by showmedamoney ramani, donplaypuks® intrepid correspondent for recessi and depressi affairsIn the month that was, good ‘ol US of A rabid sub-prime capitalism brought itself to its knees in ways that clearly proved that there is one rule for the elite, well-connected croney (fake) capitalist and his million $ bonus (each) earning management team and another for pesky main street wage earners who perenially dare to moan about their 3% annual wage rise and 1-2 month’s pro-rated bonus.
Amazingly, there is yet another rule for the auto industry which had the temerity to beg for a mere $34 million bailout. Stupid gits!! They should have come out with guns blazing with a demand, not a mere piddly, piffling $34 billion begging bowl, for a $1 TRILLION rescue package OR ELSE!! That would have got Secretary of Treasury Henry Poultry and Fed Chairman Ben Bananacakes running around like chickens with their heads cut off and forced Congress, admittedly at the point of gun-barrel diplomacy, to apply the same degree of (utter lack of) transparency, fair rules and standards in shovelling out largesse faster than you can say CRONEY BAILOUT. With funds extorted and misappropriated from the already bleeding Taxpayer, under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).
However, the auto czars did not have to throw even a rubber sole, let alone a whole camel leather Arab shoe, for Bush to leap to their rescue. After all, he was only pre-empting Obama!
TARP? American have not only a filthy secret desire and national agenda to murder Queen’s English but to also conquer Afghanistan, Iraq, N.Korea and the rest of the world too, with misspelt words like ‘Program’ and ‘Color’ while creating WMD’s (Words of Mass Destruction) with verbicised obscenities such as ‘Helming’ and 'Tasked.' This American national past-time is championed too by Microsoft which has as one of its principle aims the universal proliferation of stress, by forcing you to check/uncheck English (US) and English (UK) in its Word Spell-Check and Language Tool !!
This penchant is frequently compounded with creating American-speak like ‘Troubled Assets Relief Program’ when what they really mean is ‘Taxpayer Bailout Shit’. You ever wonder why they say ‘gas’ for ‘petrol’ and ‘check’ for ‘bill’ and then why there has been a 2000% increase over the last ten years in incidences of people, especially the young, suffering from gastritis, gall stones and kidney stones across the world? You think it’s mere coincidence? Believe me, in the end, our civilization will collapse from this dual-mode UK and US English and not financial mismanagement!!
Note too that this is an endemic disease that afflicts all countries with a British colonial past. The Aussie penchant for mouthing an 'o’ where none exists as in ‘loike’ or that universally condemned greeting of ‘g’die mite’ is a form of cancer. Of course the ‘recalcitrant’ Mahathir could not resist taunting Downunder denizens with ‘the rine in Spine fawlls minely on the pline’! In Bolehland we steal without conscience and conjure up ‘visi’, ‘misi’ and ‘sessi’. Reliably informed sources have leaked to donplaypuks® that Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka is writhing in agony over whether it should add ‘fisi’ ( fission) to the looted local vocabulary in the wake of Tenaga Nasional Berhad’s mulling over whether it should go nuclear.
But the icing on the cake that demonstrated the complete collapse of Pax Capitalism is the $50 billion Boinie Madhoff (you want I should tell you he is Kosher) fraud bonfire of the vanities, which has not only seen 1 suicide as of today, but a willingness by the Fed to rescue troubled Hedge Funds. Yes, Hedge Funds. The same vermin who have been thwarting all attempts by the SC to register and regulate them. Yes, Hedge Funds. The same low-life who in the first place are partly, if not substantially, culpable for the farming out of toxic sub-prime mortgages tarted up as sound risk-free investments and for wanton speculation on anything from oil to metals to currencies to soya beans and pork futures!
Here is a failure not merely of business or enterprise. It is a failure that is so common that it’s amazing the Americans cannot (or is it will not) see it. It’s the same reason why Juande Ramos was sacked as Manager of Tottenham Hotspurs recently. It’s the same reason why those managing the Football, Hockey and Athletics Associations locally should all be booted out of their jobs lock, stock and barrel. A UNIVERSAL FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT AT THE TOP!
