Quacking Like a Duck

[Daveparts]

Quacking Like a Duck
By David Glenn Cox


It’s easy to live happily in the imagination, provided we have the comforts of life. A modest, three-bedroom house can easily become a worldwide headquarters in imagination land. But it is our comfort that makes it all possible; sleeping in a homeless shelter or holding a cardboard sign on an interstate ramp strips us of our citizenship in imagination land.

Otherwise, it’s easy. We can all do it, provided cold reality isn’t blowing through your cloth coat or rumbling its reminders in your empty stomach. We can declare victory in Iraq; we can suppose that the bottom has been reached in the stock market. First it was called a market correction, then a bear market, and with each drop the analysts predicted, “You wait and see, the market will come roaring back!” Remember 1987, they advise. Then, as the market dives and dips, the pundits say it again, “This recession will be short, two quarters at most.” But each time they say it their voices rise an octave or two and begin to quiver with uncertainty.

Some are just shills, selling anything to anyone, selling just to sell. Fox financial expert Dave Ramsey recently advised a caller, “This is a great time to start a small business!” Never mind that Federal Reserve Chairman Benanke calls this “a once in a generation financial and economic storm.” Ramsey is a good-time Charlie, lost in imagination land. He would tell Titanic survivors, “Don’t let one bad experience ruin your opinion of ocean travel. If you book now I can get you an upgrade on the Andrea Doria, with a nice cabin near the bow.”

I shouldn’t just pick on Ramsey, he is no different than the rest on Fox News and what they do is nothing new. There is something going on here that they don’t want you to know about. Not that it’s a secret, just that it is incredibly unpleasant and they don’t want to feed you a shit sandwich all at once. Instead they hand you a piece of bread, “We could be in a recession.” Then they hand you the mayo, “It could be long and protracted.” Followed by the mustard, “Oh, we couldn’t have another great depression because…” Then another piece of bread, “Central banks world wide are working together to intervene in this crisis, just like 1987.”

This isn’t 1987; this isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile. