Sunday, October 12, 2008

It's a minute to midnight. Americans,
do you know where your economy is?


The first two paragraphs from this Associated Press story Saturday night would have Alfred Hitchcock reaching for the night light and his wubbie:
President Bush and financial leaders from nations rich and poor pledged Saturday to intensify their efforts to unblock a frozen financial system before it does more damage to an increasingly shaky global economy.

While there were no concrete offers of new moves, Bush vowed anew that his administration was doing everything possible to halt the biggest market disruptions since the Great Depression. The finance ministers spoke in unusually somber terms about the need for action.
DO YOU understand what was said here?

Finance ministers of nations worldwide speak in "unusually somber terms" about the need to do something to stop the global financial meltdown. Nevertheless, no one has committed to do anything along those lines, at least in any concerted manner.

I think those in charge of the global credit markets and stock traders around the world understand what has -- or more accurately, hasn't -- gone down during the Washington meetings. And I think we can guess what might happen Monday morning if the finance ministers don't do something big by Sunday night.

Don't know about you, but I'm getting damned nervous.

My parents both grew up dirt poor during the Great Depression. I've heard all the stories. I know the indignities they suffered seven decades ago. I know the opportunities lost forever to those children long ago -- the dysfunction bred and the repercussions still rippling through myriad lives after all these years.

I don't want to go there. America doesn't want to go there . . . again.

Bush started the day shortly after daybreak with a Rose Garden appearance with finance ministers from the world's richest countries and later made an unexpected evening visit to the headquarters of the 185-nation International Monetary Fund a few blocks from the White House.

With Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, he participated for about 25 minutes in a discussion with the Group of 20, which includes rich countries and major developing nations such as China, Brazil and India.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said that the president told the finance ministers that he was doing all he could to involve other countries in efforts to resolve the crisis. According to White House spokesman Tony Fratto, Bush acknowledged the problems began in the U.S., with a meltdown of the market for subprime mortgages in the summer of 2007. The president felt it was important to take the rare step of coming to such a meeting because the problems were spreading globally.

"It doesn't matter if you're a rich country or a poor country, a developed country or a developing country—we're all in this together," Bush said, according to Fratto. "We take this seriously, and we want to work with you."

In response, the G-20 countries issued a joint statement in which the finance officials pledged to work together "to overcome the financial turmoil and to deepen cooperation to improve the regulation, supervision and the overall functioning of the world's financial markets."

The financial turmoil also dominated discussions at weekend's annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank. The IMF strongly endorsed a five-point plan put together a day earlier by the so-called Group of Seven wealthy powers, in which the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada jointly pledged to use all means possible to prevent major financial institutions from failing and to keep pumping money into the banking system to unfreeze lending and get credit—the lifeblood of the economy—flowing again.

"The depth and systemic nature of the crisis call for exceptional vigilance, coordination and readiness to take bold action," the IMF said in its joint statement. That statement, in an unusual move, repeated verbatim all of the commitments made in the G-7 statement that had been released on Friday.
IT SEEMS to me -- with government ministers and private-sector economists all stresing the need for urgent, global action to stave off le deluge -- all world powers can muster are piecemeal patches and pretty words. How will that save us from the financial apocalyse predicted by the head of the IMF on Saturday? From MSNBC:
The International Monetary Fund warned Saturday that debt-ridden banks were pushing the global financial system to the brink of meltdown and wealthy nations had so far failed to restore confidence.

The IMF's policy setting panel said the economic crisis is so deep and widespread that it will require a willingness to take bold action.

The Group of 20 nations, which includes the world's wealthiest nations and the largest developing countries such as China, Brazil and India, issued a joint statement late Saturday night stressing their resolve to work together to overcome the current financial turmoil.

"Intensifying solvency concerns about a number of the largest U.S.-based and European financial institutions have pushed the global financial system to the brink of systemic meltdown," IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.

The IMF endorsed a plan of action adopted Friday by the G-7 economic powers to protect the financial system and get credit flowing again.

Bush huddled with economic chiefs from the G-7 — Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada — and officials from the IMF and World Bank, and said top industrial nations grasped the gravity of the crisis and would work together to solve it.

"In an interconnected world, no nation will gain by driving down the fortunes of another. We are in this together. We will come through it together," Bush said. "There have been moments of crisis in the past when powerful nations turned their energies against each other or sought to wall themselves off from the world. This time is different."

"I'm confident that the world's major economies can overcome the challenges we face," Bush said, adding that Washington was working as fast as possible to implement a $700 billion financial bailout package approved a week ago.

Yet there was no concrete offer of new moves when Bush spoke on a Rose Garden stage just after daybreak, flanked by representatives from nearly a dozen nations and international organizations.
EVERYBODY HAS a plan. What we need is implementation. No implementation, no chance of a solution.

And no solution leads us to a place we really don't want to go.

At least that's what the experts who forecast our present predicament say. Like this one:

Nouriel Roubini, the professor who two years ago predicted the financial crisis, said world financial officials should orchestrate interest-rate cuts of at least 1.5 percentage points to help avert a depression.

A temporary guarantee of all bank deposits, unlimited liquidity for solvent financial institutions and fiscal-stimulus measures are also needed, the New York University professor of economics said in a commentary e-mailed today to Roubini Global Economics subscribers.

"It will take a significant change in leadership of economic policy and very radical, coordinated policy actions among all advanced and emerging-market economies to avoid this economic and financial disaster," said Roubini, 50. From late 2006, he highlighted the dangers flowing from a likely U.S. housing crisis.

The economist urged immediate action as officials from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Group of Seven nations meet in Washington this weekend. Stocks tumbled around the world today as the yearlong credit crisis deepened, sending Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average to its worst weekly drop in history. The MSCI World Index was set for its biggest weekly decline since records began in 1970.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 9,000 for the first time since 2003 yesterday. More than $4 trillion has been erased from global equities this week.

