Dear Friend and Reader:
WE’RE NOW AT the beginning of Pluto in Capricorn, an era we’ll be in for the next 16 years. Pluto left Sagittarius on Wednesday, Nov. 26 at 9:50pm EST.
For its swan song, reminiscent of the dying words “Rosebud” by fictional newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, the last words uttered by the dying Pluto in SagittariusВ seem toВ be: “Too Big to Fail.”
Too big to fail. What an interesting ellipsis used to describe what eventually would become the definition ofВ failure itself, specifically failure by becoming too big. Too big to know what was going on internally, too big to understand there were rules to follow. Too big to believe inВ consequences for taking onВ too much risk in the expectation of larger rewards. Too big to obey the rules.В How Sagittarian.
As Pluto in Sag inches its way into Pluto in Capricorn, we’re bearing witness to the fruits of 15 years of expansion in our financial sector without regulation, accountability or regard to ramifications, leading to “unjustified exuberance,” another definingВ term of these last 15 years. JustВ look at the last week:
On Wednesday, Nov. 19, proposed federal bailouts of US auto makers failed with Republican senators rejecting the Democratic plan and Democratic senators rejecting the Republican plan. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell sharply by 427.47 points or 5.07 percent, closing below 8,000 points for the first time since March 2003. United States financial stocks led the way with Citigroup showing a 23 percent drop.
On Thursday, Nov. 20 the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 445 points in the last minutes of the trading session, closing at 7,552, the lowest point in six years. Shares in Citigroup plummeted another 26 percent, and shares of other major US financial institutions dropped by more than 10 percent.
On Friday, Nov. 21 the Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered about half of the loss for the week and closed above 8,000; however, stocks of Citibank, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase continued to decline.В
As of the week of November 16 stock losses in United States markets during 2008 as measured by the S&P 500 were equivalent to those suffered in 1931, over 50 percent. Total losses during the Great Depression exceeded 80 percent but that was over a three year period.
Late on Sunday, November 23, a rescue plan for Citigroup was agreed by the United States government. In a joint statement by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., it was announced that in exchange for preferred stock valued at $27 billon paying 8 percent interest a further $20 billion would be invested into the company and that the government would limit loss on $306 billion in risky loans and securities to $29 billion plus 10 percent of any remaining losses.
Roy Smith, a professor at the New York University’s Stern School of Business summarized the Citigroup’s path to crisis this way: “They pushed to get earnings, but in doing so, they took on more risk than they probably should have if they are going to be, in the end, a bank subject to regulatory controls…Safe and soundness has to be no less important than growth and profits but that was subordinated by these guys.”
These adventurers had it all under the thrall of unjustified exuberance, andВ the absence of aВ bear in the back room to prevent mayhem or at least keep a watchful eye on the proceedings. After the free and under-regulated ride they’ve enjoyed, they’veВ gottenВ usВ toВ prop them up.В Why is it the executives of financial institutions which demandedВ pristine financial behavior from average Americans seem to be so incapable of requiringВ the same forВ themselves?
As Pluto enters Capricorn, this is the estate sale on the last 15 years of Pluto in Sagittarius,В similar to the one that encircles the film Citizen Kane — the dissolution of his empireВ and his surreally extravagant estate. In both casesВ builtВ from grandiose dreams,В destroyed by delusion, coming to a fall. In our case,В a true bonfire of economic vanities with ourВ taxpayer dollarsВ used as fuel for the fire, completing the ellipsis: All too big. Destined to fail.
Yours & truly,
Fe Bongolan
Rahmana, about the military . . . I have been concerned since the formation of the Blackwell brigade.
Deer hunting season is traumatic enough for me.
I see an abuse of power check going on in my immediate surroundings and there is no reason to believe that any government organization will escape that check. I don’t feel any of us gets a free pass on this one. Like you say, it is the end of an age.
Dream the impossible dream . . . always liked that song.
victoria: “Empires grow, become dominant, and take a fall. It’s a cyclical thing.”
