“In history? In history we’ll all be dead”…

The Prime Minister is asking that the upcoming debate’s full hour be devoted to the economy, obviously in response to the current crisis in the United States. The NDP is supporting the amendment.

Something that should not escape anyone is the ability to use what is currently transpiring as a tool of political fear. President Bush attempted to cast the crisis in just such a light prior to Congress voting down the proposed bailout package, and he continues to do so. Of course, lost in his rhetoric, and that of many others, is the culpability of those responsible versus those that will ultimately be made to flip the bill – the people.

The United States is our foremost trading partner. But we are not alone in feeling the repercussions, and thus the fear produced, by what is currently transpiring. Markets around the world have been negatively affected by the wanton actions of financial institutions in a single country, and that is something that should not be overlooked. As has been the case for decades, the world’s foremost commodity markets are subject to the strength of the US dollar, and therefore the US economy itself.

One crucial example of US economic dominance is that of the oil market, which is universally represented in US dollars. Not one major oil bourse on the planet exists that trades oil in another currency. Were, for example, Iranian proposals to create an independent bourse controlled by the Euro ever to become a reality the repercussions on the US economy would be devastating – and make no mistake, that is a very real factor with regards to US disdain for Iran, even though it is little reported.

While the people of the United States are facing a crisis in which they may very well end up paying for the wanton greed of Wall Street’s elite, they won’t be the only ones that will be made to bleed for it - average citizens the world over will be there right along side of them simply because of the economic stranglehold that the United States has on the world. And while foreigners might not feel the affects as harshly, the reality remains that what is transpiring right now in the United States is not simply an American problem, but one that will be felt by people the world over.

Here at home, rather than a national debate taking place in which a variety of important issues are addressed, Canadians may very well be treated to an entire hour dedicated to addressing a financial crisis spawned in a foreign country, and all of the political fear mongering that such a crisis makes possible.

We’ll see.

I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a long time – write straight (which is what I should have done rather than post that last entry - now removed).

There have been weasels in my life, more than in yours. It comes with the territory. People in my position attract them like flies to shit – and in the end shit is all that comes of it.

Weasels are creatures that twist and bend with popular winds and will do just about anything to get their foot in a door – yours, someone else’s – as long as there’s a door.

Weasels are everywhere. They come in all different shapes and sizes of both sexes, they smile smiles and, when backs are turned, their volumes ramp to either tear others down or prop themselves up.

Over the last fifteen years I have seen them come and go – fast friends, those that hang on to bitterness for years because they were found out for the weasels they were, and the wake that weasels produce when they suddenly discover that the charade is up and turn their tongues to blackness.

Trust is not something that exists. Too many weasels, too many bite marks. You keep your true friends close and your family closer. Everyone else, over time, becomes just another potential weasel. The sad part is that maybe they’re not, but as the saying goes – twice bitten.

If I had a nickel for every weasel, well, I’d have a shit load of nickels. It’s unfortunate that that’s not the case, because at least then I could put those nickels to good use.

From the BBC…

“The lower house of the US Congress has voted down a $700bn (£380bn) plan aimed at bailing out Wall Street.

The rescue plan, a result of tense talks between the government and lawmakers, was rejected by 228 to 205 votes in the House of Representatives.

About two-thirds of Republican lawmakers refused to back the rescue package, as well as 95 Democrats.

Shares on Wall Street plunged within seconds of the announcement, after earlier falls on global markets.

A White House spokesman said that President George W Bush was “very disappointed” by the result.

He would meet members of his team in the coming days to “determine next steps”, spokesman Tony Fratto said.

The vote followed a day of turmoil in the financial sector.”

[…]

“So grave are the consequences of this decision, reports the BBC’s Kevin Connolly from Washington, that the speaker of the house paused for several long minutes after the vote was taken before declaring it official.
The no vote plunged the world of Washington politics into turmoil and the markets into deep and instant chaos with rapid falls on Wall Street, our correspondent says.”

