Living in New York City, a Year After Lehman Bros. Was Sacrificed

foto by tgw, 2009

A Wall Street Anniversary
I'll be damned if President Obama isn't making another speech [he has made it already]. This time he's going to convince us that the economy has turned around [he did just that--he saved us from another Great Depression, though we are still in a "recession" and will be for some time. Seems President Obama is blaming We the People for the mess, though he swears he's going to crack down on financial shenanigans and such. At the same time, the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have first amendment rights and it is OK if they give billions to candidates in return for favors]. He's going to do it at one of his favorite places, Wall Street [he's done it already]. [The wall of Wall Street was built by the Dutch to protect New Amsterdam from attack from the Atlantic through New York Harbor. It did no good. All the Brits had to do to breech it was sail their warships in from the Atlantic and station them in the middle of the harbor. Then they sent a message in to Peter Stuyvesant saying all he had to do to avoid the Brits shelling New Amsterdam was to peacefully surrender. He did. And New Amsterdam became New York. The Dutch this year are celebrating their influence on the history and culture of New York. No mention was made of the Dutch stealing New York from its original landowners--in fact, no mention was made of the original genuine American landowners.]

The wall of our present-day Wall Street has collapsed; yet, the filthy rich of this country, those who own all our wealth, the 1 percenters, are propping it up by trading blocks of shares every day, shifting them around from this account to that account [after President Obama's assurance speech, the market shot up over 9600--oh boy, I guess you were well positioned for the gains you made?]. Like Warren Buffett. Do you know the effect on the market if old Warren simply announces he's going to divest himself of this or that stock or industry or whatever? [Now you see the influence President Obama has over the stock market; one cheer leading speech and the market unreasonably shoots up 50 points--that fast.] Or if Bill Gates announces he's coming out with a new and improved but still faulty Vista upgrade? Or if Steve Jobs appears back on stage at an Apple pep rally with his new liver? How many of We the Common People were denied liver transplants by our healthcare insurance this year? But old Steve had no trouble getting his liver transplant approved; they bent over and touched their toes to please his old ass. Hell, a liver transplant to old Steve is an out-of-pocket expense, no problem. He may even have a inner-office ranch of paid liver donors. Plus, you know old Steve has his own private doctors on his personal payroll? I know one young woman who was denied a liver transplant this year because of a prior condition (one way the healthcare insurance companies make some more profits--it's executive bonus time again and you know those big shots need more millions this year, which means, "Cut down on those god-damn liver transplants."). Cigna, I believe was the denying company. But, hey, Cigna had a heart and reneged on its denial and said, "OK, go ahead and give the little bitch a transplant." Oh how sweet of them. The trouble was--the young woman was dead by then. One would think such a denial incident would be a crime. A crime demanding somebody serve some time. I mean, didn't Cigna kill that young woman with its cutthroat policies? Yet Cigna will give out bigger executive bonuses this year than ever before, bonuses that may include as many liver transplants as those boys may need--and the way they drink and do cocaine, who knows? The healthcare insurance companies (providers is their All-American titles) kill us with impunity. We die and they make huge profits. We ask for mercy and our President and the insurance companies tell us, "Sorry, the system's already in place, there's nothing we can do about it except force you to buy health insurance from killers like Cigna...it's for your own good!" Mandatory health insurance rather than any kind of mercy. I remember Mercy hospitals when I was a kid. There ain't no mercy in any hospitals these days. But there's plenty a'mercy down on Wall Street.

So Obama, since he looks like he's going to get knocked out in the early rounds with his national healthcare redesign--he ran into the same brick wall with his healthcare plan as Hillary did when she tried to spin her plan against the same opulently rich industry and their money-bearing and law-writing lobbyists, is going to try to gain some political points by doing a little trumpeting about how since Lehman Bros. was sacrificed to the Wall Street gods our economy has zoomed back up toward recovery. Yep, Lehman Bros. [remember when they were Sherston-Lehman?] was sacrificed to the Wall Street gods by the Goldman-Sachs pirates that are still in control of Wall Street and the Federal Reserve and Congress and our money. Goldman-Sachs executive bonuses are coming up, too, and, they'll say, they had such a good year profitswise, those bonuses may break records this year. Why lookee there, Robert Rubin is back at Goldman-Sachs.