"At this stage the risk of an imminent stock-market crash -- like the one-day collapse of 20 percent plus in U.S. stock prices in 1987 cannot be ruled out," said Roubini. "The financial system is breaking down, panic and lack of confidence in any counterparty is sharply rising and investors have totally lost faith in the ability of policy authorities to control the meltdown."
AT LEAST that's what the Bloomberg News story said Friday. As for what people will say today, who knows?

All I know is it doesn't look good from here, as I sit in the studio typing this. You have to wonder . . . and I do.

What particularly worries me is that, after four decades-plus of cultural chaos and familial breakdown, our society is in a worse position to deal with an economic collapse that it was in the 1930s -- and it was a close call even then. We just have no idea what would happen now, and I'd just as soon not tempt fate, if you don't mind.


I'D REALLY just as soon not find out what happens if the economy implodes just as GOP presidential nominee John McCain has unleashed the right's angry demons against Democrat Barack Obama . . . and everybody else who happens to get in the way.

And it's not like the "nutroots" left is any better. Or any less angry. Just different.

I don't want to find out what happens if our financial system -- and, soon after, our entire economy -- falls apart at the same time as we do.

Friday, October 10, 2008

3C&T taking the week off

I've been on a roll putting a bunch of new (old) music onto the production hard drive, so I think I'm going to try to do some more of that today instead of putting together a new episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.

THERE ARE, however, a few past episodes for you to check out -- and I think that would be a fine thing to do.

But as for me, I'm gonna try to get those chores done . . . as well as keeping a close eye on the U.S. Economic Death Spiral. It's not looking good, folks -- Japan's Nikkei average fell nearly 10 percent today and, as I write, the European markets are off by about the same in early trading.

I reckon it could be another really ugly day on Wall Street -- and for the economy -- today, though I'm far from an economist and the erratic Dow Jones index has made monkeys out of legions tremendously more expert than I am.

STILL, today looks like it will be another day of watching . . . and waiting for some first glimpse of the America that will be, which likely will be a far cry from the America that just was. I'll be there, as will you, keeping one eye on the TV and the Internet as I try to get those musical chores completed.

I'll wish you good luck and God bless, and ask you to do the same for me. I really don't think the missus and I will be retiring . . . at least so long as we're physically and mentally able to work. I reckon many of y'all probably are finding yourselves in the same boat.

How, then, shall we navigate this new land?

Download an episode of the Big Show while you think on that one.

What planet do these people live on?

Conservatives don't know irony.

I say this because -- one might assume -- the people at National Review Online had straight faces as they accepted, and then posted, this advertisement.

I know postmodern "movement" conservatives live in something of an echo chamber, but don't they get TV reception in there? Newspaper delivery?


YOU'D THINK they get the Internet, being that NRO is a website.

But conservatives are tagging Obama with a "zinger" such as "The Audacity of Socialism"? Really?

Are they freaking nuts?

I hate to be the bearer of politically incorrect news to the right wing, but WE ALREADY LIVE IN A SOCIALIST STATE! And the Bush Administration created it.

The government is buying financial assets -- and bad debts -- as fast as the Treasury can print money to cover the tab. It owns major swatches of the banking and financial-services industries.

It is pumping hundreds of billions of dollars of capital into the financial system to stave off utter collapse. The federal government is the mortgage industry now.

Now John McCain -- the "conservative" Republican candidate for president -- is proposing the federal government buy every troubled mortgage out there and renegotiate the terms.

You don't get more socialist than what the GOP hath wrought unless you find a way to reanimate the waxy corpse of V.I. Lenin and elect him president.

And you know what? Without this Republican-led lurch to the left, we'd probably all be eating dirt in short order. And may yet despite everything.

THE RIGHT WING done gone and drank the last of the Kool-Aid from the purple-stained No. 3 tub. The mind is going and the convulsions will start presently.

And then the merciful end.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

If you're warped, too, call BR-549



You couldn't much avoid Hee Haw if you grew up in the South in the '60s and '70s and your family owned a television.

AND IF YOU fit that certain profile, chances are that Hee Haw worked its way into your psyche somewhere. Chances are, your psyche never recovered.

This would explain why the telephone number BR-549 makes you chuckle more than 30 years later. Back when Hee Haw was on the air and we were much younger, Samples Sales was the place to buy a jalopy from dubious salesmen.

Now, Samples Sales is where this country goes when it needs a new president. Obviously.

And remember, folks, that number is BR-549. Saaaaaaa-LUTE!

OH, LEST WE FORGET. . . .

Not an Obama voter


By all that is holy and good, it is really important that Sarah Palin be kept out of the Gret Stet of Louisiana.

What?
Oh, crap.

WELL, IN THAT CASE, be warned that this, as reported in the Monroe News-Star is the kind of baseline whackjobbery she'll have to work with:
A 75-year-old man was arrested today for threatening to bring his shotgun to the Registrar of Voters office in downtown Monroe.

According to the report, Wade Marshall Williams of Monroe used profanity and racial slurs and said he needed to vote in the upcoming presidential election to “keep the n***** out of office.”

Williams, of 266 Lake Passman, then reportedly said he wanted his card before he came to the building with his “shotgun and emptied it.”

Ouachita Sheriff deputies received complaints that Williams had threatened the office over the telephone after he was informed he would receive his voter registration card in two weeks, but could still vote by showing picture identification.

Williams reportedly told the office he recently moved back to the area but grew up in Ouachita Parish and attended Ouachita Parish High School.

Christa Medaries with the registrar’s office said Williams may have been drinking. He was booked on a charge of terrorizing.
ACCORDING TO The Smoking Gun, Williams did nothing to exonerate himself when the long arm of the law reached out to his address:

En route to the jail, he "continued his 'tirade' about n****** and also stated that he had a shotgun, but had it hidden at his residence," reported Lt. Michael Judd.
AMERICA'S ORIGINAL SIN: It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Wall Street: The new NASCAR




Y'ever thought that the stock market is like NASCAR now?

We're glued to the TV waiting for the next spectacular wreck. Didya see!? Down 700!

The stock-wreck craze will end when the cable gets shut off and the repo man comes to take all our TV sets away. Well, except me. My main television set is a 1974 Sony. And the one downstairs is a 1985 Sony.