A comment left by a reader from Baltimore summed it up…

“I am glad the bailout bill failed. I work five days a week, save cash and pay my bills. I did not want to pay for Corporate America’s greed”.

Global Impact

» Wachovia, the fourth-largest US bank, was bought by larger rival Citigroup in a rescue deal backed by US authorities.

» Benelux banking giant Fortis was partially nationalised by the Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg governments to ensure its survival.

» The UK government announced it was nationalising the Bradford & Bingley bank.

» Global shares fell sharply - France’s key index lost 5%, Germany’s main market dropped 4% while US shares plunged after the vote result was announced.

Update

I’m not one to happily use Lou Dobbs to demonstrate a point, but in this instance it’s pretty relevant (tip: satchboogieca)….

As Congress votes on the proposed bailout plan, the Dow Jones has fallen 600 points today, with oil dropping below $100 dollars a barrel. But rather than opine on the domestic causes for the crisis, I want to direct some attention to an article recently written by Chalmers Johnson entitled We Have the Money - If Only We Didn’t Waste It on the Defense Budget that delves into a little discussed aspect of the current crisis…

“There has been much moaning, air-sucking, and outrage about the $700 billion that the U.S. government is thinking of throwing away on rich New York bankers who have been ripping us off for the past few years and then letting greed drive their businesses into a variety of ditches. In fact, we dole out similar amounts of money every year in the form of payoffs to the armed services, the military-industrial complex, and powerful senators and representatives allied with the Pentagon.

On Wednesday, September 24th, right in the middle of the fight over billions of taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House of Representatives passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without a murmur of public protest or any meaningful press comment at all. (The New York Times gave the matter only three short paragraphs buried in a story about another appropriations measure.)

The defense bill includes $68.6 billion to pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is only a down-payment on the full yearly cost of these wars. (The rest will be raised through future supplementary bills.) It also included a 3.9% pay raise for military personnel, and $5 billion in pork-barrel projects not even requested by the administration or the secretary of defense. It also fully funds the Pentagon’s request for a radar site in the Czech Republic, a hare-brained scheme sure to infuriate the Russians just as much as a Russian missile base in Cuba once infuriated us. The whole bill passed by a vote of 392-39 and will fly through the Senate, where a similar bill has already been approved. And no one will even think to mention it in the same breath with the discussion of bailout funds for dying investment banks and the like.”

This is an aspect of the financial crisis that I am astonished has not been given any attention – that and the foreign debt of the United States. In the recent Presidential debate, John McCain claimed that the United States owes China half a trillion dollars. In truth, the United States owes China a trillion dollars. The US foreign debt is so incredibly severe that one third of it is equal to the entire debt of the Third World. Everyone’s got a credit card though, and everyone’s encouraged to spend rather than save. After 9/11 the best advice that the White House could give the country was to go shopping.

And then the nation went to war, and every year that it has been at war the annual defense budget has increased - and yet defense spending has had almost no impact on the domestic economic mindset. Despite the fact that the nation was spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year, the promotion of the good life remained a steadfast domestic reality.

Despite what is occurring on Wall Street, the military expenditures of the United States remain phenomenally enormous. The US defense budget is, if you can believe it, some $200 billion dollars more than that of the entire European Union, and almost $6 billion dollars more than China’s and Russia’s. By comparison, the Canadian defense budget couldn’t buy toilet paper for troops in Iraq.

From Tom Engelhardt…

“Estimates of the true long-term costs of the President’s war of choice, including payments of health care and veterans benefits into the distant future, soar into the budgetary stratosphere. They range from the Congressional Budget Office’s $1-2 trillion to an estimate by economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes of up to $4-5 trillion. So we’re talking somewhere between one-and-a-half and seven bailouts-worth of taxpayer dollars flowing into the morass of disaster, corruption, and carnage in Iraq.”

