| | Re;Friends, we have a bonafide state sanctioned scapegoat in America: Wall Street.
To me, it looks and sounds more like a crony turf war, between K-Street and Wall Street. Bloods to Cripps, "They Did It!"
Ever since the LTCM fiasco in Sep 1998...
There is capitalism, and there is capitalism, only, I don't know what you call it when it is all cozied up to the guns of government, and over-run with half is, half isn't creatures like the GSEs, and bailouts so on.
There is more than beast building capitalism.
There is carcass carving capitalism, and there is parasitism on the beast.
And, there is incompetent beast building.
All of that at some level can be tolerated by healthy beast economies. But when the above dominates actual beast building capitalism, there might be an extended period of living off the carcass of a once beast, as long as it is a big carcass, but that can't fly forever. Which pretty much explains the current disconnect between our winding down economies, the artificial stimulus, and the staring at the scoreboard and betting on the game going on now on Wall Street.
All of the above is totally dependent on once competent beast building, what is practiced by folks who discipline risk by putting their own sweat equity skin into the game, the folks who guarantee guaranteed ROI wages and non-risk participation in our economies.
Few fools want to risk actual skin in the current 'free-for-some' game being run by the tribe. No, the result of all the current connected crony 'pump-priming' that is in the works is going to be a resounding demand for ... ever more connected crony pump-priming. Who believes that the current Age of Pull is going to be able to carve the carcass forever?
Which is why, my guess, Paul Krugman has decidedly stopped talking about 'The Economy,' and is instead giving forth on Specter and Obama's USSC pick and anything but 'The Economy.'
Even Obama is backpedaling on 'The Economy', trying not to own it.
I think it's a distraction to blanket defend the recent federal cronyism on Wall Street and call it 'capitalism.'
There may in fact yet be some beast building capitalists on Wall Street, volunteering to pre-pay the ransomes for their own kidnappings, but ... I can't imagine why, or for how much longer. Gresham's Law is ultimately about good value and bad value, not just coins and currency, and it is working away on all the variants of 'capitalism' that we permit to be lumped together under that monikor.
When anybody wearing wingtips and making money on Wall Street is referred to as a 'capitalist', then 'capitalists' ultimately get valued at the least common denominator of all that.
Were there actually any capitalists at FNMA? Or ten years ago, the 'hedge fund heros' at LTCM, when they went crawling to the 'Fed consortium' for their implied back up, if not bailout? Is it really free-market 'capitalists' that are sprinting to the public trough and demanding connected crony subsidy? Or is all of that fascism?
Free market capitalists eat their losses and learn from them, they don't go running to those with the guns and make cozy deals with their connected crony brethern and find a way to shed their losses on others.
The Mob does that.
regards,
Fred
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