The one downstairs has been paid off for a couple of decades. The one upstairs cost me $25 at an estate sale . . . and it works like a champ. Great picture.

Small picture, but great picture.

3 Chords & the Truth the fuss-free way

Have you subscribed to 3 Chords & the Truth yet?

Subscribing to the Big Show means all of the music with less of the fuss. Sounds like a good deal to me.


But then again, it would, wouldn't it?

What is 3 Chords & the Truth? Well, it's like this: 3 Chords & the Truth is freeform radio better than it used to be.

If you ask me, that's something worth checking out. But I would say that, wouldn't I?

Planned unparenthood


Listen closely. I am only going to say this once.

You know you have a society nearing total collapse when it's easier -- and cheaper -- to throw away your own child than it is to recycle your old, broken-down computer monitor. Think about that.

For the love of God -- or at least for the love of your own sorry ass -- think about that.


YES, THIS MEANS I've just read of another throw-away-children outrage in the Omaha World-Herald:
A Council Bluffs teen was dropped off at Creighton University Medical Center under Nebraska's new safe haven law Tuesday. It was the first time an out-of-state youth was left in Nebraska under the program, state officials said.

"We have made a formal report of the abandonment to the Iowa child abuse hotline," Todd Landry, director of the Nebraska Division of Children and Family Services, said in a statement. "We are working with the Iowa Department of Human Services to resolve this situation as quickly as possible."

The child, a 14-year-old girl, is the 17th youngster left at a hospital under the Nebraska law. This is the 9th time a parent or guardian has dropped off a child or children under the law, which went into effect July 18.
BAD STUFF is headed America's way, and we're going to deserve every jot and tittle of it.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Kool-Aid v. Kool-Aid

The Catholic Kool-Aid drinkers for the Party of Mammon, Greed and War have scored a great triumph, repudiating and purging from the Franciscan University of Steubenville a Catholic Kool-Aid drinker for the Party of Abortion.

IN REVIEWING this report from LifeNews.com, Jesus must be so proud of the Catholic Church in America:

A pro-life former law professor Nicholas Cafardi, the former dean of the Duquesne University Law School, has quit his position on the board of trustees for Franciscan University of Steubenville. Cafardi's decision comes after he received criticism for endorsing pro-abortion presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Cafardi recently issued an endorsement for Obama and claimed the pro-life movement is dead -- drawing a strong rebuke from pro-life advocates.

Franciscan University issued a statement saying Cafardi did not represent the views of the college, but it appears Cafardi has resigned on his own without pressure from university officials.

Catholic writer Deal Hudson, who has been following the controversy, tells LifeNews.com about the latest events.

"Dr. Terrence Henry, president of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, has just told me that he received a letter of resignation yesterday from [Cafardi]," he said.

"Fr. Henry stressed that Dr. Cafardi's resignation from the board of Franciscan University was voluntary and had in no way been requested by the University," Hudson added. "Henry added that he was 'grateful' for Cafardi's letter."

"Cafardi's continued presence on the Franciscan University board became an issue several weeks ago when he publicly endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president," Hudson said.

Cafardi became the second prominent Catholic attorney to endorse Obama, following Doug Kmiec of Pepperdine University -- who has been the subject of significant criticism from pro-life advocates.

Cafardi based his endorsement on two points - claiming the pro-life movement has "permanently" lost the abortion battle and saying voting for Obama can be justified on other political issues.

But Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, disagreed.

"If you think the battle against abortion has been lost permanently, then you are asserting that the battle for America and civilization itself have been lost," Pavone says. "So don't trouble yourself one way or another about this election."
CAFARDI IS CORRECT when he says pro-lifers have utterly lost the abortion battle in this country. Pro-lifers have lost because -- either unable or unwilling to do the dirty work of impacting the culture for the cause of life -- they put all of their eggs (and cultural capital) in the Republicans' basket.

And 30 years later, abortion has been eliminated to the point where it's a wonder doctors aren't shooting healthy, full-term babies as they pop out of the womb. As a matter of fact, the "culture of life" has so triumphed -- thanks to the loving and savvy action of Catholic pro-lifers all over the United States -- that parents and guardians in Nebraska now are using a recently-enacted "safe haven" law to dump their unruly teen-agers in hospital emergency rooms.

That's not necessarily reason to vote for Obama, but it is reason not to judge a man, or his conscience, because his erstwhile compatriots' utter ineffectiveness in championing life has led him to a radically different political conclusion.

NOW, WHAT ABOUT John McCain's support for war, war and more war, more tax cuts for the rich and embryonic stem-cell research? Is anybody being forced off the Steubenville board for endorsing a candidate who supports, in order, Mass Death, Avarice and Homicide?

And what about supporting a candidate who sends out his "Joe Six-Pack" running mate, Sarah Palin, to demonize the opposition and work crowds up into
this kind of hateful, racist frenzy, as noted by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post?

Barack Obama, she told 8,000 fans at a rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

(snip)

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin also told those gathered that Obama doesn't like American soldiers. "He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, 'air-raiding villages and killing civilians,' " she said, drawing boos from a crowd that had not been told Obama was actually appealing for more troops in Afghanistan.

"See, John McCain is a different kind of man: He believes in our troops," she said.

EXCOMMUNICATE the politically incorrect board member, and turn a blind eye to folks who'd kill Obama and sling racial slurs at TV sound men. Turn a blind eye toward those who organize the lynch mob, egg on the devil within then remain silent as the hate approaches critical mass.

Catholics should remember one thing from history: You might think it's better to hitch your wagon to Generalissimo Francisco Franco to defeat the lefties, but that choice comes at a price. And with its own set of pathologies.

The devil always gets his due.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

This is not going to end well



Today, the United States is a nation on the brink. Of what, we do not know.

The economy is in turmoil. People are losing their homes. Retirees are losing their retirements. Workers are starting to lose their jobs in large numbers.

WE'RE ALSO going to have a national election in a month. One one side, to paint with the broadest of brushes, we have a young apostle of "hope" who speaks in generalities and has given rise to what approaches a personality cult among some of his younger supporters.

