that market forces run by humans were somehow pure and saintly and would be self-regulating is as dumb as it gets.

Much of the problem is that so many in this country have taken the Republican Kool-aid of believing in conservative economic philosophy. These are many of our friends and who are for the most part very nice people. After the financial meltdown, which has taken a huge bite of almost everyone's assets, many of these very nice folks still don't get it. It's as if after being "burned once" they are ready to be "burned again" because they cannot connect the dots of their belief system to the financial disaster that is going on. They still believe in the unfettered market system. While it is true that some prominent Dems took the Kool-Aid and were a part of the idiotic deregulation, such as Rubin and Summers, most of the pressure for deregulation has come from Republicans like Phil Gramm and most others who pushed their conservative economic philosophy that government is bad and we should get the government out of business. The horrific dangers of this philosophy are explained well in the recent book by Thomas Frank, "The Wrecking Crew -- How Conservatives Rule." The book came out just before the financial meltdown, but boy does it explain so much as to why the meltdown happened, why Republicans cannot run the government properly, why they must actually destroy it. For example, Frank states (pp 4,5):

-----------
"Fantastic misgovernment of the kind we have seen is not an accident, nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, all that follows: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we've come to expect from Washington.

"The correct dianosis is the "bad apple" theses turned upside down. There are plenty of good conservative individuals, honorable folks who would never participate in the sort of corruption we have watched unfold over the last few years..." "Even our story's worst villains can be personally virtuouos. Jack Abramoff, for example, is known to his friends as a pious, polite, and generous fellows.

"But put conservatism in charge of the state, and it behaves very differently. Now the 'values' that rightist politicians eulogize on the stump disappear, and in their place we can discern an entirely different set of priorities--priorities that reveal more about the unchanging historical essence of American conservatism than do its fleeting campaigns against gay marriage or secular humanism. The conservatism that speaks to us through its actions in Washington is institutionally opposed to those baseline good intentions we learned about in elementary school. Its leaders laugh off the idea of the public interest as airy-fairy nonsense; they caution against bringing top-notch talent into government service; they declare war on public workers. They have made a cult of outsourcing and privatizing, they have wrecked established federal operations because they disagree with them, and they have deliberately piled up an Everest of debt in order to force the government into crisis. The ruination they have wrought has been thorough; it has been a professional job."
-----------

Ricardo again: What is amazing is that the house these wreckers brought down this time also smashed themselves and a great many Republicans in the process (except for CEOs and those who got away with bonuses and big parachutes). But the rank and file Republican seems not to understand. He/she must cling to his belief system and go into psychological denial. Which of course is one form of mental illness. And our entire society suffers for this mass delusion. And I ask: where is the justice, poetic or cosmic, for this? Will any Republicans stand up and face the music? Give us some mea culpa? Say never again? I'm waiting.
Ricardo

It should be noted that Friedman's "flat earth" metaphor is based on the notion that the US economy can and should be a financial economy, liberated from all the belching smokestacks and disgraceful sweatshops that are best shipped off to more "competitive environments". Flat earth actually means that the US becomes the top of the global pyramid scheme, the locus of worldwide usury and devious securitization.

Friedman is not merely stupid, he's a raving hypocrite and an unreconstructed ass-hole. You're way too kind, Danny.

But he's not alone. About half of the US population participates in the casino economy and believes in the rags-to-riches mythology of the "free market". Those who don't own stock and are not otherwise invested do not count. These are the people who work for wages and can't afford health insurance. These ae not the "middle class" Obama refers to. These are the "marks", the rubes who signed the subprime mortgages in the hopes of becoming middle class. Cheer leading from the Fed and the White House encouraged them to participate in this magical wealth creation.

It would be impossible to prosecute 100 million people who have embraced erroneous ideas about reality. The only productive course to follow is to examine the financial system itself and wise-up and grow out of this 19th Century delusion that enthralls Wall Street. A private financial system does not work. That is the message of this crisis.

Frontier capitalism driven by hard-core self-interest needs to become something else, a 21st Century capitalism with a nationalized monetary system accountable to the people that regards credit as a public utility to be made available for all at low interest, not merely to the elite predators on Wall Street.

