Monsanto out to ruin farming in Mesopotamia?

Just as I’m reporting on SPIN farming and efforts to grow our own produce in our backyards, I come across this article describing Monsanto’s efforts to control farming in Mesopotamia. While we make efforts to collect and harvest heritage seeds, Monsanto is ramming ‘democracy’ down the throats of Iraqi farmers in the form of legalized theft.

This whole thing disgusts me. I could be wrong, as I’m not an agrarian historian, but how can we sanction this top-down approach to farming, when it was most likely the Mesopotamians that domesticated wheat and other products in the first place, largely out of respect for variety and diversity.

Here are some snapshots from the article:

The 100 Orders [of Paul Bremer] allow multinational corporations to basically privatize an entire nation, and this degree of foreign and private control has not been witnessed since the days of the British East India Company and its extraterritoriality treaties.

…

A few examples of the 100 Orders are illuminating:

Order 39 allows for the tax-free remittance of all corporate profits.

Order 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, immunity from Iraq’s laws.

Orders 57 and 77 ensure the implementation of the orders by placing U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector general in every government ministry, with five-year terms and with sweeping authority over contracts, programs, employees and regulations.

Back to one of the most blatant orders of all: Order 81. Under this mandate, Iraq’s commercial farmers must now buy "registered seeds." These are normally imported by Monsanto, Cargill and the World Wide Wheat Company. Unfortunately, these registered seeds are "terminator" seeds, meaning "sterile." Imagine if all human men were infertile, and in order to reproduce women needed to buy sperm cells at a sperm bank. In agricultural terms, terminator seeds represent the same kind of sterility.

Terminator seeds have no agricultural value other than creating corporate monopolies. The Sierra Club, more of a mainstream "conservation" organization than a radical "environmentalist" one, makes the exact same case:

"This technology would protect the intellectual property interests of the seed company by making the seeds from a genetically engineered crop plant sterile, unable to germinate. Terminator would make it impossible for farmers to save seed from a crop for planting the next year, and would force them to buy seed from the supplier. In the third world, this inability to save seed could be a major, perhaps fatal, burden on poor farmers."

What makes this Order 81 even more outrageous is that Iraqi farmers have been saving wheat and barley seeds since at least 4000 BC, when irrigated agriculture first emerged, and probably even to about 8000 BC, when wheat was first domesticated. Mesopotamia’s farmers have now been trumped by white-smocked, corporate bio-engineers from Florida who strive to replace hundreds of natural varieties with a handful of genetically scrambled hybrids.

…

Just in case Iraqi farmer can’t read, Order 81 enforces the new monopoly on seeds with the jackboot. Order 81 makes this clear in its own text, buried at the bottom of the document, as is most screw-you fine print:

"The court may order the confiscation of the infringing variety as well as the materials and tools substantially used in the infringement of the protected variety. The court may also decide to destroy the infringing variety as well as the materials and tools or to dispose of them in any noncommercial purpose."

Order 81 is about power and profit, but it disguises itself as humanitarian legislation.

In Canada, we’ve also been inundated with terminator seeds, but all is not lost because of heroes like Percy Schmeiser . He managed to fight Monsanto and won, in an undisclosed settlement in his favour.

SPIN Farming

SPIN is short for "Small Plot Intensive" Farming, a project that was started by Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen. Their site can be found here .

The purpose of the project is to maximize the use of backyard space in urban and suburban areas. I’d like to help them get a boost, mainly by encouraging people to link to their site and refer to them on your own personal (or business) blogs.

Ideally, we’d be able to create a larger marketplace where potential "vacancies" or available plots can be filled by eager farmers. Please contact them if you’re interested in either approach so that they can generate a more robust list.

The Power of the Internet and the End of Rovian Politics

This is an inspirational piece . I read it with glee. Before reading below, here’s a great example of what Ms. Huffington is talking about.

Here are some of the details:

Thanks to YouTube — and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral emails — it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price, or to run under-the-radar smear campaigns without being exposed.

But the McCain campaign hasn’t gotten the message, hence the blizzard of racist, alarmist, xenophobic, innuendo-laden accusations being splattered at Obama.

And it seems that the worse McCain is doing in the polls, the more his team is relying on the same gutter tactics. So over the next 15 days, look for the McCain campaign to become even uglier. That’s what happens when following Rovian politics is your only strategy — and Rovian politics isn’t working.