On the other, we have a man whose overarching political philosophy seems to be winning by any means necessary. Never before much of a culture warrior, he has become a strident advocate of social and class conflict as an animating feature of his campaign. Never before much of a partisan, he and his surrogates now paint the Democrat as "dangerous" and a consort of "terrorists."

IN THE TRENCHES, amid the ranks of schoolkids and "Joe Six Packs," we have examples of fascistic hero worship and demagogic demonizing of The Other.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, particularly on the beleaguered Republican side, we see the long knives being pulled from beneath cloaks. The partisans want blood, and blood they shall have.

One must wonder whether party bosses have made fateful decisions. The calculation that, if their side cannot win, the nation will be made as ungovernable as possible for the opposition.

The dagger, however, is double-edged. Will anyone be able to govern?

I CANNOT POINT to a study here, or to anything other than my middle-aged gut. But my gut tells me that Peggy Noonan was onto something this morning on Meet the Press.

We find ourselves at a perilous moment historically. And widespread recklessness is afoot:
MR. BROKAW: And, Peggy Noonan, as you know, the McCain campaign has signaled pretty strongly they’re going to strain—change their strategy. We have a quote from The Weekly Standard. Bill Kristol, who is the editor, is, of course, in the College of Cardinals, he’s the Pope when it comes to writing about what’s going on in the conservative movement. He says in The Weekly Standard, “More important is the negative message. The McCain campaign has to convince 51 percent of the voters they can’t trust Barack Obama to be our next president. ... Character is a legitimate issue. Obama hasn’t shown much in the way of leadership or political courage, and he’s consorted with dubious figures. It’s fair to ask whether Barack Obama is personally trustworthy enough to be president, and the McCain campaign shouldn’t be intimidated from going there.” We already heard on this broadcast, Senator Palin yesterday, raising the association that he had with William Ayers, who is a former member of the Weathermen, a very radical group from the ‘60s and ‘70s, who is now a school reformer in Illinois. Is this a smart strategy, in your judgment, for the McCain campaign?

MS. NOONAN:
You know what, this has been a long campaign. We are in the last month. It is still close. Whoever’s rising or, or, or falling, it’s really close. And some part of me fears they’re going to open up the gates of hell on this one. It seems to me there is trench warfare out there. The left—there’s a huge middle in America, but there’s a left. They think they’re going to win, and they’re getting meaner than ever. The right fears they’re going to lose, they’re getting meaner than ever. I would hate to see this descend into this, this—“I’ll kill—I’ll tear your throat out” kind of stuff. I think that would be harmful. I think we are at a unique and dangerous...

MR. YEPSEN:
But, Tom...

MS. NOONAN:
...moment in history, and it’s the last thing we need. And I don’t speak as a sissy; I’m trying to speak as an adult.

MR. BROKAW:
Yeah. David.

MR. YEPSEN:
There’s a danger, Tom, that it backfires.

MS. NOONAN:
Yeah. Yeah.

MR. YEPSEN:
I mean, clearly John McCain is worried. They’re, they’re on defense. The best proof of that, Tom, is, is what is Sarah Palin doing this afternoon? She is in Omaha, Nebraska. Now, when a Republican vice presidential candidate has to go to defend one congressional district—they vote their electors by congressional district--30 days out, it tells you they’re worried. And so what, what I see happening in the McCain campaign, with all this talk about William Ayers, is this sort of a sense of desperation. It could get carried away, and it’s irrelevant to people in mainstream America, in middle America. You know, William Ayers, what do they care about—how is that going to put gas in the tank or get somebody a job? I think it runs the risk of coming off as irrelevant.

MR. GREGORY:
But just to show you how...

MS. NOONAN:
And it runs the risk of being demoralizing.

MR. GREGORY:
Yeah.

MS. NOONAN:
Forgive me, David. But in a serious national way, don’t do that.

MR. BROKAW: Although, before we go on with this, maybe what the McCain campaign is reading the last draft of the latest Time magazine-CNN poll—and this shows up in a number of polls—Senator Obama still shows vulnerability on the question of what kind of president he would be. Fifty percent of those polled said Obama gives a great speech, but doesn’t have other qualifications; 46 percent disagreed with that statement. But that’s in a poll in which Senator Obama did very well overall.

(snip)

MS. NOONAN: Can I make a point, also, that I think part of the reason this is going to get so rough in the next month, trying to get my, my hands around this thing, is that we live in the age of political strategists. We live in the age of the guys on the plane. We live in the age of the BlackBerry guys saying, “Let’s get them this way. Let’s get them this way.” It exists on both campaigns, the instinct, “Hey, we have nothing to do now but go to, to the jugular.” I have the sense sometimes lately that these guys on the plane think history is their plaything. History is not their plaything. This is big. This is a nation having two ground wars and an economic recession—we hope just a mild recession. This is not a time for playfulness and mischief. It ain’t right.
AMEN.

Bet your bottom dollar on Bill

Click picture for video.

Don't be surprised if "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, the indicted congressman from Louisiana's 2nd District, is the next congressman from Louisiana's 2nd District -- that's New Orleans to you and me.

William Jefferson's Democratic runoff opponent will be Helena Moreno, a 30-year-old former TV anchorwoman. Jefferson, who finished first in the primary Saturday, has a good shot at doing the same in November.

THE UNKNOWN REPUBLICAN in the race has no shot at finishing first in the December general election.

The Times-Picayune reports:
Despite the dual impediments of an upcoming federal trial on public corruption charges and a slew of well-financed opponents, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson ran first in Saturday's Democratic Party primary for the 2nd Congressional District seat that he has held for 18 years.

He will battle former TV news anchor and first-time candidate Helena Moreno of New Orleans in the Nov. 4 contest. With two-thirds of the district's voters registered as Democrats, the winner of the party runoff is almost certain to claim the congressional seat.

With 482 of 492 precincts reporting late Saturday, Jefferson led the seven-candidate Democratic field with 25 percent of the vote, followed by Moreno with 20 percent. The general election is Dec. 6.

