Ik kreeg deze e-mail:
'Vrije-wereldburger heeft een nieuwe reactie op uw bericht "Robert Giebels van de Volkskrant" achtergelaten: En het blijkt dat de extreme risico's niet voor de gokkers zijn. Daar draait de genepte consument/belastingbetaler voor op.De lonen in de VS hebben dezelfde koopkracht als die van 1973. Ik hoef niet eens bij Giebels te gaan kijken om te weten dat hij dat niet vermeldt.'
'Dr. Hank's Expensive Elixir
A Bailout to Nowhere
By RICHARD RHAMES
A Bailout to Nowhere
By RICHARD RHAMES
“...The capital we thought was there is gone. A lot of it was actually translated over the years into Hamptons villas, Gulfstream jets, and other playthings that will now go up on Ebay or some equivalent as we turn into Yard Sale Nation in a general liquidation of remaining assets....Everything is for sale and nobody has any money.”
-- James H. Kunstler, 9/15/08
-- James H. Kunstler, 9/15/08
The tremors come faster now. Candidate McCain mimics Herbert Hoover asserting that the economic “fundamentals” are sound, even as Wall Street asset Hank Paulson announces the latest lofting of US Treasury life preservers. The fiscal flotation devices will allow Hank’s cohorts a “soft landing” in more comfortable climes than await the majority here in America the Deflating.
Even the corporate media, reflexively dedicated to promoting “consumer confidence” and keeping the gullible in their seats long enough for the swag-toting executive larcenists to make for the exits, murmur about a new 1929.
With the usual misdirection, the press reports plummeting Wall Street stock prices as if they mattered to ordinary people. In fact, as economist Dean Baker has repeatedly pointed out, “[T]he stock market is not a good barometer of the economy’s health. It can be driven up as a result of a redistribution from wages to profits, or simply as a result of irrational exuberance. Neither is good for the economy as a whole, although anything that pushes up stock prices is obviously good news for the small minority of people who own substantial amounts of stock.”
Meanwhile, Baker’s colleague at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Mark Weisbrot informed Miami Herald (9/1/08) readers that real -- inflation adjusted -- wages have been virtually stagnant for 34 years. Since 1973, as the stock market climbed, “productivity -- the amount that workers produce per hour -- increased quite substantially...” But, while this “ ‘useable productivity’ -- the increased production that we can expect to be reflected in rising wages --” rose 48 percent from 1973 to 2007, paychecks didn’t. The “economy” grew but only the well-connected at the top benefited. Wall Street exulted in the new profits extracted from the under-compensated toil of the same working people who were now repeatedly urged to cheer the increasing fortunes of their masters.
As the downscale waged workers fell behind, they were offered EZ credit, first through deregulated credit card loan sharkery, and then, as the real estate bubble was ruthlessly inflated, through the infamous “home equity extraction” gambit and/or serial “house flipping.” Their “defined benefit” pension plans ---deferred wages --- were converted into crap-shoot “defined contribution” schemes and Enron-ized.
Most people’s “wealth” is represented by their house and maybe their car. People were encouraged to feel (and act) richer as the housing bubble and its heady irrational exuberance seemed to boost house values by $8 trillion nationwide. But now the music has stopped, the chickens flutter home to roost, and the piper shrieks for payment. As massive asset deflation continues, housing prices return to their long-term historic levels, and on average Baker notes, that vanishing $8 trillion in illusory “housing bubble wealth” translates into a $110,000 hit per homeowner. These hapless folks, “will see much of the equity in their home disappear.”
Since so many Americans essentially re-mortgaged themselves in bubble time --- using their house as an ATM machine through an equity withdrawal --- and continued to consume at a level their stagnant or declining wages no longer allowed, this implacable (and unfinished) deflationary swoon spells real pain.
Yet the media / political focus is on the Wall Street Weak and Dr. Hank’s hundred billion dollar injections. Pundits and “analysts” worry aloud about the fate of a rumored “free market economy” --- a construct that exists only in the misty realm of unicorns, Easter bunnies, tooth fairies, “honest Republicans”, and “good corporate citizens.”'
Even the corporate media, reflexively dedicated to promoting “consumer confidence” and keeping the gullible in their seats long enough for the swag-toting executive larcenists to make for the exits, murmur about a new 1929.
With the usual misdirection, the press reports plummeting Wall Street stock prices as if they mattered to ordinary people. In fact, as economist Dean Baker has repeatedly pointed out, “[T]he stock market is not a good barometer of the economy’s health. It can be driven up as a result of a redistribution from wages to profits, or simply as a result of irrational exuberance. Neither is good for the economy as a whole, although anything that pushes up stock prices is obviously good news for the small minority of people who own substantial amounts of stock.”
Meanwhile, Baker’s colleague at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Mark Weisbrot informed Miami Herald (9/1/08) readers that real -- inflation adjusted -- wages have been virtually stagnant for 34 years. Since 1973, as the stock market climbed, “productivity -- the amount that workers produce per hour -- increased quite substantially...” But, while this “ ‘useable productivity’ -- the increased production that we can expect to be reflected in rising wages --” rose 48 percent from 1973 to 2007, paychecks didn’t. The “economy” grew but only the well-connected at the top benefited. Wall Street exulted in the new profits extracted from the under-compensated toil of the same working people who were now repeatedly urged to cheer the increasing fortunes of their masters.
As the downscale waged workers fell behind, they were offered EZ credit, first through deregulated credit card loan sharkery, and then, as the real estate bubble was ruthlessly inflated, through the infamous “home equity extraction” gambit and/or serial “house flipping.” Their “defined benefit” pension plans ---deferred wages --- were converted into crap-shoot “defined contribution” schemes and Enron-ized.
Most people’s “wealth” is represented by their house and maybe their car. People were encouraged to feel (and act) richer as the housing bubble and its heady irrational exuberance seemed to boost house values by $8 trillion nationwide. But now the music has stopped, the chickens flutter home to roost, and the piper shrieks for payment. As massive asset deflation continues, housing prices return to their long-term historic levels, and on average Baker notes, that vanishing $8 trillion in illusory “housing bubble wealth” translates into a $110,000 hit per homeowner. These hapless folks, “will see much of the equity in their home disappear.”
Since so many Americans essentially re-mortgaged themselves in bubble time --- using their house as an ATM machine through an equity withdrawal --- and continued to consume at a level their stagnant or declining wages no longer allowed, this implacable (and unfinished) deflationary swoon spells real pain.
Yet the media / political focus is on the Wall Street Weak and Dr. Hank’s hundred billion dollar injections. Pundits and “analysts” worry aloud about the fate of a rumored “free market economy” --- a construct that exists only in the misty realm of unicorns, Easter bunnies, tooth fairies, “honest Republicans”, and “good corporate citizens.”'
Lees verder: http://www.counterpunch.org/rhames091202008.html
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