McCain has stockpiled his campaign with Rove henchmen, including not one but three of the people responsible for the political mugging inflicted on him in 2000.

Just last week he brought on Warren Tompkins in an "unofficial" capacity to see how receptive North Carolina would be to some Rovian slime. After all, it’s right next door to South Carolina, where in 2000 Tomkins and his buddies in the Bush campaign spread race-baiting rumors about McCain having an illegitimate black daughter (referring to McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter Bridget).

And those disgraceful robo-calls that McCain is running ? They were done with the help of Jeff Larson and his firm FLS-Connect — the same firm that created the robo-calls smearing McCain in 2000.

At the time, McCain’s reaction to the attacks on him was: "I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like these."

His reaction now? I have a special place in my campaign for people like these!

So the Karl Rove specials keep coming. Obama and Ayers. Obama the Socialist. Obama and ACORN "destroying the fabric of democracy." Palin (herself the manifestation of Rovian decision-making) delineating which parts of "this great nation of ours" are "pro-American." (Interestingly, the sites of the 9/11 attacks didn’t make the list.)

And, did you hear, Obama is also… black! And he wants to give your money to all the poor black people! McCain didn’t come right out and say that, but it’s surely what he insinuated in his radio address this weekend: "Barack Obama’s tax plan would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency." Somewhere, Karl Rove is smiling, Richard Nixon’s southern strategy is waxing nostalgic, and John McCain’s missing moral compass is getting steamed about John Lewis’ evocation of the civil rights struggle.

But there is a diamond amidst all this dung: the lack of traction this Rovian politics is getting. It’s as if Rove and his political arsonists keep lighting fires, only to see them doused by the powerful information spray the Internet has made possible.

The Internet has enabled the public to get to know candidates in a much fuller and more intimate way than in the old days (i.e. four years ago), when voters got to know them largely through 30-second campaign ads and quick sound bites chosen by TV news producers.

Compare that to the way over 6 million viewers (on YouTube alone) were able to watch the entirety of Obama’s 37-minute speech on race — or the thousands of other videos posted by the campaign and its supporters.

Back in the Dark Ages of 2004, when YouTube (and HuffPost, for that matter) didn’t exist, a campaign could tell a brazen lie, and the media might call them on it. But if they kept repeating the lie again and again and again, the media would eventually let it go (see the Swiftboating of John Kerry). Traditional media like moving on to the next shiny thing. But bloggers love revisiting a story. So when Palin kept repeating her bridge to nowhere lie, bloggers kept calling her on it. Andrew Sullivan, for one, has made a cottage industry of calling Palin on her lies. And eventually, the truth filtered up and cost McCain credibility with his true base: journalists.

The Internet may make it easier to disseminate character smears, but it also makes it much less likely that these smears will stick.

As a result, the McCain campaign’s insinuation-laden "Who is Barack Obama?" was rendered more comical than spooky. Who is Barack Obama? The guy we’ve been watching over and over and over during the last two years. We’ve seen him. We know him. And we can remind ourselves about him with a quick Google search and a mouse click.

Obama "has shown the same untroubled self-confidence day after day," and "over the past two years, Obama has clearly worn well with voters." Those are the words of David Brooks, who has gotten to know Obama just like the rest of us.

Four years ago, McCain’s Rovian race-based appeals to our darker demons might have worked. This year, they are blowing up in McCain’s face. And in the face of the entire GOP.

Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama as "a transformational figure" was powerful. But even more powerful was his withering indictment of the state of the Republican Party and the cancer of Rovian politics.

It was similar to the diagnosis of Christopher Buckley following his endorsement of Obama: "To paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan, I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me."

There are many other anti-Rove Republicans abandoning their party. I’ve had several Republican friends tell me privately what Powell and Buckley told the world publicly: that they’re voting for Obama. Most of them not because they like Obama, but because they can’t stand what Bush, Rove and now McCain and Palin have done to their party.

Rovian politics may or may not end up destroying the GOP. But, thanks to the Internet, with a bit of luck it will no longer have the power to befoul our democracy.