For Jefferson, it was only the second time since he captured the seat in 1990 that he has been forced into a runoff. Two years ago, he handily defeated state Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, though she outspent him by a 2-to-1 margin.

This time, Jefferson managed to fend off a field of primary opponents who together raised $1.5 million -- compared with his $200,000 cache -- in their effort to unseat him.

Jefferson has seen his fortunes crumble since the federal probe into his business dealings became public more than three years ago.

Six months after he was sworn into a ninth term, a federal grand jury indicted him on 16 counts of public corruption related to his business dealings. Earlier this year, two of his siblings were indicted on separate charges that they stole money from charities; six other Jefferson relatives also were implicated in that case.

The congressman's trial is set to start Dec. 2.

Flanked by his wife and daughters at the eastern New Orleans eatery Flavorz by Mattie, Jefferson, 61, thanked supporters for sticking with him.

"I cannot tell you how much gratitude I have in my heart tonight for what you have done to undergird the work that my family and I have undertaken for so many years together," he said. "Give us your support, give us your prayers as you have, and we'll keep delivering for our area."

Moreno, 30, was a well-known news personality at WDSU-TV before she quit in March to explore a run for Congress. With support from local business executives and political power brokers from both parties, she managed to surge ahead of five opponents with extensive political resumes.

Moreno is vying to become the second woman ever elected to represent Louisiana in the U.S. House, following former Rep. Lindy Boggs, a New Orleans Democrat who held the 2nd District seat before Jefferson.

As the only white candidate in the primary field, Moreno also would make history by winning in a district where 62 percent of registered voters are African-American. Jefferson is black.

TWO YEARS AGO -- when everybody and his uncle knew the dishonorable member from Louisiana was going to be indicted -- Dollar Bill beat a black woman backed by the Democratic Party regulars and all the big money. Now we're supposed to believe the indicted Jefferson is going to lose to a white woman backed by the Democratic Party regulars and all the big money?

I don't think so.

Here's what's going to happen: Moreno will run a fierce anti-corruption campaign, arguing that Jefferson is almost certainly guilty, likely will go down in flames soon after the election, has no clout left in Washington and is, on principle, unfit for public office.

Jefferson will counter thus:

The white woman is calling the black man a crook. The white establishment has been after me, they want their white woman candidate in power, and they want you under their thumb.

You know me. I've been bringing home the federal bacon. Did I mention that my opponent is a white woman?

AND DID I MENTION that Barack Obama is on the November presidential ballot?

I'm not saying Jefferson absolutely will win -- I'm not a political scientist, and I don't play one on TV. I'm not a soothsayer, either. But I think it's likely he'll win next month, and then again in December . . . days after his public-corruption trial begins in federal court.

Let me repeat that -- days after his public-corruption trial begins in federal court.

If New Orleans and Louisiana in some ways resemble a failed state, there are reasons for that. And they span not only present day white flight, the challenges facing African-Americans and the state's ongoing "brain drain" but, in reality, reach back to the days of Jim Crow.

And not only back to the dysfunctional era of "separate but equal," but also back to Huey Long, and beyond the Kingfish to the corrupt reign of the "Bourbon" Democrats . . . and beyond even that to the Civil War . . . and beyond even that to Spanish and French colonial rule.

If you want to understand -- in part -- a place like my home state, you need to know a little about places like Haiti, Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. You need to understand the French and Spanish colonial mindsets. You need to understand class-based societies.

If you want to understand Louisiana, you need to understand me a little bit. You need to understand how I have lived for 20-plus years now in the Midwest -- in a great, up-and-coming city like Omaha -- but oftentimes still feel like a stranger in a strange land.

That the "America" I, in Louisiana, was enculturated into wasn't necessarily America as the vast majority of Americans understand the concept. Turns out we were still a colony and didn't quite realize it.

If you want to know how this congressional election in New Orleans is going to work itself out, just assume the cynical worst, like you might in much of American politics. Then double down on your bet.

'Cause dat's Louisiana for you.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Oh . . . what the Buck. This is cool.

Man, I miss stuff like this. You can take the boy out of the 1960s -- and the South -- but. . . .

I especially like the part where the director thinks "We got us this fancy new zoom lens and, by God, we're 'a gonna use that sucker. Outlandishly."

3 Chords & the Truth: What the Buck

Listen, y'all. It's been a tough week.

The country's on the brink. And then there's that financial meltdown thing, too. I don't know about you (though I suspect maybe I do, a little), but my brain is full.

I'M CRANKY, and I'm wondering what the hell is going on nowadays. Not only that, but I just got stitches out of my back, I have a sinus infection, I'm on antibiotics and I can't have a beer -- even though I really could use a cold one right now.

So when it came time to do this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth, I just said "What the Buck."

"What the Buck" will set you free.

SO THAT'S THE DEAL with the Big Show -- I'm just saying "What the Buck," having a little mindless fun and trying not to make my brain -- or yours -- hurt any more than it already is.

What. The. Buck.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Friday, October 03, 2008

'You won't believe what people are uploading'


Whoever wrote the positioning statement for CNN's iReport page didn't know how right he was.

"iReport.com," the pithy headline says. "See it first. Your Stories. No Boundaries. You won't believe what people are uploading."

Well, no, you won't believe what people are uploading. That's because you
can't believe what some people are uploading.

FOR EXAMPLE, THE "iREPORT" that Apple chief Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital after suffering a massive heart attack. Not true.

The problem is, a lot of investors and Wall Street traders
did believe what they read on the Cable News Network site. And Apple's stock tanked -- a 5.4-percent drop at its lowest.

Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating, according to Bloomberg News:
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the origin of a false report on a CNN citizen journalist Web site that Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs had a heart attack and was hospitalized, according to a person with knowledge of the inquiry.

The agency's enforcement unit is trying to determine whether the iReport.com posting was intended to push down the company's stock price, said the person, who declined to be identified because the probe isn't public. The report is ``not true,'' Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in an interview.

Concern about Jobs's health weighed on the shares this year, contributing to a 51 percent drop. The stock swing caused by today's erroneous report drew renewed calls for Apple, which has said only that Jobs's health is a ``private matter,'' to be more forthcoming, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean at Yale University's School of Management.