Of course, none of this excuses the behaviour of those untouchable picaroons that played their role in engineering this current crisis. As the New York Times points out this morning, they’re already looking for ways to capitalize on the disastrous product of their own greed…

“Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.

Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.”

A quick word to the folks in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, (and surrounding areas) who were hit by Hurricane Kyle this evening – I hope everyone’s okay and that the damage is minimal.

Thankfully the category 1 hurricane has now been downgraded to a tropical storm. That said; the Maritimes is still expected to get pounded by rain over the next few days, with reports that in some places 100 millimeters could fall in a just a few hours.

For those of you that missed the update, or haven’t clicked on the image at the top of the site regarding the release of the record, the entire recording is being made available internationally on iTunes on October 7th, not November the 4th. We were initially sent the wrong information, though we corrected it on the Live At Massey Hall page and did update the last entry made about the release.

It seems that a few people failed to read that update.

So, in Canada the first 12 tracks are available on iTunes on October 7th and all 20 tracks are available worldwide on the same day. The reason for this is because when the hard-copy is released it will only be available at Canadian retail. International orders can, of course, be made via the online store or other outlets – such as Amazon.

The Hustler, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, The Sting, Fort Apache - The Bronx, The Color Of Money, The Road to Perdition, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Cool Hand Luke.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

He liked beer, he raced cars, and his marriage survived 50 years in an industry where most don’t last 5. He released a line of food products that raised in excess of $200 million dollars for various charities, once took out an advert in Variety apologizing for one of his performances, and coined the phrase – “why go out for hamburger when you’ve got steak at home?”

Paul Newman was the man.

Nine off the break.

If one amazing thing did occur during tonight’s first Presidential debate it was the BBC’s live web coverage. While the debate was streamed live, automatic updates were posted below it, including comments from site visitors in real time, blog entry excerpts in real time, Twitter Tweets, and commentary by the BBC’s Justin Webb in real time (their North American editor). It was, as far as web feats go, extremely impressive. You can check it out here.

If change is what this election is all about then tonight’s debate proved one thing – the sort of change that Americans can expect is equitable to removing dirty socks and putting on a new pair only slightly less so. There was absolutely no electricity or urgency emanating from Barack Obama, who played into McCain’s set pieces from the onset. It was the old Republican warhorse blowing his own horn and the champion of change, promoted as such primarily because of who currently inhabits the White House, who seemed more an obliging centrist than anything else.

This evening’s debate proved one thing - that the American political landscape is no less a quagmire than those foreign wars that the nation is currently embroiled in. The willingness to truly take chances, to risk, and through impassioned resolve ignite the imaginations of the people has fled, replaced by placation’s ever promising embrace of success. No, democracy is not alive and well in America, only the corporate branding of two political parties and their struggle to dominate the market. In fact, it’s a trait that is almost universal in the Western world.

Leading a nation requires, above all else, true vision, and neither man that stood on that stage this evening possesses it. True, they maintain beliefs, but in the end what occurred tonight was a tangle of rhetoric devoid of vision. Words were spoken, jabs were traded, experience and temperament were questioned, but a visionary leader was not in that building.

I took notes throughout the debate, but looking at them now it seems pointless to comment. Victory in Iraq? Defeat has already occurred, but like a car crash victim drowning in shock it simply hasn’t sunk in yet, just as it hadn’t in 1971. Venezuela claimed a rogue state, the linguistic misinterpretation of ‘wipe Israel off the face of the map’ presented as fact, the Russians chastised for their actions while the Georgian government is showered with praise, and the unbelievable assertion that al-Qaeda will claim a foothold in Iraq if the US fails in its mission employed as the fear card. The Shia would eat them alive were the US to leave the country, but let’s not let reality get in the way.

No, tonight was a lesson in the exhaustive inanity of American politics. The Muses, it seems, have cast their euphoric haze and wait with anticipation to see what dead loss is born.