One thing that Adriana Huffington is exceptionally humble about is, of course, the rise of independent media in North America. Without the rise of sites like the Huffington post, rabble, The Tyee and others, we’d still be relying on political-profiteering bull crap from CTV, CNN, FOX and the small handful of broadcasters that say they aren’t political and then at the 11th hour, endorse certain Conservative politicians.

US Election: Fraud’s Ugly Head Materializing?

Despite the massive leads reported in favour of Barack Obama, a lot of stories are popping up concerning election fraud, voting issues and problems with electronic voting machines.

This BBC story is one of the earlier ones that I’ve seen, but a search on US election fraud (especially with What Really Happened ) will reveal that the problems are ubiquitous and should be something to be worried about.

Here’s another link. Are most of the reports are coming from outside the US? Stay tuned.

What will you do if the Cons steal another election? If you’re an American, will you finally do something to show your disgust?

Net Neutrality: TV Broadcasters Oppose Whitespace Program

In the US, TV broadcasters have officially filed their opposition to any plan to leverage available ‘white space’, or unused broadband wireless airwaves for public use. They argue that transmitting wireless broadband on white spaces could interfere with TV signals.

Original story here.

I’m not an expert in this field, but the claim that airwaves will interfere with broadcasters doesn’t make a lot of sense. For years, the strategy of cable suppliers has been to hook the cable into homes, creating a network that only they can control.

Now, with public white space, they’re claiming interference, but what would transmissions interfere with if all cable and ‘broadcast’ stations are deliverd through broadcast?

Anyways, that’s a tangent that will probably get me hung up on details that I’m under-informed on.

Instead, what struck me when reading this article is the idea that we should be looking into a similar program here in Canada, but the core consideration being a publicly-run and owned transmission network for broadband that would rival Bell and Rogers.

For a while, I’ve been preaching that the official mandate of the CBC should be expanded to make the Internet a social and public asset so that we don’t face issues like throttling and if we get our act together and elect the right government, maybe we’ll be able to do this. Don’t expect any miracles with the current government, though

Liberal democrats more active online

Research here.

This is an interesting article, but covers the US only.

Interesting why? Well, I suppose it’s because it offers up some hope for the world in that if we (being liberal democrats or activists) are actually more active than conservatives, we’ll eventually turn things around.

The only challenge is fragmentation. In Canada, during the last election, the number of activist causes, groups, campaigns and other efforts ranked in the thousands. For the first time, it seemed like everyone with a cause was out there vocalizing it.

However, in speaking, there is no listening.

I feel compelled to wonder if there’s some great aggregator of causes that can act as a filter for interested activists. If anyone knows of such a tool, please let me know. Of course, I’d also be interested to know your thoughts on the realistic feasibility of such a tool. Do we want ‘aggregation’ of causes or are we content with the islands that we create for ourselves? If it’s the latter, let me remind you that the Reformers, Alliance dudes, Conservatives and PCs all put aside any differences and organized under one banner.

Is there a way for us to do the same?

Responses to Call to Action on Financial ‘Crisis’

As a reminder, it’s my belief that the financial ‘crisis’ was manufactured by those who see a turning of the page of history. ‘They’ are taking action now to deplete the system of any financial / fiscal strength and are leaving the rest of the world to lick its wounds after the US election in November, one which will surely be historical in and of itself.

The financial ‘crisis’ is being generated by the gurus who brought us disaster capitalism and they won’t rest until the entire planet is indebted to them, mortgaged to the teeth so that the sole purpose of the planet’s inhabitants will be to pay interest for the rest of time.

I’ve been pushing the audience of this and other blogs to act, and the first article that I’ve found of interest is this one, provided by the Socialist Project . It is, in fact, a declaration of the International Political Economy Conference in Caracas, October 11, 2008. I’ve pasted the bulk of it for your review:

Academics and researchers from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Mexico, Peru, Phillipines, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela participated in The International Political Economy Conference: Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis, held in Caracas from the 8 to 11 October 2008. The conference stimulated a wide ranging debate on the current economic and financial health of the global economy, the new perspectives and the challenges to the governments and peoples of the South posed by the international financial crisis.

The meeting concluded that the situation has worsened in the last few weeks. It has progressed rapidly from being a series of crises in the financial markets of countries in the centre and has turned into an extremely serious international crisis. This meant that countries in the South are in a very difficult situation.