One of Obama's spins will concern the worth of the dollar. He will say that back when Lehman Bros. was sacrificed on the Wall Street barbecue grill your invested dollar on Wall Street was worth only 85 cents. He will then say, that same dollar in today's market is worth a buck and a half. It's a flip-flopping market if you follow it--zooming up 200 points one day and dropping 125 the next day--stuck in the mid 9000s--still nearly 3000 points off its high before Bush sent our economy into a tailspin with his billion-dollars-a-minute wars and his Pentagon budget increases and his creating new executive departments like Homeland Security and giving them huge budgets and continuing to finance with billions the worthless and unwinable war on drugs and his borrowing money from Social Security until it's dangerously in the red. Then when he blew all of Clinton's so-called surplus (it was based on creative accounting) and put Social Security in the red, he started selling our debt, through bonds, to the People's Republic of China, a Communist nation now posing as the most successful Capitalist economy in the world. With a 96 billion buck surplus of good ole US debt! Those commie bastards are now saying, along with their Russian pals, that we need a new dollar! When the dollar is worthless, then the Neo-Con's will have won. They will have beaten us. They will have turned us into a Third World nation. [Did I tell you that the Repugnicans are once again charging ahead with trying to privatize Medicare and Social Security?]

The economy is not turning around. The worst is yet to come. We are losing an average of 200,000 jobs a month. Prices of everything are rising with tremendous leaps and bounds every day. A bottle of Heineken beer that once sold for $3.00 a bottle is now in most New York City restaurants and bars $7.00 a bottle. My friend the Irish-pub owner says that he has no choice but to raise his prices since one way the political fat cats get fatter is by imposing taxes on alcohol. Most restaurants make their money off their bars not off their food so the more taxes the state and feds put on booze means the more the person who eats or drinks out will have to pay more and more for both booze and food. The stock market is manipulated; it is easily manipulated. With We the People (the government) as their bailout buddy, it has become a totally speculative market--none of it makes any sense, but the boys who own it know. Did you know watching the pro golfers (even the second-rate ones are millionaires due to sponsorships--Tiger Woods, for instance, makes 50 times more millions off his endorsements than he does off his playing golf) that I noticed a lot of them are sponsored (they wear their sponsors's names all over their shirts and hats) by NYSE. Yep, the New York Stock Exchange is sponsoring millionaire golfers! What a wonderful life the corporate life is. Safe and sound no matter the market. The market is for gamblers who are fools--the house stacks the deck against average investors in favor of the high rollers. Have you ever heard the Power Elite adage that says "You gotta have money to make money"? The Power Elite have the conspicuous funds and the leisure time to play the stock market like the retired school teachers play the slots down in Atlantic City. The high-rolling investors will have their junior lackeys cruise through the stock market info all night long, moving their stocks around all over the place--cashing out, then coming back in at a lower stake. I've said over and over, you get just as good a return betting favorites at a horse track; or playing percentage blackjack in A.C. or Vegas.

[I just read where President Obama gave Wall Street a little slap on the wrist (risk) saying next time We the People won't be there to bail them out if they start the same ole shenanigans again--which, by the way, they already have--foreclosures are up higher than ever; jobs are disappearing; rents are going up; Verizon is adding all kinds of weird little charges to their bills, like an 8 cent MTA surcharge. A Manhattan Transit Authority surcharge on my phone bill? Or how about an FCC inside wire charge? My current phone bill from Verizon had $27 worth of surcharges and taxes on it. How about they are now using the phrase "Voice charges." What the hell does that mean? Here in New York City, we are taxed to the max. We pay federal, state, and city taxes (that's triple taxation); those three taxes come out of our earnings; they added on to our phone bills; they are foisted on us on our utility bills. Highway robbery it used to be called. Verizon now doesn't give you any leeway in paying your bill late. Even if you call them and explain that you're going to be late they'll still charge you a $5 late fee. Like their newest name implies, they rob you both vertically and horizontally.]

It's still the same ole same ole when it comes to politics. They are so beneath me; yet they are so affecting my life and my worth and my security and my pursuit of happiness.

Maybe I'll go out to an insane asylum and laugh at the loonies! According to Eugene O'Neill, the loonies are certainly laughing at me.

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler

New York City Is a Police State Now--Check Out This Headline

New York Residences Raided in Terrorism Probe

FBI, police raid New York City residences after reported visit by person linked to al-Qaida