``Leaving it to rumor and speculation is reckless,'' said Sonnenfeld, who has personally owned Apple shares since 1997, the year Jobs returned as CEO. ``If he is healthy, they should say so. If he's not, we should know that too.''

The shares fell as much as 5.4 percent earlier today after the post on iReport.com cited an anonymous source saying Jobs was rushed to the hospital after suffering a ``major heart attack.'' The report has been removed.

John Heine, a spokesman for the SEC, declined to comment on whether the agency will look into today's erroneous report.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, dropped $3.03, or 3 percent, to $97.07 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock earlier fell to $94.65, the first time it has traded at less than $100 since May 2007.
IT TOOK JUST A DAY to find someone in the journalism universe stupider than the Detroit radio reporter who got fired for wearing an Obama T-shirt while covering an Obama rally. Unfortunately, that "someone" is a whole network.

The one whose executives came up with
"See it first. Your Stories. No Boundaries. You won't believe what people are uploading."

What
were they thinking? Without close supervision -- and fact checking -- by an adequate number of editors for the task, CNN's iReport is ripe for victimization by a Janet Cooke a day. At least.

In the present era of lean budgets and leaner newsroom staffs, do you think CNN's
iReport is getting supervision equal to the task? Today's fiasco -- possibly a criminal stock-manipulation fiasco -- says no.

I hope Apple sues CNN for millions, because CNN violated the cardinal rule of journalism:
"If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out."

CNN didn't know the "citizen reporter" from Adam, but that didn't stop the cable-news outfit's web editors from taking his unconfirmed report and plopping it prominently on the
iReport page. With nary a call to an Apple flack for confirmation.

Ever.

BUT IT gets worse, according to Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider:
"Citizen journalism" apparently just failed its first significant test. A CNN iReport poster reported this morning that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the ER after a severe heart attack (story and screenshot below). Fortunately, it appears the story was false. We contacted an Apple spokeswoman, who categorically denied it.

CNN's iReport kept the report up until at least 10:15 AM, about 20 minutes after we published Apple's denial. The story has since been removed.

UPDATE: Here's CNN's official statement. CNN says it removed the story because the "community" brought the story to its attention. Importantly, CNN also refers to the content as "fraudulent," which is much stronger than "inaccurate." "Fraudulent" implies an intent to deceive.

CNN's iReport, Original Story

Steve Jobs was rushed to the ER just a few hours ago after suffering a major heart attack. I have an insider who tells me that paramedics were called after Steve claimed to be suffering from severe chest pains and shortness of breath. My source has opted to remain anonymous, but he is quite reliable. I haven't seen anything about this anywhere else yet, and as of right now, I have no further information, so I thought this would be a good place to start. If anyone else has more information, please share it.
Immediately after reading the iReport story, we contacted Apple. Katie Cotton, Vice President of Worldwide Communications, replied quickly, saying "It is not true."
A GUY with a trade blog can get an Apple flack on the phone after reading the CNN iReport, but a CNN web editor couldn't do the same before almost sinking Apple's stock by publishing something that flew in over the Internet transom?

Let the journalism world watch this train wreck carefully, then proceed exceedingly cautiously into the brave new world of "citizen journalism."

"Citizen reporters" work for free. And, sometimes, you're going to get exactly what you pay for.

Hang down your head and cry. . . .


From The Associated Press:

Nick Reynolds, a founding member of the Kingston Trio who jump-started the revival folk scene of the late 1950s and paved the way for artists such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, has died. He was 75.

Reynolds had been hospitalized with acute respiratory disease and other illnesses, and died Wednesday in San Diego after his family took him off life support, said son Joshua Reynolds.

"Dad was so happy he turned people onto music in a way that people could really approach it, in a simple and honest way," Josh Reynolds told The Associated Press. "He was a very gracious and loving performer. He was a devoted family man."

The Kingston Trio's version of the 19th century folk song "Tom Dooley" landed the group a No. 1 spot on the charts in 1958, and launched the band's career.

Born on July 27, 1933, in San Diego, Nicholas Reynolds demonstrated an early love of music and did sing-alongs with his two sisters and their Navy captain-father, who taught him to play guitar.

He graduated from Coronado High School in 1951 and attended the University of Arizona and San Diego State University before attending Menlo College, a business school near Palo Alto. He graduated from Menlo in 1956.

It was during the mid-1950s that Nicholas Reynolds met Bob Shane, who introduced him to Stanford student Dave Guard. Guard and Shane knew each other from playing music in Guard's native Hawaii. The three formed the Kingston Trio.

In 1958, "Tom Dooley" earned Reynolds, Guard and Shane a trophy for best country and western performance at the first Grammys. The group, defined by tight harmonies and a clean-cut style, went on to win a Grammy the next year for best folk performance for its album "The Kingston Trio At Large."

Later member John Stewart joined the group in 1961, replacing Guard. Stewart died in January, also in San Diego.
THE VIDEO ABOVE is from November 1959. Reynolds is on the right.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Stupid reporter tricks

How stupid are some people?

WELL, here's one example, courtesy of The Detroit News:
Longtime Metro Detroit radio reporter Karen Dinkins has been fired after wearing a pro-Barack Obama T-shirt while covering a rally for the presidential candidate Sunday at the Detroit Public Library.

Dinkins, who has worked at WWJ (950 AM) for 13 years, acknowledged that the radio station fired her Monday, but she did not elaborate.

"I don't want to comment at this time," she said.

Georgeann Herbert, WWJ's director of programming, said in a statement that Dinkins compromised the station's objectivity by wearing the T-shirt.

"(The station) believes that our credibility with our listeners rests on the independence of our newsroom staff," the statement said. "WWJ does not favor any candidate, party or issue.
I'M NOT SURPRISED there are people out there so lacking in common sense. I am, however, troubled that one of them can last 13 years as a reporter for a major-market radio station. Good Lord!

Uh . . . because the bailout's better now?