The crisis threatens the real economy and, if energetic and effective actions are not taken immediately, all peoples in the world could be drastically punished; especially the least protected and most neglected sectors.

The vulnerability of our currencies, the financial imbalances and the serious recession that looms large give the lie to the neoliberal myth about the benefits of deregulating markets and the solidity and trustworthiness of the existing financial institutions; the former also clearly bring into question the foundations of the current capitalist system.

The contributions made to the conference shone the spotlight on the way the crisis, which began in August 2007, has developed and on the failure of the ever larger concessions, bailouts and privileges provided by state intervention in developed capitalist countries to save the dregs of an already non-functional world financial system.

We denounce the attempt to make the overall world system carry the cost of the financial bailout thus aggravating the situation of poverty, unemployment and exploitation experienced by the world’s workers and peoples.

Neither the colossal state interventionism seen over the last few weeks to rescue institutions dismembered and drained dry by speculation, nor massive public indebtedness are plausible ways to get out of the crisis. The existing dynamic encourages new rounds of capital concentration and, if the peoples do not firmly oppose this, it is becoming perilously likely that restructuring will occur simply to save privileged sectors. This could mean there is a danger of capitalism returning to an authoritarian way of functioning, since in the North an increase in discrimination and racism towards immigrants from countries in the South has already been noted – which is something extremely regressive.

If the current restructuring the capitalist system continues down the same road, there will be enormous productive and social costs and the already fragile sustainablity of the environment may suffer even more damage.

The need to reform the international economic and financial structure is today unavoidable. Those who think this also believe that it is necessary to find a post-capitalist solution; in Venezuela this is referred to as Twenty First Century Socialism.

In a moment as critical as this, national and regional policies must give priority to social spending and to protecting natural and productive resources. States must introduce urgent financial regulation measures to protect savings, to keep stimulating production and must fight off the dangers implicit in a lack of regulation by immediately implementing exchange and capital movement controls.

It will therefore be essential to develop the highest possible degree of balanced regional complementation and trade integration by reinforcing industrial, agricultural, energy and infrastructural capacities. Initiatives such as ALBA and the Bank of the South must extend their radius of action and move their perspective towards that of a alternative form of greater integration which includes a new common currency. This is so we can move towards creating a new word financial architecture which will make it viable for the south to be involved in a different way in the international division of labour.

In this context it is necessary to evaluate a series of contributions and proposals from the social economy which seek to dignify labour and encourage local coordination to combat the impact of the crisis.

On an international level, we must not cease to demand a far-reaching reform of the international monetary and financial system; this entails defending savings and channelling investments into serving the Peoples’ essential needs. The continued re-emergence of a system which favours the central role of speculation, increases economic differences and especially punishes those countries and sectors which are least protected must be prevented.

Therefore new (multilateral) economic institutions must be created on new bases; they must have the authority and the instruments to be able to act against the anarchy of speculation. Hence it has become indispensable that national authorities intervene urgently in ways that challenge the basic workings of the market and protect the finances of the peoples affected. The crisis has created common interests among the peoples of all nations.

Based on these analyses and considerations, The International Political Economy Conference: Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis has reached the following
Conclusions and Recommendations for Action

We begin with the following characterisation of the international economic situation;

We find ourselves in an unprecedented international situation. The economic and financial crisis has worsened and accelerated greatly in the last few days. Its future development, as well as being difficult to foresee could take on, from one day to the next, dramatic overtones.

The initial epicentre of the crisis was in the United States and on the stock markets but the crisis is now a world crisis which is affecting the whole financial system and is increasingly contaminating the productive apparatus. The crisis is having a particular impact now on Eastern and Western Europe.

In spite of the initial expectations that Latin America could remain outside the crisis and that it is “shielded,” there are already very convincing signs that the sub continent is certain to be affected. We can not only expect a prolonged decrease in foreign trade but are certain to be hit by a very violent financial crash – and soon. The more internationalised the banking system and stock exchange the greater its fragility.

We are making these suggestions well aware that in any crisis there are always winners and losers. We are strongly in favour of taking those measures which ensure the welfare and rights of our peoples, of citizens in general and not in favour of coming to the aid of the bankers responsible for the crisis as they are doing in Europe and the United States.