Unfortunately, we the electorate have already trashed ourselves for the past 28 years. Especially in the last 8 years, we're ready to get distracted by frivolous culture war issues such as guns and abortion all the while paying less attention to issues that really do matter. In fact, I notice that both sides do it. On the Far Right, I come across rank and file voters who care more about restricting "abortion" rights than they do about taking on the corporate socialists on Wall $treet. On the Far Left, I come across rank and file voters who worry too much about "intelligent design" being taught in schools more than "free" trade and outsourcing policy scams being brought up and approved that will further ruin the economy. I hate to say this but America is in a dysfunctionally miserable status despite her denial.

The US is a nation of Rackets. Pick your Racket, War, Energy, Health, Financial, Real Estate, Insurance, Government. To survive, you need to be "employed" in one of these Rackets. If you are not "employed" in one of them, then you are a victim of them.

Every fourth year, we elect a Godfather to supervise these Rackets. The only analysis needed now is, with a diminished economic pie, which Rackets get what. A very large "settling of accounts", as they say in the Mob, is underway.

TF doesn't go far enough - it's also the fault of every college, university and grad school that awarded all the stupids with them fancy degrees in spite of their obvious stupidity. And, of course, ya gotta blame the parents of the stupids, too, for raising so many stupids, and their parents, for raising so many pre-stupids.

Question for TF: so where, exactly, do the smarties work and who are they? It's gotta be a really short list, right, seeing as how 99% of American has now been identified as stupid.

Wonder if I'm one of the smarties? I got no credit card debt, no mortgage, no car payments, no stock investments, no cable or satellite TV, no private jets, no country club memberships, no cell phone, no criminal record, and 35 years of hard work under my belt... yet I also have no job now, no health insurance, and, basically, no more money.

Wish I were more stupid...

"The United States is, quite literally, being bankrupted to rescue the Wall Street multi-millionaires whose reckless pursuit of bloated profits and compensation packages precipitated a breakdown of the global financial system that is threatening to plunge the world into a new Depression."
source: US bails out Citigroup and prepares to give trillions more to banks
By Barry Grey 25 November 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/citi-n25.shtml

"On Monday, US President-elect Barack Obama held a press conference in Chicago to announce selections for his "economic team." After these introductions, Obama spoke briefly and in vague terms about a proposed economic stimulus package, and then took five questions from reporters.

The 26-minute press conference was intended primarily to reassure investors that his administration will defend the interests of Wall Street, and that it will shift the cost of the economic crisis onto the working class."

source: Obama holds press conference, promises “whatever is required” for Wall Street -By Tom Eley 25 November 2008 http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/pres-n25.shtml

The system, capitalism, is the root cause of the economic crises humanity faces. We must end capitalism and transition to socialism if humanity is to survive.

Tom (Tough Hombre) Friedman, the cop who arrives at the scene of a multi-car automobile accident and says, "I think there was an automobile accident."

...and here:

http://eyeball-series.org/friedman/friedman-mansion.htm

MahoneyM
After reading this piece I'm reminded of the pyramid scheme that bankrupted Albania some years ago. When the press reported it it was obvious that they thought, oh those stupid Albanians. They couldn't believe how so many people could be taken in by it, but guess what. This whole country looks like Albania right now just like the pointy hatted characters out of the Dilbert cartoon. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic for so many. What pisses me off is that I'm one of those people with a house I own free and clear, no credit card debt, and actual retirement savings, but all that will be eroded over the next several years because of all the greedy bastards from the mortgage brokers to the hedge fund managers who have their wealth well hidden and are laughing at us, "the Albanian's".

As a former "Stupid" who (though perhaps no smarter) no longer makes a mortgage, car or credit card payment, I too feel that Mr. F. has been a little ungenerous in spreading his blanket of guilt around those like my former self. Did I know, as I paid off my mortgage, that my indebtedness to Citibank was going to be "securitized" to bounce around the floor of what must be one of the most "insecure" places in the world, the New York Stock Exchange? And, while in my stupid frame of consciousness, I have to wonder about the whole stock market system which makes and breaks human fortunes in rises and falls on market "reaction" whenever Alan Greenspan sneezes or has a good bowel movement. And what about those zig-zags of stock prices in the course of a single day? Aren't there people called vultures or hedge funders or something a stupid person wouldn't understand anyway in which some folks are making a living while literally killing others? (And that's of course in a "stable" market in which the Dow-Jones day-to-day "closings" may not be so variable.) Maybe (my stupidity again), what's wrong is not the culpability of people who make investment decisions but a system that predicates human success on the back of human failure. Or, as Rodney King said, "can't we all just get along?" Oops, that probably sounds like socialism.