Rep. Lee Terry, congressman for Nebraska's 2nd District, used to be agin' the Wall Street "bailout" plan. But now he's fer it.

Says the Omaha World-Herald:

The Omaha congressman voted Monday against the House version of the bailout, as did the three other House members from Nebraska and western Iowa. The others remain either skeptical or opposed.

Terry was one of the first to indicate that he could reverse course and support the bill, saying even before the Senate vote Wednesday that his key objections had been addressed.

He had called for an increase in federal insurance of bank deposits and a waiver of accounting rules that require companies to write down assets to reflect their true market value.

The Senate bill raises the cap on insurance for bank deposits from $100,000 to $250,000, and the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it would ease the "mark-to-market" accounting rules.

"Basically, my demands have been met," Terry said Wednesday night.

He said he now expects that nowhere near the full $700 billion would be necessary — and he feels good about the plan.

"I still haven't committed to anybody," he said. "Maybe I'll think of a new reason to vote no, but I doubt it."
YES, THE ENTIRE Washington power structure was brought to heel by an obscure congressman from the plains of Nebraska. Who previously had been ready to blow up the nation's financial markets because "mark-to-market" rules and more FDIC insurance weren't included in the original package -- even though both long had been under discussion and could be implemented administratively.

No, Terry's flip-flop couldn't have had anything to do with
this. Or this.

I mean, what's an entire city administration panicked over the prospect of not being able to float municipal bonds -- and over maybe having to cancel construction projects -- got to do with anything? Compared to "mark-to-market" reform, potentially selling your hometown down the fiscal river is peanuts.

Ditto that concerned billionnaire and civic titan you've got on the telephone there, wondering how you got your head that far up your ass.

Naw, Terry's switch was an entirely principled affair.

Whatever. Just so long as he switches.

Slouching into that good night


We're teetering on the edge of some bad juju here in America, and the woman above could be vice-president.

If that weren't depressing enough. . . .



Don't worry, be happy.

Remain calm, all is well. Yes, we can!

"We're gonna spread happiness! We're gonna spread freedom! Obama's gonna change it, Obama's gonna lead 'em."

Or so we have been informed by a choir of brainwashed children singing hosannas to the Man Who Would Be Dear Leader.

FOR THE LIFE OF ME, I can't figure out why the Europeans don't think much of us anymore. Really, where did this Der Spiegel opinion piece come from?

There are days when all it takes is a single speech to illustrate the decline of a world power. A face can speak volumes, as can the speaker's tone of voice, the speech itself or the audience's reaction. Kings and queens have clung to the past before and humiliated themselves in public, but this time it was merely a United States president.

Or what is left of him.

George W. Bush has grown old, erratic and rosy in the eight years of his presidency. Little remains of his combativeness or his enthusiasm for physical fitness. On this sunny Tuesday morning in New York, even his hair seemed messy and unkempt, his blue suit a little baggy around the shoulders, as Bush stepped onto the stage, for the eighth time, at the United Nations General Assembly.

He talked about terrorism and terrorist regimes, and about governments that allegedly support terror. He failed to notice that the delegates sitting in front of and below him were shaking their heads, smiling and whispering, or if he did notice, he was no longer capable of reacting. The US president gave a speech similar to the ones he gave in 2004 and 2007, mentioning the word "terror" 32 times in 22 minutes. At the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations, George W. Bush was the only one still talking about terror and not about the topic that currently has the rest of the world's attention.

"Absurd, absurd, absurd," said one German diplomat. A French woman called him "yesterday's man" over coffee on the East River. There is another way to put it, too: Bush was a laughing stock in the gray corridors of the UN.

The American president has always had enemies in these hallways and offices at the UN building on First Avenue in Manhattan. The Iranians and Syrians despise the eternal American-Israeli coalition, while many others are tired of Bush's Americans telling the world about the blessings of deregulated markets and establishing rules "that only apply to others," says the diplomat from Berlin.

But the ridicule was a new thing. It marked the end of respect.

"Well," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva began, standing outside the General Assembly Hall. Then he looked out the window and said: "He decided to talk about terrorism, but the issue that has the world concerned is the economic crisis." Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the president of Argentina, said that the schoolmasters from Washington had dubbed the 1994 Mexican crisis the "tequila effect" and Brazil's 1999 crisis the "Caipirinha effect."

Are we now experiencing the "whiskey effect?" But President Kirchner was gracious and, with a smile, called it the "jazz effect."

Is it only President George W. Bush, the lame duck president, whom the rest of the world is no longer taking seriously, or are the remaining 191 UN member states already setting their sights on the United States, the giant brought to its knees? UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon referred to a "new reality" and "new centers of power and leadership in Asia, Latin America and across the newly developed world." Are they surprised, in these new centers, at the fall of America, of the system of the Western-style market economy?
OH, JUST WAIT. It gets better:
This is no longer the muscular and arrogant United States the world knows, the superpower that sets the rules for everyone else and that considers its way of thinking and doing business to be the only road to success.

A new America is on display, a country that no longer trusts its old values and its elites even less: the politicians, who failed to see the problems on the horizon, and the economic leaders, who tried to sell a fictitious world of prosperity to Americans.

Also on display is the end of arrogance. The Americans are now paying the price for their pride.

Gone are the days when the US could go into debt with abandon, without considering who would end up footing the bill. And gone are the days when it could impose its economic rules of engagement on the rest of the world, rules that emphasized profit above all else -- without ever considering that such returns cannot be achieved by doing business in a respectable way.

With its rule of three of cheap money, free markets and double-digit profit margins, American turbo-capitalism has set economic standards worldwide for the past quarter century. Now it is proving to be nothing but a giant snowball system, upsetting the US's global political status as it comes crashing down. Every bank that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is currently forced to bail out with American government funds damages America's reputation around the world.

Of course, it is not solely the result of undesirable economic developments that the United States is in the process of forfeiting its unique position in the world and that the world is moving toward what Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, calls a "post-American age." Washington has also lost much of its political ability to impose its will on other countries.