Given this new situation and the fact that it is worsening at an accelerated rate we think it is necessary to make the following recommendations for action, some of which will have to be implemented by taking urgent political decisions at the very highest levels.

Therefore, consideration should be given to calling an immediate Extraordinary Summit of Latin American and Caribbean presidents or at least of those of UNASUR. Either or both of these would be presided over by a large popular mobilisation of our peoples.

ON THE BANKING SYSTEM

Given the collapse of the international financial system, states in the region should immediately take charge of their banking systems using controls, intervention and nationalisation without compensation following the principle enshrined in the new Ecuadorian constitution which forbids the state to accept responsibility for private debts. (Article 290, point 7: “it is forbidden for the state to accept responsibility for private debts”).

The reason for these measures is to prevent capital fleeing abroad, a run on currencies, the transference of funds from the branches of foreign banks to their head offices and to prevent banks from freezing credit by not lending the funds they receive.

The off shore banking systems of every country must be shut down, for under current circumstances, when liquidity problems are causing money to be siphoned off from the periphery, they are an extremely dangerous haven from regulations and fiscal controls.

The banks’ books must be opened; bank oversight must be strengthened as must the mechanisms of strict regulation which make the real situation of national banking systems transparent for they are the institutions into which the populations’ savings are deposited. (Given that financial services are public services) One of these measure must guarantee there is a minimum amount of domestic investment in the liquid assets of the system (coefficient of domestic liquidity).

Popular economic activities for development and not for profit must be encouraged and administered by populations living in the areas where such bodies are located.

If the state does intervene they must recover the costs of the bailout from the banks’ property and have the right to do so from the property of the shareholders and managers.

THE NEW FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE

The lack of coordinated monetary policies causes a “competitive devaluations” war which makes the crisis worse and unleashes rivalry between our economies thus preventing a coordinated response from the region and even creates structural threats to the progress of initiative towards integration, such as UNASUR. Therefore, clear signs that there will be a Latin American monetary agreement should be given which will straight away make evident the additional opportunities for “shielding” our macro-economies. Thus, defining a system of payment settlements based on a basket of Latin American monies will provide each country with additional sources of liquidity which will allow them to distance themselves from the logic of the dollar crisis.

Along the same lines as creating institutions to “shield” our economies we will need more coordination between our central banks and must go beyond neoliberal dogma by managing our international reserves in a much more efficient and timely way. So it is important to move forward on the proposal for a Fund of the South that is an alternative to the IMF with liquidity available for emergencies in exchequers (national treasuries) or balance of payments.

Making good use of the bigger surplus reserves of each country brought about by the creation of a payment settlement system (regional credit transfer rights) and by the existence of the Common Fund of the South, resources can be mobilised to get the Bank of the South up and running straightaway ensuring that it will function democratically and not reproduce the logic of the multilateral financial credit organisations. This bank must be the heart of this process of transforming the already existing network of Latin American bancos de fomento whose mission is the reproduction of productive apparati based on fundamental human rights. We understand all of the foregoing in way something similar to what was emphasised in the Quito Ministerial Declaration of 3 May of this year where it said “The peoples gave their governments the mandate to provide the region with new tools for integration for development. These should be designed on transparent, participatory bases and accountable to those who issued the mandate.”

It is essential to ratify exchange controls in the countries where they exist and to establish them where there don’t to protect reserves and prevent capital outflows.

In the context of the suspension of payments imposed by the crisis on the international financial system it is imperative that the countries of the region consider suspending payment of public debt. This measure is intended to temporarily protect sovereign resources threatened by the crisis and avoid an emptying out of the national treasuries

Latin America and the Caribbean should learn from what is happening in Europe where each country is trying to solve the crisis on its own. This makes it imperative to bolster the mechanisms of integration being developed in the region.

SOCIAL EMERGENCY

We propose that the widest possible degree of national and peoples’ sovereignty be exercised over natural resources, in order that they be rationally exploited and their prices defended to benefit the peoples.

We propose setting up a Regional Social Emergency Fund to ensure food and energy sovereignty right away and to deal with the acute problems of migrations and reduction in remittances. This fund could operate out of the Bank of the South or the Alba Bank.

