Welcome to the Wormhole
Now we get to the really fun part of the global unwind where even money flowing into supposedly safe havens turns, presto change-o,
into an evaporation of wealth, and all of the lawyer-lobbyists who ever
double-parked on K Street in the sorry history of this frantic era will
not avail to contain the demons of their own design.
The world is waiting to re-learn an old lesson: that untruth and
reality exist in an adversarial relationship. Sad to say, there isn't
enough legal infrastructure in the world, nor enough time, to pass
judgment on all the lies and misrepresentations that burden the current
edition of what passes for civilization. This goes especially for money
matters, where currencies, certificates, and contracts actually have to
represent what they purport to stand for. When those relationships
fail, as they have been doing for some years now, everything falls
apart.
This is what comes of evading the enforcement of
norms and standards and of running exchanges without clearing
operations. The response to this mischief in deeds such as the
Dodd-Frank so-called financial reform act only heaps more hyper-complex
untruth on the smoldering compost of prior intentional falsities. It
all seems so hopelessly abstract that even thoughtful citizens can't
muster the means to object until that magic moment when, say, the
supermarket shelves go empty or nobody will accept the green paper
cluttering up your billfold.
For all the epic volume of
blather on the Internet and elsewhere, few have even remarked on
extraordinary passivity of the vulgar masses in the face of having
their future looted out from under them. The ethos of the penitentiary
must have saturated the zeitgeist wherein you are expected to just bend
over and take it good and hard where the sun don't shine and then you
are rewarded with a baloney sandwich. At least that's been the theme
since 2008.
The way things are lining up, though, it
might be a whole different story when the two political parties convene
this summer for their nominating rigmarole. I remain convinced that
these fatuous rites will meet with disruption. Of course, both parties
deserve an equal dose of citizen-generated shock and awe. Both parties
need to be rebuked, humiliated, and probably dismantled so that this
country can get on with the business of trying to become civilized.
Charlotte, NC, (the Democrats) and Tampa, FLA, (Republicans) are the
venues for these dumbshows. I hope to be there running a pitchfork
concession.
Meanwhile, as what many observers call a
"global slowdown" reveals itself to be a compressive collapse of faith
in a system plagued by deception and pranged by massive cross-defaults,
political uproar will rage through Europe and set the stage for
emulation in the USA. Angela Merkel made a funny over the weekend:
something about constructing a European fiscal union. That has about
the same chance of happening as Mrs. Merkel becoming a pole dancer when
her party gets tossed out of leadership not many months down the
line. All the nations where people wear clothing are in desperate
trouble. Their debt problems are insoluble and they're out of
accounting tricks. Events are running way ahead of institutions and
personalities.
Speaking of which, what dogs me more and
more every day is how come Jon Corzine is still at large six months
after mugging MF Global's customers, and what is the status of JP
Morgan's "London Whale" fiasco now that the news media have
conveniently stopped following the story. Have the losses blown past $5
billion? Or is that just one little tuft of yarn which, when yanked,
will unravel the entire skein of world banking? Well, it's party season
in the Hamptons now and the gentlemen responsible for these misdeeds
are busy nibbling the sea urchin roe and cucumber tidbits, I suppose,
and it would be unkind to ask them to testify before a congressional
subcommittee or, jeepers, a grand jury.
Ever wonder what
it might be like to live in a world without consequences? Well, you've
had a good look at it for more than a couple of years. How did it work
out? What did you get away with? And how do you plan to hang onto it?
