Friday September 26 is going to be defined by many people’s astonished phrase of “Washington Mutual what?!!” as they discover that the bank has been ordered shut, shut down, closed, locked down, until further notice.
Yep! That’s it folks. Pack your bags and leave in an orderly manner. George Bush is shutting the effing country down. Ok, that’s a little too dramatic but the shi+ has hit the proverbial fan. A whole lotta things have suddenly changed.
Washington Mutual’s demise is shocking and personal for me. Shocking, because I didn’t expect this to happen so soon, and personal because all my money (nothing more than pocket change but all I have) is in its vaults. Early this week I spoke to a Wamu official, who told me that last week was a very bad week. Well, it isn’t looking too rosy today.
Earlier when I drafted the notes for this blog, this is what I had, “There goes my gut again, and it isn’t that stale bread and water diet that I have been forced into of recently. Something tells me that the ‘crash programme’ for rich people is necessary, but something also tells me that we the ordinary people won’t be getting much for our money. Why? Because we have politicians negotiating on our behalf… fat, comfortable politicians, many of whom get paid under the table by big money… and the rest are well, democrats.
Of course the other thing is this is being driven by George Bush and when he takes the wheels, “Grab your dogs, pets, belongings and get off the streets, Now! Mad George, the death machine is loose! O yes, don’t forget your children”.
Just looking at the political machinations, hand-wringing, smirky smiles, and the terms used to describe this economic apocalypse, leaves me with a great deal of doubt”.
Full stop. That was then, but the news just kept on a-changing.
Doubts or not, I knew that if some crash programme wasn’t put in place, the common folks would get hurt, and WaMu’s collapse is gonna painfully prove that. And with WaMu’s poof other lemmings are bound to follow.
Just as badly, the news of the failure to reach an agreement on the $700B ‘crash programme’ is going to send some people jumping out of very high windows (governed by gravity but guided by the direction of early morning stocks) or something else just as dramatic and just as final. I wouldn’t be walking close to any Wall Street skyscrapers (tasteless but truthful).
Neither Bush nor PaCain can marshal their own party into agreement to ‘save the people’. “What people?” they are being asked, “We care only about the rich”. Make no mistake about it. When the republicans talk about the plan not protecting ‘… the taxpayers and will sacrifice Main Street in favor of Wall Street’, that’s code for ‘you’re putting too much regulation on the private sector’. I mean tell me, when has the republicans not sacrificed the common man?
The probable good thing is that with WaMu’s failure on the very same day, republicans looking to be re-elected have to flip-flop. Now that their constituents will actually see the possibility of their cash padlocked , they will reverse their ‘fears’.
Only the republicans could realize an economic 0-60 in 5 seconds, in reverse. They are real economic crash test dummies… and remember McCain’s recent ‘I voted with George Bush 90% of the time’ boast? Well, he is one of them.
Without a doubt, the debate between the presidential candidates can’t go on… not that Obama or McCain would lend any amount of sense to the crisis, but in this climate, “Who the f—k cares?”. This is where Obama can seize the time and make a comprehensive statement on his economic plans for the future. It’s a pity he didn’t stick to the idea that support for homeowners with failed mortgages MUST be part of the bailout plan.
People’s talk about Obama being all rhetoric and no substance is crap. Obama has many highly qualified economists with him. If there seems to be no specifics its not because of lack of references or source material. But now is the time for specifics.
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In a post earlier (09/22/08), I stated that one of the only things that can help us is credit card reform. Glad to say that something on that is taking place. Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney of New York got the House to vote for a Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights on Tuesday, passing 312-112 votes. The bill has to go to the Senate and then to Bush.
The bill intends to make it easier for credit cardholders to get a fair deal and also to eliminate a variety of tricks by the companies.
Interestingly, 84 republicans voted for the bill while 111 voted against. 228 democrats voted for and 1 voted against (must have been asleep).
There is a Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”. Right now, I would love to be in the most uninteresting of times.
