Back from Down Under

The DOW took an early plunge on news that the trade deficit was up sharply by more billions than Wall St. expected. The market did claw back to finish only 20 points down on the rumor that the EU will bail out Greece. This was based solely on the observation that an EU Finance Minister cut short his trip to Australia. (crikey) To further gin up enthusiasm among the Wall Street traders, the disaster capitalists are circulating gloating soliloquies about the failure of European socialism. Going on and on how the Greeks and the other PIGS countries will be brought under the lash of fiscal conservatism or in plain English; grinding poverty and depravation. Slashing budgets, eliminating government jobs and the end of unions will bring many opportunities for privatization and a shift of the tax burden away from business or so the story goes. Where have we heard this before? They are confidently predicting that this will spread throughout Europe creating the kind of Neo-con paradise they envisioned for Iraq.

Of course what is really calming the market is the word from the Fed that they will not cut off the free money anytime soon and the plan they have for drawing money from the credit system should inflation ever return is on indefinite hold. Our central bank has printed fourteen trillion dollars to bail out the financial services “industry”. An “industry” that produces nothing and drains off the wealth of the middle class as they facilitate the out sourcing of all their jobs. Now they have used their wholly owned Supreme Court to take over the rest of the government on their way to world domination. And right wingers tell you “Europe should do things the American Way”.

The Greeks are living the Neo-con dream and soon enough so will we. With new stimulus money off the table, states and local governments will start running out of money soon. The estimate is that when the Federal money runs out that 900,000 state and local jobs will need to be cut. This doesn’t allow for an ever shrinking tax base that will require even more cuts and as government becomes more dysfunctional, it becomes more inefficient and starts lurching from crisis to crisis.

The Republican base that has been told that government doesn’t work will find out what that is really like. The rich are already subscribing to private police and fire services. Better add ammunition and some basic fire fighting equipment to your canned goods stash. www.prairie2.com