Dear Friend and Reader:
What an interesting turn of events. Late last week,В corporate interests using a financial news network to influence the market was exposed through the take down of CNBC’s chief cheerleader Jim CramerВ by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. On that same day, itВ was revealed to the White HouseВ that $165 million in taxpayer money from the Paulson-Bernanke bailout under Bush went to bonusesВ paid to AIG executives in charge of the financial products division — the same division that brought about the company’s failure through bad lending instruments like interest-only mortgages.
This week the outrage over this revelation is reverberating from the Oval Office to Congress. Edward Liddy, the new CEO of AIG testified WednesdayВ before Congress that heВ found the payment of the bonuses to AIG’s executives “distasteful” but there is no way around it, and that the government (the taxpayers) has no recourse butВ to honor the commitment.
Liddy’s performance defines not just the way these mega-financial firms have taken taxpayer money andВ ran. The way theВ entire cultural phenomenon of unregulated markets and the greed that spawned themВ makes thatВ a given. Its how these firms are putting one (AIG) В in frontВ to cover the tracks ofВ the other firms who had already received bailout money from the Federal Government.В Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York and “Sheriff of Wall Street”,В explains:
[W]e need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman’s collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG’s inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG’s trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.
It all appears, once again, to be the same insiders protecting themselves against sharing the pain and risk of their own bad adventure. The payments to AIG’s counterparties are justified with an appeal to the sanctity of contract. If AIG’s contracts turned out to be shaky, the theory goes, then the whole edifice of the financial system would collapse.
…The appearance that this was all an inside job is overwhelming. AIG was nothing more than a conduit for huge capital flows to the same old suspects, with no reason or explanation.
In other words, the shit isn’t running knee deep. Its neck deep. These big firms we’ve been bailing out have been double dipping from the till,В going directly to the Fed and then through their fund “insurer”, AIG. Like Iraq, they privatized the profits and socialized the risks. In both cases,В its We The PeopleВ paying the bill.
There seems to be a lot of noise and blame going on this week, likeВ aВ unscratchable itchiness underneath one’s skin after coming down from opiates. But that’s exactly what the greed ofВ “Too Big to Fail” has produced–an overabundance of Pluto in Sagittarius financial free-for-all, followed by Pluto in Capricorn scrutiny on Capricorn’s favorite stage: government.
Eventually, we may need to tire of even the outrage wheel we seem to be on.В The parade of financial and industrial executives including AIG’s CEO Liddy today,В testifyingВ in the halls of Congress isВ a public relations gimmick.В Like shock and awe and the theater of 9-11, it’sВ there toВ provide political porn to feed every day Joe’s and Jane’s daily addiction to outrage, andВ a convenient way to derail the closer scrutiny needed to uncover the real theft, whichВ is still going on and has happened before in our history.
We haveВ the downfall of the biggest financial institutions that hold the assets of the US and a large share of the global economy, and the eroded credibility of the news to uncover what was done with American tax dollars, using the shock and scare technique so embedded into us from 9-11, without any sense of perspective. Like Rome,В the empireВ needs a mob to generate or hideВ its policy decisions. It makes me wonder whether the media is using coverage of this new tideВ of populist outrage to fuel further distraction from its own failings to report on the shell game these big firms were up to in the first place and for many years.В Ya think?
The energy of populism, played by all politicians in the White House and in Congress from both sides of the aisle, needs to be channeled into finding solutions. Enough of this charade already. I would much rather watch how people are bringing real industry that makes things work or makes lives better than to watch the thieves get placed in softly luxurious shackles and exhibited in the town square.
The roof has been blown off the house and we’re finding there’s not much of a house left. If we’re smart, we can start putting ourВ focus into clearing the debris and re-building us, the people whoВ can originate value fromВ something tangible like hard work and products we can feel, hear, touch and taste, and which will last a long time because we certainly won’t have enough discretionary income to buy new things every year. When there’s nothing left, what’s there toВ lose? The problem is, that’s when people become really really easy to manipulate. Easier than usual.
