Dear Friend and Reader:<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
For its swan song, reminiscent of the dying words “Rosebud” by fictional newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane<\/em>, the last words uttered by the dying Pluto in Sagittarius\u0412\u00a0seem to\u0412\u00a0be: “Too Big to Fail.”<\/p>\n Too big to fail. What an interesting ellipsis<\/a> used to describe what eventually would become the definition of\u0412\u00a0failure 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 in\u0412\u00a0consequences for taking on\u0412\u00a0too much risk in the expectation of larger rewards. Too big to obey the rules.\u0412\u00a0How Sagittarian.<\/p>\n 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 defining\u0412\u00a0term of these last 15 years. Just\u0412\u00a0look at the last week:<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u0412<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Roy Smith, a professor at the New York University’s Stern School of Business summarized the Citigroup’s path to crisis this way: \u0432\u0402\u045aThey 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<\/a>.\u0432\u0402\u045c<\/p>\n These adventurers had it all under the thrall of unjustified exuberance, and\u0412\u00a0the absence of a\u0412\u00a0bear 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’ve\u0412\u00a0gotten\u0412\u00a0us\u0412\u00a0to\u0412\u00a0prop them up.\u0412\u00a0Why is it the executives of financial institutions which demanded\u0412\u00a0pristine financial behavior from average Americans seem to be so incapable of requiring\u0412\u00a0the same for\u0412\u00a0themselves?<\/p>\n As Pluto enters Capricorn, this is the estate sale on the last 15 years of Pluto in Sagittarius,\u0412\u00a0similar to the one that encircles the film Citizen Kane<\/em> — the dissolution of his empire\u0412\u00a0and his surreally extravagant estate. In both cases\u0412\u00a0built\u0412\u00a0from grandiose dreams,\u0412\u00a0destroyed by delusion, coming to a fall. In our case,\u0412\u00a0a true bonfire of economic vanities with our\u0412\u00a0taxpayer dollars\u0412\u00a0used as fuel for the fire, completing the ellipsis: All too big. Destined to fail.<\/p>\n Yours & truly,<\/p>\n Fe Bongolan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1,14],"tags":[36,1788,52,324,641],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}