Phil and Wendy Gramm going to jail sounds good.

The financial "leaders" are criminal and are not stupid, but they are unlikely to be held accountable. The sad and sickening spectacle of them testifying before congress with that wide-eyed "we had no idea things were getting this bad" attitude will be repeated until they take their golden parachutes and skedaddle.

They're rich, and rich people don't understand what money is to the rest of us. Recently my wife traveled to her home country and rich relatives paid for the ticket. My wife wrote a check to pay her share as agreed, but they haven't deposited the check yet. They don't understand that it's a struggle to make sure that there is enough in the account to cover it when they finally get around to taking care of it, because the amount is insignificant to them. They can't see how such a piddling (to them) sum could actually be important to us.

Unless some punishment could be devised that would require these self-righteous corporados to live a hand-to-mouth paycheck-to-paycheck life for a significant period of time, no comeuppance will afflict them. Convict them of crimes and they will assemble dream teams of attorneys and, if any of them do any time at all, it won't be in dangerous prisons with racially mixed gangbanging poor people.

Sad to say, we should not fret about making them answer for what they have done and concentrate on learning how to reintroduce regulation to limit the amount of harm financial fraudsters can do in the future, if there is to be one.

Place blame where blame really should be. It was Phil Gramm, "Mr you're all whiners", who really brought about the worst of this. He brought in the elimination of regulations that allowed this. If anyone should be going to jail, it is this piece of dirt.

The problem with going after the CEOs is that there are not laws, no rules or regulations that oblige them to any kind of a higher standard. They were playing the game as it was laid out by those who wanted to bankrupt the country, and they broke few real laws, from what I can see. Are they excuseable for their complete lack of ethical, moral or even common sense approaches to moeny? Not at all. They are, in fact, the lowest of the low, and they have proven themselves to be nothing more than scum of the earth. And that is an insult to scum.

IMHO, they should be taken out of society, which they have shown they have no respect for, and separated from their money and worldly goods, and left to their wits on a desert island, somewhere. Preferably a very small desert island.

We need to reregulate the financial, mortgage, and business worlds to make them fair, again. They USED to be, and they ran far better than they do now. Capitalism only works when it's regulated to make it fair to everyone. But this is what the greedy wanted, to not have to deal with rules or fairness at all, and to steal everything that wasn't nailed down. They got what they wanted, it's time for us to get what we NEED, now. And may they all rot in hell.

Follow the money...SOMEONE got rich off of this debacle, and should be made to pay back their ill gotten gains.

I would start with the CEO's Fat bank accounts.

These clowns have no loyalty to the "system" or the "country"..once they amass a couple hundred millions, it's off to some foreign billionaire expate colony with no extradition treaty with the USA...they could give a warm crap about the mess they leave behind...jail them all I say!

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats

The nation's confidence has been shaken and people are developing a bunker mentality.

It's time to emulate John Galt until this catastrophy blows over.
What is the 'half life' of the Neo-Con's New American Century?

Just one more area that needs a moral, and independent fact-finding committee to sort it all out and finally fix the blame where it really belongs, as far back as it might end up going. Otherwise, we're going to be having the finger-pointing, blame game going on forever.

The simplest way of deflecting blame is to blame everyone. See the Iraq war as example. The same method is used "America was justified in invading Iraq because EVERYONE believed he had stockpiles of WMDS"

Friedman has also been an apologist for the elites.

Very much the same tactic is being used against the Auto Workers of Michigan. They live, for the most part in modest homes. Typically American middle class but they are somehow to blame for the plight of GM, Ford and Chrysler because they were so greedy.

No sooner did Citgroup get the bailout from the US taxpayer, they started selling another default type instrument. This one once more has no underlying value. What you do in essence is bet on which companies will go bankrupt. The return of this new derivative is based upon how much DEBT is recovered in a bankruptcy.

Its another get rich quick scheme which will make certain peoples money. Citibank plans on selling billions woth of this "worthless paper". They know full well if they stand to lose money on it the Friedmans of the world will claim they should be bailed out as they too big to fail, and then suggest it the fault of EVERYONE for allowing it to happen.