Pursuant to the principle of not rescuing bankers but rather our populations, public budgets must be maintained for social spending and we must contemplate an increase in these budgets to combat the imminent effects of the international crisis on our peoples; our priorities are employment security, universal income, public health and education, housing.

Establishing anti-inflationary mechanisms, such as price controls which conserve and increment low wages and pensions, subsidies etc, which play a role in redistributing income and wealth.

FINANCIAL ORGANISATIONS.

The international financial crisis has revealed the complicity of the IMF, the World Bank and the IDB with transnational bankers who have caused the current collapse with its horrific social consequences. The loss of prestige of these bodies is obvious. This is the opportunity for the countries in the region to follow Bolivia’s example and withdraw from ICSID (International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes) and to take up Venezuela’s call to withdraw from the IMF and the World Bank and begin to help to build a new international financial architecture.

We convene a second International Political Economy Conference: Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis to be held in the first four months of 2009.

Caracas, 11 October 2008

What do you think of this declaration? Is there anything you would add? Is there anything that doesn’t make sense to you? Is it garbage? Given that this is a declaration for Latin America and protects the interests of Latin Americans, what should Canada do? Should we write our own declaration? Or do we hook our anchor to the sinking ships of the US and Europe? Is there a way to create international conciliation without dependence?

Tell me. Please post your comments below.

A Tape the McCain Team May Not Want You To See

Angry thugs. Threats of incarceration. All in a day’s work for a bunch of neo-cons that have to BUY volunteers.

For Whom the Bailout Tolls

This story offers a nice commentary on some of the excesses associated with the bailouts.

AIG, in particular, stands out. Words like greed and gluttony come to mind. Excessive greed. Excessive gluttony. Why these clowns were bailed out at all is beyond me.

There are "claw back" provisions in the big $700 billion bailout passed by Congress three weeks ago, requiring that financial institutions get money back from their senior executives, if the payments were "based on statements of earnings, gains, or other criteria that are later proven to be materially inaccurate."

But the executive pay limits in the legislation apparently have so many loopholes you could fly a fleet of Gulfstream corporate jets through them. Oregon Congressman Peter de Fazio caught at least seven, "that will protect their outrageous paychecks and golden parachutes," he wrote fellow Democratic House members, adding, "Imagine how many more loopholes the Wall Street lawyers will find."

No doubt the nine banks into which the US is planning to inject billions in capital – again, all taxpayer dollars – have their lawyers searching for those escape hatches. Writing in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Sarah Anderson and Sam Pizzigati of the Institute for Policy Studies calculated that last year the CEO’s of those nine banks took home "on average, $32.2 million each, nearly triple the average CEO pay at the 500 biggest US companies. This is more than $600,000 a week." Apiece.

Bloomberg News columnist Jonathan Weil figures that since the start of fiscal 2004, the once Mighty Five of Wall Street – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns – lost around $83 billion in stock market value. But they reported employee compensation of around $239 billion. In other words, the engineers who dug this disastrous hole paid themselves almost three dollars for every dollar they lost.

The cost to the taxpayer of all the bailouts, as calculated by the internet investigative newsroom ProPublica.org, is a whopping $8,750 per household, more than two and a half times what lucky us got to fork over 20 years ago during the savings and loan crisis.

But the masters of the universe are just fine, thank you, in no small part due to the tolerance and largesse of their guru, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, late of Goldman Sachs, where Forbes magazine reports that during a 32-year-career he accumulated more than $700 million. He said limiting compensation too punitively might prevent some institutions from participating in his plan to save the economy.

…

Testifying before the House Budget Committee this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke agreed that homeowners in jeopardy of foreclosure need help. "I agree that stopping preventable foreclosures is extremely important," he said. "I hope we continue to look for ways to do that."

But so far the government and the businesses bailed out haven’t looked very hard. They’ve done little or nothing and it’s every man for himself, devil take the hindmost. In his history of the 1929 market crash, John Kenneth Galbraith wrote, "The sense of responsibility in the financial community for the community as a whole is not small. It is nearly nil."

In other words, virtually nonexistent, somewhere around zero. In other words, my fellow Americans, look out below. Do not ask for whom the bailout tolls. It tolls for thee.

Excited Delirium

Stories about Excited Delirium, the Shock Economy and a little fiction here and there.

Daily Archives: October 26, 2008