If only it stopped there. But no. It would appear that the fraudtrepreneurs in Bolehland, having seen the writing on the wall, have upped the ante, and are attemting to loot as much as possible before there is no more money or wealth left to squeeze out of the much molested and raped economy.
Make no mistake. The brazen attempt to ‘privatise’ by directly negotiated non-tendered out contract the National Heart Centre which sits on prime land a stone’s throw from the city centre. That suspicious $1.7 billion cash purchase of a loss making airport at inflated land price to thwart any attempt by the SC to scrutinise land valuation in a related party transaction, and the breathtaking proposal by that same party to sell back to Tenaga Nasional Bhd an unwanted excess capacity IPP at a whacking profit of billions. That $4.2 billion cover-up and further pouring of money into a bottomless hole at Free Trade Zone. That proposal to build a new Low Cost Carrier Terminal for $ 3 billion to mask development of otherwise ‘dead’ land when there is huge under utilised capacity at KLIA. And the purchase of Sukhoi Jets and Scorpene Submarines for $9 billion and the ‘postponed’ $1.6 billion purchase of Eurocopters fitted with never-to-be-used laser guided weapons systems and 34 other helicopters for the police force costing billions more.
These are all signs of management gone haywire and not lifting a finger to stanch the frittering away of scarce economic resources. Signs of conscienceless Management with a thieving and looting business mentality. The vultures who have long been profiting from weak SC’s all over the world, are now openly rifling through the pockets of the sickly carcass. What more can we say of a $70 million proposal from the Ministry of MsEntrepreneurship to send jobless graduates (presumably those from 1 Race) to special English (Manglish) Language courses to enhance their employment prospects? It’s game over, folks!
Our local Bourse too, like its counterparts in this region – New York, London, Paris, Munich, Tokyo and Sydney – has been, to put it mildly, sleeping on its watch. Not much more could have been expected with its incestuous listing on its own Stock Exchange! Thus the national car company could get away with camouflaging operating losses by including non-trading Government Grant as trading income while elegant silence was maintained when a major Telco reaped hundreds of millions of $ in additional profit from private placement of shares with indecent haste almost immediately after taking the company private.
Neither the economy of the USA nor of the Globe is going to recover from trillion dollar bailouts aimed at enticing the masses to once gain indulge in conspicuous corpulent consumption of gadgets and gizmos with built-in obsolescence or a philosophy of spending based on keeping an eye on the Jones’ while loading up on Debt like there’s no tomorrow. Whichever route Henry Poultry and Bananacakes take, they are going to lay a big fat egg because they have not understood what Keynes meant by Consumption. Modern economists and their Nobel Prize winning Gurus therefore speak Tower of Bablesque Jive Voodoo Economics – possible recession, depression, economic nuclear winter, inflation, deflation, stagflation, and God Almighty, now just WTF is Stag Deflation??!!
And this magic beans policy of cutting interest rates to zero? It too will not work. This is what Japan has been doing for more than a decade with no tangible signs of a real recovery. Why? Because the banks and financial institutions have not been publicly brought to book for their fraud, basic dishonesty and profligacy. The Wall St crooks and their ilk-thieves have factored into their business models that when push comes to shove, their friends in high places will shovel them out with TARP Taxpayer Bailout Shit. With such a licence at their disposal, anyone would GO FOR DA MONEY and not blink an eyelid when they screw old ladies out of their retirement home savings funds or factory workers out of their healthcare, pension and childrens' education funding plans.
As for Big Brother, the SC, ours is in the same somnaubulistic good company with those in this region – New York, London, Paris, Munich, Tokyo and Sydney. Self-regulation can no longer work as individial and collective greed has breached tsunami levels.
And if superpowers and past colonial masters should screw up their and the Global economy (and English Language) big time, why, we should outdo them THRICE over. We clearly have the capability, intent and pre-requisite overflowing greed to go with it!!
donplaypuks® with the future of the World, man!!