I think this is a really big one! This isn’t just Pluto, Neptune & Uranus. This is the end of an age. The age of Pisces. The Kalyuga (sp?). This is that transitional period where EVERYTHING is changing for an entirely new world. I’m so excited and hopeful about what it will be. I mean, could your great grandmother have imagined cell phones, laser surgery or the internet? I’m personally keeping my eyes open for anything that seems impossible . . .
A side note to this: is anyone aware that our military is deploying 20,000 troops around America? Smells fishy . . .
Doesn’t the “hero” always fall? At least the societal model of the hero.
Empires grow, become dominant, and take a fall. It’s a cyclical thing. This thinking was put forth in the Nostradamus/modern day nostradamus (don’t recall his name) tube show I viewed last night. The interesting thing is their observation, that there is no other nation to take over as the dominant. I guess we have no choice but to transform as a world, which depends alot on the values of our leaders.
And I see this evidenced in the quickening of comeuppance for the egos around me. It has me checking my ego. At present in any group endeavor, I check the common goal, what is good for me, and if that is good for the group as a whole. And of course, relish the people I can go blah blah blah with as I walk along.
“Pluto takes care of all things that have outlived their usefullness.”
Especially mass transportation!! Who wants to go back to the dark ages? I mean all I had to do was watch all those poor chinese lined up for 3 and 4 days waiting for a train to take them home for holiday!
Yet – things are evolving right now that we can’t even imagine.
My son and nephew are hard at work, inventing a new engine that they are convinced will save the world. Little Wilbur and Orville may fail, but that won’t stop them from trying and certainly won’t dampen their enthusiasm. and guess what? A whole lot of other people are also working on wonderful ideas and inventions. We are witnessing the death rattle of the old institutions.
What if you could travel by thought? What if I could just think of what i want to type here and it appeared? What if I could replace my useless hips by just thinking it were so?
Oh yes. We won’t recognize this old spaceship in the next 4 years.
johanna: “Who is talking about better and more efficient means of mass transportation?”
I AM!!! I have discovered some information about an alternative way of living in the world that doesn’t stress out the earth or the human beings on it, but i am having a hard time getting people to listen to me. A group of scientists who are concerned about our well-being as a species due to the ravages of Capitalism and the ill state of our planet have designed numerous forms of mass transportation and means of living on our beautiful planet that don’t fuck up our air, water and pyschological/mental/emotional states.
I am on the outs with people i usually see eye to eye with because i have no more interest in politics. I don’t think our political system works, esp. in the context of using Capitalism as our foundation of power. Politicians lie, cheat, use the system to their advantage and profit is the motivating factor for all political decisions. Well, nothing new there. Not since Rome or Egypt. Everything is privatized now, including our military. The solutions to our problems MUST lie somewhere else.
Look, don’t worry, these capitalistic institutions are coming down regardless of what anyone thinks because that’s the way astrology works. It’s only a matter of time. Pluto takes care of all things that have outlived their usefullness.
:). Heya. Of course they knew. The thing they didn’t know was that if they put TARP into effect they wouldn’t just bury the dead banks, they’d drive the ones that looked healthy out of business.
The banks were doing a little operation on their earnings statements called creating a “circuit” – a loopy little contraption that turned debt into assets. Dissolve the assets, ruin the bank.
Hey man! No one told them not to!
Fe Bongolan. There’s a lot of yella journalism rolling around the internet that wants to talk about what secret, allknowing lizard race of Masonic Poobahs is responsible for all the misery we face as human beings. I have heard all the theories and I was almost there with Something or Someone manipulating events like the little dude behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz until Barack Obama was elected to be President of the United States.
This did not exactly restore my faith in the human race. But it did seem to indicate that despite all evidence to the contrary, somebody was counting the votes. It wasn’t a testament to the fairness of the system, but it was a gauge of how much 160 million aligned wills can buy our planet these days.
