rabbit blog


Sunday, September 21, 2008


A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

The news is getting it all wrong, of course. As taxpayers prepare to foot the bill for the rampant explosion of unregulated bundled debt securities, the news casts the whole nightmare as an elaborate bailout of mortgage companies and homeowners. Yes, idiotic lending policies and bad personal decisions played a big part in this collapse, but that's not why Bush and Co. are poised to intercede. They're taking action in order to bail out the risk-takers at the top of the heap, the international institutions and the reckless robber barons of Wall Street who bet on these unregulated debt securities and lost, and should by all rights crumble to ashes as a result. Instead, this country is prepared to spend $700 billion on what? The answer to that is a complete mystery to everyone.

Glenn Greenwald summed up the whole slippery mess beautifully:

[W]hatever else is true, the events of the last week are the most momentous events of the Bush era in terms of defining what kind of country we are and how we function -- and before this week, the last eight years have been quite momentous, so that is saying a lot. Again, regardless of whether this nationalization/bailout scheme is "necessary" or makes utilitarian sense, it is a crime of the highest order -- not a "crime" in the legal sense but in a more meaningful sense.

What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism -- where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.

More amazingly, they're free to walk away without having to disgorge their gains; at worst, they're just "forced" to walk away without any further stake in the gamble. How can these bailouts not at least be categorically conditioned on the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from those who are responsible? The mere fact that shareholders might lose their stake going forward doesn't resolve that concern; why should those who so fantastically profited from these schemes they couldn't support walk away with their gains? This is "redistribution of wealth" and "government takeover of industry" on the grandest scale imaginable -- the buzzphrases that have been thrown around for decades to represent all that is evil and bad in the world. That's all this is; it's not an "investment" by the Government in any real sense but just a magical transfer of losses away from those who are responsible for these losses to those who aren't.


Greenwald's column should be on Salon's cover. Who put that idiotic TV critic's ramblings there instead?

9:42 AM

Saturday, September 20, 2008


FUBAR

In case you're in the dark about just how completely depraved our government's panicked bailout of this financial apocalypse is, check out this excellent and appropriately paranoid article in the New York Times (written by the stepmother of my exboyfriend from college, of all random and largely insignificant degrees of separation). I've been reading her lucid and refreshingly ill-tempered articles on credit default swaps and the other teetering houses of cards that precipitated this crisis for over a year now, and I think it pays for all of us to listen carefully to her message: This mess is hardly about the crappy decisions of a bunch of feckless individuals. It's about taking those crappy decisions (which were made possible, mind you, by the mortgage industry's insane and greedy extension of huge, idiotic, undocumented loans), bundling them together into unregulated derivatives, and selling them to institutions that used them to "get around their regulatory capital requirements intended to rein in risk". Yes, these massive, unregulated, risky securities were used as hedges, despite the fact that they were really "financial weapons of mass destruction" as Warren Buffet once described them.

And now the government is stepping in to avert a worldwide financial collapse, but the carnage looks suspicious. Bear Stearns and AIG, but not Lehman? Whose interests do we need to protect, and who's left twisting in the wind? What exactly will taxpayers be paying for? Who will set the value on these complicated derivatives, the banks or the government? Morgenson points out quite clearly that, because there's not nearly enough transparency in this realm, we have no way of knowing enough not to feels suspicious, and unnerved, every step of the way.

2:59 PM

Monday, September 15, 2008


SKY FALLING, MORE AT 11

Motherfucker! Train wrecks, natural disasters, financial apocalypso, and David Foster Wallace is dead. On days like this, all you can do is hit "refresh" on the New York Times site over and over again, for the latest tragedies to hit the presses. Just when you think the world can't get any gloomier, fifty crappy things happen at once.

Mostly I'm depressed about DFW, one of my favorite nonfiction writers of all time. I figured I'd be reading his books for decades to come. I know everybody asks this question over and over again, but I can't help it: Why do some of the smartest, most talented people end up killing themselves?

4:59 PM



all contents © the rabbit blog 2001-2016




Site Meter


Powered by Blogger



 

 









me
columnist for new york magazine & bookforum, author of disaster preparedness, co-creator of filler for the late, great suck.com


my stuff
my author page
ask polly - ny mag
ny times magazine
bookforum
the new yorker
twitter
the awl
salon
filler



good stuff I wrote
little, green, different
mother of dragons
how to contact the author
the doctor is in
how to write
tech's bubble boys
legoland
dance, damn it
stop blaming jaws
pop starships were meant to fly
crazy women
the fun parts
one ring to rule them all
home alone
apocalypse now
aaron sorkin branches out
long distance runaround
50 shades of mad
dallas, new & old
twirling girls
abe the vampire slayer
the mommy trap
pa shoots bear!
sopranos vs. the shield
girlandia
lost in the rat maze
zombies vs. vampires
suffering parents
the dimbulbs of entourage
the divorce delusion
friday night lights vs. glee
game of thrones needs light
president trump
your highness
feel your anger!
nuclear experts weigh in
super-sized ambition
healing powers of the apocalypse
oscars & extreme ambition
beware personal branding disorders
lady (oh!) gaga
"hoarders" cured my hoarding
real brand managers of nyc
climates of intolerance
in dog we trust
faster, pregnant lady!
mothering heights
gen x apology
recessionary bending
expecting the worst
an excellent filler
more filler


press
paris review
the rumpus interview
emusic interview
nice nytimes review
newer laist interview
laist interview
la weekly interview
ojr interview
barrelhouse interview


some random old stuff
fillerama
hen & bunny
childless whore






RSS



write to rabbit, damn it!








archive!
october 2001
november 2001
december 2001
january 2002
february 2002
march 2002
april 2002
may 2002
june 2002
july 2002
august 2002
september 2002
october 2002
november 2002
december 2002
january 2003
february 2003
march 2003
april 2003
may 2003
june 2003
july 2003
august 2003
september 2003
october 2003
november 2003
december 2003
january 2004
february 2004
march 2004
april 2004
may 2004
june 2004
july 2004
august 2004
september 2004
october 2004
november 2004
december 2004
january 2005
february 2005
march 2005
april 2005
may 2005
june 2005
july 2005
august 2005
september 2005
october 2005
november 2005
december 2005
january 2006
february 2006
march 2006
april 2006
may 2006
june 2006
july 2006
august 2006
september 2006
october 2006
november 2006
december 2006
january 2007
february 2007
march 2007
april 2007
may 2007
june 2007
july 2007
august 2007
september 2007
october 2007
november 2007
december 2007
january 2008
february 2008
march 2008
april 2008
may 2008
june 2008
july 2008
august 2008
september 2008
october 2008
november 2008
december 2008
january 2009
february 2009
march 2009
april 2009
may 2009
june 2009
july 2009
august 2009
september 2009
october 2009
november 2009
december 2009
january 2010
february 2010
march 2010
april 2010
may 2010
june 2010
july 2010
august 2010
september 2010
october 2010
november 2010
december 2010
january 2011
february 2011
march 2011
april 2011
may 2011
june 2011
july 2011
august 2011
september 2011
october 2011
november 2011
january 2012











color rabbit illustration
by terry colon

rabbit girl illustration
by terry colon
with assembly by
jay anderson

white rabbit illustration
by loretta lopez






all letters to the rabbit become the property of the rabbit blog