Yours & truly,
Fe Bongolan
San Francisco
“We are all capable of channeling these energies in a positive as well as negative way. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you or mystes or Fe or Eric or victoria or one of the numerous “posters” here on PW had a break-through feeling and could express it in such a way that it helped others? In fact, doesn’t that happen all the time here? We are the world!”
So true – bkoehler! I don’t know what I would do without you guys to keep me up on the real news!
xxxa
PT – Glad it helped!
mystes – “got a little excitable today..” (that’s sooo uranian!)
Bee!!!
“Neptune is considered a higher level/vibration of Venus energy.”
Oh. My. *Gawwwwd.*
ohmygodohmygodohmygod…
I had a sense of the Uranus/Merc accelerant, dinna know aboot the Neptune/Venus. That is so cool!! And so exactly perfectly precisely how I am tryign to work things out!!
This has to do with my 10th house Neptune and dealing with all manner of spilt milk in that house. To have Venus backtalk into that is *HUGE*. (Yesterday, according to the Facebook app, the painting I most resemble is the Birth of Venus. Hah!)
thank you!!!
m
(a little excitable today… hmmm?)
Hi BK – I did misunderstand you, I had not been certain at that point if you were speaking generally or in some way applying some insight re the exchange between v and m. Either way, I’d still have made my comments as I believe they still apply.
That said, I really appreciate you expanding on your initial post. It’s clarified it for me. Many thanks, H.
mystes – yes mutual reception as in “I’m in your sign and you are in mine”
paletiger – Astrological factors as excuses? You lost me. I didn’t say that, but maybe somebody did and I missed it. However, am in total agreement that (in a perfect world) people would be responsible for their words and deeds. Wish it were so.
My references to the mutual reception of the two outer planets, Uranus and Neptune, was an observation of how these unfamiliar (to most of us humans) energies were manifesting in recent times. As they are primarily unconscious energies, they seek ways to break through into the conscious field. Uranus is considered a higher level/vibration of the Mercury energy, and Neptune is considered a higher level/vibration of Venus energy.
During these times when Uranus opposes Saturn, I believe that he uses the gift of gab to penetrate into the “real” world (Saturn’s territory), and that means the possibility of someone, somewhere in some way maybe being the medium by which brilliant ideas, NEW ideas will gain a foothold and provide the needed answer to a here-to-fore insolvable problem. Right now he’s in Neptune’s Pisces the water (emotions) sign.
In the same way, Neptune (right now in air sign Aquarius) transmits his gift of all inclusive love through our speech. The possiblility that someone, somewhere, some how will express a feeling or emotion that touches others in a new way and promotes harmony and compassion that might not have happened otherwise.
These two have doubled their strength and ability to get through to the general human consciousness with the emotions coming from a water energy and a water house, while the thinking energy comes from an air sign and an air planet. It’s a kind of gotcha situation. One cannot help but notice the increased level of feeling as well as an increased level of talking (or writing) that is happening on the personal level in addition to the political level. Hence the Aries Point reference in my earlier post on this Sun on Aries Point Day.
We are all capable of channeling these energies in a positive as well as negative way. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you or mystes or Fe or Eric or victoria or one of the numerous “posters” here on PW had a break-through feeling and could express it in such a way that it helped others? In fact, doesn’t that happen all the time here? We are the world!
Hazel! “That too is honourable.”
This word: ‘honourable’ — it’s freaking me out!! We’re *d.o.i.n.g* something here. As in spell-doing, waking-doing. Doing-doing!!
Didn’t this whole thread begin with a question of our economic system revealing its lying bones? The birdy is ‘honor.’ Doing-what-you-say; saying-what-you-do.
There’s something shifting under our scrutiny. Victorious, stay *hot*; Hazel, keep pushing it! We’re in the birthing room!!
(The idea of Honor has been deeply militarized in the last century – might be that this bigger so-called ‘economic’ breakdown is part of a restructuring of that honor-impulse within human attention. We’re taking it back home. Stay with it!!)
lovelovelovelove and more . . .
m
Mysti – ‘I feel that it’s equally honorable for people to hiss at me, bounce off of me, use my presence to get to where they’re going. And take me along.’
That too is honourable.
