Maine Owl

Ms. Owl: What are they saying? The next thing we'll see is a smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud?

She was talking about a Linda Wertheimer interview Wednesday morning broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition with Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times:

Barber: It's important to remember just how serious things came last week. You saw a virtual meltdown of the financial system on the Wednesday. I likened it to that scene in Independence Day when the president is leaving town and he looks behind him and there's the White House, it's crumbling.

Building over the last couple of days there has been much more background din that the only way we can save our house value, business credit, and 401ks is to ram through the Bush-Paulson-Bernanke $trillion bailout of the crooked investment houses. Bush himself, reminding us that he's still around for the first time in a while, piled on the dire warnings in a prime-time address, "More banks could fail, including some in your community. The stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account."

What is this really about?

The clear answer I believe is that Bush, the crooked financial dealers, and Democratic enablers like Rep. Barney Frank are overreacting to more crisis than actually is there.

No one seems to be able to prove why it's so important that the bailout go through before anyone has the chance to even think about it. Jonathan at Past Peak has it right in two good posts, this "reeks of disaster capitalism." That's the "shock doctrine" described by Naomi Klein.

Klein gave a very compelling interview with Amy Goodman on Wednesday, including these observations:

Klein: We know [McCain] has said ... in the first 100 days of his administration he’ll look at every program and either reform it or shut it down. This is really a recipe for economic shock therapy. So, while you have all of these trivial issues being discussed in the election season, I think what we could—what we're really—you know, under the surface, they’re actually being quite clear. They're going to take—if they take power, it will be in the midst of an economic emergency. They'll invoke that emergency to push through very, very radical changes. So, you know, what I’ve been saying is, this is not four more years of Bush; it's much, much worse in the case of another Republican administration.

Today, Ralph Nader provided additional clarity, also on Democracy Now!, "The Bush regime is creating its own panic."

Meanwhile, as Naomi Klein has discussed, the Republican right is exerting a play for an even more onerous plan:

House GOP: We have leverage on bailout
By Jackie Kucinich - Posted: 09/25/08 03:33 PM [ET]

House Republicans say they have significant leverage on the revamped bailout package, claiming that Democrats will scramble for votes unless they make changes to it.

Republicans in the lower chamber are balking at the bailout package, saying that Democrats will be solely responsible for the ramifications of what they see as a flawed compromise.

Brilliant! This is how what I discussed Tuesday will go down. The Republicans will blame the Democrats for anything that happens, unless they get a menu of more-of-the-same, private-profit-public-risk, transfer-wealth-from-poor-to-rich policies:

The Republican proposal backs the removal of regulatory and tax barriers to help facilitate the use of private capital to produce liquidity; temporary tax relief provision to help companies free up capital; and temporary suspension of dividend payments by financial institutions.

There's more on the politics and pathetic machinations of the McCain campaign HERE.