The failed leadership of President Bush, whose departure most of his counterparts from other countries are now looking forward to more and more openly, is not solely to blame. Nor are his two risky wars: the one in Iraq, which he launched frivolously in the vain hope of converting the entire region to the American way of life, and the other in Afghanistan, in which Bush now risks the world's most powerful defense alliance, NATO, suffering its first defeat.

But it's hard to forget how this president's mentors celebrated the power to shape world affairs the United States acquired in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the East-West conflict. There was talk of a "unipolar moment," of "America's moment," even of an "end of history," now that all other countries apparently had no other choice but to become smaller versions of America: liberal, democratic and buoyed by an unshakeable confidence in the free market economy.

The Bush administration wanted to cement forever this unique moment in history, in which the United States was undoubtedly the strongest power on earth. It wanted to use it to clean house in chronic crisis zones around the world, especially the Middle East. Far from relying on the classic, cumbersome and often unsuccessful tools of multilateral diplomacy, the Bush warriors were always quick to threaten military intervention -- just as quick as they were to make good on this threat.

The strategists of this immoderately self-confident administration formulated these principles in the "Bush doctrine" and claimed, for themselves and their actions, the right to "preemptive" military intervention -- with little concern for the rules of alliances or international organizations.

The superpower even claimed privileges over its allies, even offending some of its best friends during Bush's first term. Bush withdrew the American signature from a treaty to establish the International Criminal Court, he refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change and he withdrew from an agreement with the Russians to limit the number of missile defense systems.

Washington sought to divide the world into good and evil -- and did so as it saw fit.

Now, in the wake of the crash on Wall Street, the debate in the UN reveals that the long-humiliated have lost their fear of the giant in world politics. Even a political dwarf like Bolivian President Evo Morales is now talking big. "There is an uprising against an economic model, a capitalistic system that is the worst enemy of humanity," Morales told the UN General Assembly.

The financial crisis has uncovered the world power's true weakness. The more the highly indebted United States has to spend to stabilize its own economic system, the more trouble it has performing its self-imposed duties as the world's policeman.
The new US president will only have been in office for a short time when a document titled "Global Trends 2025" appears on his desk. The report is being prepared by analysts at the National Intelligence Council. Its chairman, Thomas Fingar, has already released a preview, and reading it will not exactly be enjoyable for proud American. "Although the United States will remain the most important power, American dominance will be sharply reduced," says Fingar.

According to the preview of the report, the erosion of American supremacy will "accelerate in the areas of politics and economics, and possibly culture."

The century that just began is unlikely to be declared the American century again. Instead, "Asia will shape the fate of the world, with or without the United States," says Parag Khanna, a young Indian-American political scientist whose book "The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order" has attracted a great deal of attention in the United States.

There is much to be said for Khanna's assertion. Beijing is already funding a large share of the gigantic American trade deficit, while at the same time selling many consumer goods to the United States. In other words, it benefits from the US's weakness in two ways. And politically speaking, the newly self-confident Chinese will no longer allow themselves to be domineered by the West. Reacting to worldwide criticism of political oppression in Tibet, the Chinese encouraged their nationalist youth to assault Western institutions and refused to allow themselves to be lectured on human rights.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has acknowledged that the "world's largest debtor nation" cannot simultaneously shape the course of the world. The challenges America faces have multiplied, especially in recent times.

WELL, HOW DO YOU like that, America? You really must read the whole thing -- particularly since it's all true.

And particularly since it's all our own damned fault.

Sometime during the last few decades, we Americans ceased to be a serious people. The past eight years, particularly, have exposed a country unserious about public and private morality, unserious about effective self-governance and seriously incapable of cultural . . . seriousness.

But we did get the world to buy into a serious Ponzi scheme. We should be so proud.

We've made a grand hash of things, and now we stand ready to elect as our leaders either an unstable McCrank and his comely-but-ditzy sidekick or the Dalai Obama and his gaffe-prone lesser incarnation.

ONCE, the United States was a country of great products and audacious feats. That time is past.

It's now last call for the American Century as a nation slips off the barstool -- a little hazy, a little discomfitedly buzzed -- and prepares to slouch off gentle into that good night.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Los Estados Unidos de Chiquita


In case you were unsure whether the United States is now a banana republic, this
Associated Press story should disabuse you of any overly rosy notions:
Astounded by the U.S. government's failure to resolve the financial crisis threatening the foundations of the global free market, fingers of blame are pointing at America from around the planet.

Latin American leaders say the U.S. must quickly fix the financial crisis it created before the rest of the world's hard-won economic gains are lost.

"The managers of big business took huge risks out of greed," said President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, whose economy is highly dependent on U.S. trade. "What happens in the United States will affect the entire world and, above all, small countries like ours."

In Europe, where some blame a phenomenon of "casino capitalism" that has become deeply ingrained from New York to London to Moscow, there is more of a sense of shared responsibility. But Europeans also blame the U.S. government for letting things get out of hand.

Amid harsh criticism is a growing consensus that stricter financial regulation is needed to prevent unfettered capitalism from destroying economies around the globe.

And leaders of developing nations that kept spending tight and opened their economies in response to American demands are warning of other consequences — a loss of U.S. influence globally and the likelihood that the world's poor will suffer the most from greed by the biggest players in global finance.

"They spent the last three decades saying we needed to do our chores. They didn't," a grim-faced Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Tuesday.


(snip)

China's influence in the outcome of all this could be profound because it is a huge investor in U.S. debt. It is already calling for strict new international regulatory systems to apply to globalized financial markets.

Liu Mingkang, chairman of the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission, said Saturday before a weeklong bank holiday in China that debt in the United States and elsewhere has risen to dangerous and indefensible levels.

The rest of the world is taking notice. Many newspapers made references Tuesday to China's increasing importance in global finance. In Algeria, a large cartoon on the front page of the newspaper El-Watan showed Uncle Sam at prayer: "Save us!" he says, kneeling before a portrait of China's Mao Zedong.
NOW ALL WE NEED is a gruff and impetuous generalissimo in charge of things -- or perhaps a charismatic figure with a Messiah complex and a personality cult -- to complete our climb up the Chiquita food chain.



OH . . . CRAP.