I believe it’s a two way street. And if people avoid the difficult stuff, the real honesty stuff – but keep going on and on about how everyone else has to do it, to get it right for them – then I fail to see how anything changes, how they move along at all. Instead remaining stuck (sometimes a victim) and basting in their own self-righteous juices. Peace and love my ass.
Speaking of an astrological aboveness, I wondered if it was something to do with the Achilles effect that Eric described…?
Anyway, genuinely, peace and love. H.
Hazel, sugarplum (honey, baby, sweetums — sorry, its the southerner in me just dyin’ to get out!)
“we’ve got to use honesty and love and all this truly honourable stuff to fight back and/or speak our truth (I agree wholeheartedly) . . . ”
You’re holding up your end of the bargain – saying what you see without toeing the carpet or getting all weird about it. That’s honorable. I feel that it’s equally honorable for people to hiss at me, bounce off of me, use my presence to get to where they’re going. And take me along.
I don’t moosh it under the ‘it’s all good’ designation, I really pay attention and try to keep my fingertip on the fulcrum. All of us are wild at heart.
Kissies,
m
Fair enough Mysti. Makes sense.
For me, I’m bemused by the contrast of posts despairing of how the big guys treat the little guys and how we’ve got to use honesty and love and all this truly honourable stuff to fight back and/or speak our truth (I agree wholeheartedly) – versus those on this blog where folks won’t ‘shake a hand’ when a difference is encountered. I go along with you and accept that nobody’s perfect and as human beings we have emotions that get triggered now and again – a bit of patience and understanding goes a long way. I would just like to see more of it, that’s all, particularly on here where (given the nature of the site and its contents and the people involved) you’d think that there would be more liklihood of finding that very sort of understanding.
I guess I don’t like ignoring it when it’s playing out in front of my eyes. That happens in big companies run by the big guys every day – it’s how they get away with what they do. H x
Hazel writes… “I struggle to see astrological factors as being an excuse…”
Ah yes, the fine line between the will and the environment. Or the astral body and conscious volitional action.
I think of those celestial bodies as expressions of my Big Body, or the pleasurebody, or the dreambody, if you will. And I’m still trying to figure out what the *actual* algorithms are, what is the order of cascade or influence.
This is not to make any excuses (Lady knows there’s no excuse big enough for the likes of me *8^D), but to acknowledge that there seems to be Upper Atmospheric Pressures at work in many of these exchanges.
And H…. I am extremely patient with the reactions I provoke, as I attempt to actually live out what I know about the necessary angel of Anger.
BK, Mysti – I may not understand your posts correctly, so forgive me in advance, if I’m way off on the wrong hoof. My response is somewhat different. I am open to many things (not as open as my aspirations sadly, but it’s a work in progress) however, I struggle to see astrological factors as being an excuse for people’s behaviour (behavior, oops). People are responsible for their behaviour (assuming they are not declared mentally disabled in any way), for what they do and say, in person, on the phone and in print. There may be something in the air right enough, but that doesn’t rule out choice.
Hey Mysti – how many times (I count 3 in the recent past) have you put your hand out to try and clear up a mis-understanding and been rejected? Are you not getting fed-up with it yet…love H.
Hi B…
You’re right on target! the Air/Water confluence –what is that called? mutual reception? something like that– between Neptune/Uranus is a big energy.
Thanks for pointing that out…
m
I think I’ve just had an Epiphany. . . Aries Point style.
All this incessant chatters, ours and the media’s, is the only way Neptune (in air sign Aquarius) and Uranus (in water sign Pisces) can express their types of energies,
Through Talk With Feeling.
They are a tag-team these days, what with being in each others medium (an intervening thing through which a force acts) and their best way to communicate with us mortals is through thinking and emotion, which we express in written and spoken words.
Powerful words sometimes.
Brilliant too.
Hurtful too.
Fearful.
The point being to crack through the resistant, earth-like shell (sometimes referred to as Saturn) so as to let in the light of the Universe beyond Earth (or Saturn).
Uranus gifting us with brilliance to comprehend what we don’t even understand yet;
Neptune gifting us with a love that embraces even that which we don’t even understand yet.