At some point you have to decide whether you’re going to read the situation as one of malicious intent or massive, inestimable hubris and lack of foresight. And: broad abuse of power and money and self-interest scrawled across the lives of people who were just trying to get to the grocery store at the time.
I hope you’ll forgive me for going with the second choice. There’s too much embedded idiocy in all of it for me to believe this was orchestrated by some evil overlord, unless you’re like Sarah Palin and believe that Satan is speaking through the television. Sometimes the ship hits a glacier and all the silk dancing slippers in the world won’t stop the leak. Which means: yeah we really are fucked, no matter who is freaking out at the SBC.
Also means: expanded power equals expanded ability for people you don’t know to fuck with you.
Why are you guys worried about the SBC? In Fastworld the real problem is that the Chairman of the Fed can’t do math. I feel sorrier for him every day.
Uh. If it was a senate hearing it should be on CSPAN archives. You can get — sure you know this, but just in case: thomas.loc.gov; general filings. As always Cryptome, which yielded this beauty when I called her up just five seconds ago:
http://cryptome.info/0001/sec112608.htm
~j
In Sam Harris’ bestseller, “The End of Faith” – there is a brilliant deconstruction of the components of blind faith and untested faith and faith that justifies killing kind of faith and ultimately Harris’s book is a clear call for reason. Although the focus of his book is religion, there are many parallels when dealing with zealous capitalists.
Look. He says (Sam Harris, that is) — the more threatening religious fanatic is actually the “moderate.” Why? Because the moderate helps to promote the belief that religious belief isn’t the deadly and horribly insane “other-izing” beast that it actually is. When looking at the history of the atrocities committed in the name of God (Allah, Jehovah, Christ, et al) – the moderates come in and try to make nice and say that – oh — well those things (the Inquisition, for example) were anomalies and really religious good guys play nice.
What I am trying to get across is that this applies to capitalism. You can’t really have “nice” capitalism. Capitalism and social democracy are antithetical. The ideal capitalist era in our country was turn of the century industrial America when children worked for pennies a week in back breaking jobs before child labor laws became, well — law.
And child labor laws are antithetical to capitalism. Capitalism says — supply and demand rule. Nothing over and above supply and demand.
As long as we focus on having “nicer” and more “conscientious” capitalists we are really missing the point. We are being moderates. The worst kind.
The American dream of McMansions and McJobs and McChildren and McPrivate Schools and McPrivate Universities that yield Mega millions McJobs is alive and well and this is the root cause of our current Financial collapse.
You can’t “cherry pick” your capitalism. Regulating banks and regulating car companies is a kind of crazy stop gap. It is better than nothing but the problem is still there. Who is talking about better and more efficient means of mass transportation? Nobody. There is only talk of rescuing the industry that — back in the 1930s — bought out the main public transportation lines in almost every major city in order to force people to buy more cars.
I would like people to think more about the abolition of these capitalist institutions rather than finding arguments that debate about which way better to control the beast. The bottom line with capitalism is profit above all. And although that is how my landlord functions, that’s not my style. I’ll bring you in for a meal if you’re hungry and there’s no charge. You get me, brothers and sisters? Right on, right on.
Jane:
It might even be worse than that. It might be they went in knowing that the big ones were close to failing if not already, like Enron knew they were failing, but cooked the books so that people would still invest in them to keep them afloat until they could figure something out. Then they figured something out.
They could just run with the money and allow themselves special hunks of big fat money as their parting gift to the shareholders.
By the way, someone in the Senate voted to block the appointment of an Investigator General whose role it was to ensure accountability and transparency of financial firms helped in the new big fat bailout plan.
It was a Republican senator. We’re still looking in the blogosphere as to who that could be. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has the dirt.
They didn’t start out with Too Big to Fail.
At the start of the bailout, their idea was to save the healthy banks. You’d get an invitation to the party from Paulsen, and he would distribute his Favors.
But then they discovered something unspeakable. There were no healthy banks. Too big to fail was Plan B; save Capitalism from becoming the highest grossing disaster film ever.
:). It looked like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_2aX-784sw
~j