These two symbols represent energies that have more patience and persistance than me, and probably you.
They will succeed.
And we will all be better for it.
Someday.
V.
nevermind
m
V . . . I said that Bobo *means* simpleton *and* I said that I an also an excellent, all-good darling bobo (boba). It is a term of endearment. Self-endearment, too.
Please be clear.
bobofully yours,
m
p/s why not?
mystes, I gotta pass, I understand your v pop, but you see I walked through the eyes of love and I am not sure I can turn around to meet you. The focus is too narrow. Creativity is better for me. You can have my beef. I’m not all that hungry.
You told the readers that your book was for simpletons. Maybe I misread that.
It’s all good. Whatever happened to “pisces love?”
victoria, can you write me offlist please? mystes-at-humandala dot org
V “mystes, then why not tantra for bonobos?”
Yeah, I read it. Where do you think I got the idea?
mystes, then why not tantra for bonobos?
Our system’s massive tendency to lie about money –its provenance, investment and circulation– is *as* problematic as any fairy tale we use to get or give, trade or withhold sex.
As I was saying to DakiniTrois last night (it was 3 dakini night), its not that the houses, streets, stores, books and groceries are going to *disappear* – it is that their contents are scheduled to become veryveryvery different than their current stuffings.
It’s not that hard, V. The commline between the Imagined and the Real is fattening up nicely. 13 minutes. If you can hold the bliss that long, you’ll pop right through.
m
mystes, I don’t think we are shocked by this, but we are not numb either. I’m glad you have it all figured out. I hope it works for you.
In the meantime, we are in a breakdown phase, and many are struggling as they adjust. Kind of hard to shut them all out when I live among them, people of many walks of life. I am understanding it so I can walk with them better.
Everybody is not the same as you, nor can they all subscribe to what you practice. It’s just not as easy as shloop shloop hoola hoop for everyone.
It is not kind to rip the circle of safety from people without replacing it with something. A circle of safety is needed for people to experience, grow and open.
When you take things away from people, they can go numb, and of course, they will follow because their power has been stripped.
Fe . .. My take on the “why is the pursuit of money more important than the belief in what we are doing?” is that ethics (like manners) is not a concept familiar to most business people. At least for the last 20 to 40 years or so, and not to those under 50 or so years of age. That, and the fact that we are not in the age of Heros, although the longing for them is apparent in tv shows and (presumably) in comic books.
Don’t get me wrong; there was much wrong with the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s that is slowly being righted. However, ethics in business was something companies prided themselves on and many of them had heros running them. Before the days of rampant greed. Before the days when young men and women became doctors because of a calling rather than the big $$$. Before the giant dept. and grocery stores ran the small ones out of business. Before the spread between the rich and poor became huge. When journalism was an honorable career; now THERE was heroism!
Like most with an aquarian bent, I’ve already “tired of the outrage wheel” but will probably buy a book or two (written by those with a scorpio bent) about it in a few years. Yes, I agree, let’s get on with the cleanup and start making (again) things that will last a long time.
Thanks for your article and thanks to the contributors here who are way ahead of the great unwashed public, government and media in living their lives with integrity and purpose. You are my heros.
be
eric touched on something the other night on Blogtalk – about our nomadic hunter/gatherer pattern and the relative newness of this settlement/security value system.
I would suggest that our multi-million-year drive to movement&inquiry may be shaking itself out. If you can think of that h/g energy as somewhat *autonomous* you might catch a glimpse of its working its way through these stories of excess and betrayal. Unless you work for Ben and Jerry’s, capitalism is the story of accumulation-through-lying. It is completely congruent with the values of capitalism to lie about a) how much money an individual has, b) how s/he got it and c) how s/he intends to keep or acquire more of it.
This is *structurally* inside of that value system. Ladies and ladies, I would say you are being a *bit* naive when you turn up shocked, shocked by its endgame.
Meanwhile, there’s another Way trying to wake out. What might it be? I would suggest we look to 18th C. French physiocracy for some clues. GDP based on photosynthesis, aggregate value based on cooperative outputs and solar joules as the basic trading unit.
To screw around with fixing a system that is built on mendacity is just gonna get us more of same. Let it go.
Love
the Thirteenth Letter
Victoria:
Love your metaphor about roving packs of raptors eating their way through profits and other people’s dividends. The sense of entitlement has superceded the sense of public trust.
Where are we now that the little guy business looks to the big role models to have a sense they are succeeding in life? Or is that a value that was placed on him or them by someone/something else? Are these his/her real core values?
Why is it we’re made to feel like we’re less than for wanting less than that comfy billion? Why is the pursuit of making money more important than believing in what we’re doing?
fe, the sad thing is the trickle down corruption exists in the smaller companies where the little guy is making the products. That’s the real trickle down.
When the change person and my last boss called me in for a sit down to find out “what was wrong with Victoria and how can we help her be like us”, I explained to them how the company had a stated goal and stated values, and four marked areas of operation, and how those areas should fold up into the company goals and values. My job was to do my part in the department as a member of that team, to meet the area goals and values, and thereby the company goals and values.
My boss’ stated goal was “to make a good paycheck.” That is the leadership they wanted me to follow? As a long time field engineer in the company told me one day when I was scratching my skin, if your boss doesn’t like someone, they get fired. Luckily, or unluckily, I had production and sales people who needed my services.
It seems as if the size of the paycheck justifies the means. So it’s a big scrub that is needed here.
Is AIG managing the government employees pension fund?
And . . . .The argument for these big bonuses is to keep these valuable employees, per the prime time news thing. They added that they don’t stay with the company anyway. So they come in to take the money and run? Who are these people and what is their migration pattern? Perhaps we should check in with “our” human resources department, do some background checking, would love to see their character references, and where they have been and where they go when they leave? Oh yeah and match the employment records with the financial records focussed on what was financed during each one’s stay of office. Never worked human resources: when you got that many zeroes behind your name, info probably never hits the department?
The network of cronyism ie moneyism is probably not that complicated, considering all of it is in the hands of so few.
Could we possibly get to the bottom of the dynamic duo’s ruse through the money trail?
Not that we have the time for this. But the kids are owed it before their realities get any more corrupted.
Patty, for clarification:
Dodd says he reluctantly agreed to bonus provision change
by Jed Lewison
Wed Mar 18, 2009 at 07:40:08 PM PDT
After first denying reports of his involvement, Chris Dodd is now saying that he reluctantly softened a provision intended to restrict executive compensation at companies receiving bailout funds at the request of unnamed Treasury Department officials.
Initially, Dodd’s provision restricted bonuses for all companies receiving bailout funds. The change created an exemption for bonus contracts — such as AIG’s — entered into before the legislation took effect.
Dodd’s provision did not create a loophole. In fact, it was attached to the stimulus bill and created new restrictions on the usage of TARP funds. Nothing in Dodd’s legislation weakened existing law, though the provision didn’t go far enough to block the AIG bonuses.
Senator Dodd is the one who put the language in the bill during conference, that allowed the bonuses to be paid. It’s finally on the CNN and Politico pages.
I do not think the democrats are smart enough to maintain control of the congress. They are the ones that put Liddy in charge of AIG, so why the fuss when AIG did everything according to the new law? Good grief. These people (congress) do not know anything about running the country, let alone a business or God help us all – the treasury. They don’t even know what was in the bill that the president signed.
Our congress reminds me of when I was young and paying minimum payments on several credit cards to get by, and continuing to shop for cool clothes for the weekend parties. They are the ones who are head-fucked. Did they really think that we couldn’t see through the charade of nasty questions to Liddy? I mean what is the point except to make yourself look good and hope your constituents buy the ruse?
Didn’t Paulson come out of goldman sachs? It was one of the big houses.
Saw a Tv last night. The so called “national” primetime news. We the taxpayers now own 80% of AIG. We bought it, we own it. Their take was that it is now in our best interests that AIG be successful.
Kind of a head fuck for me.
…..I had hoped the constant lying from Washington was going to end when Emperor Bush left town………..this latest bunch of deception is beyond belief……….we are STILL being ” played ” by our Government………..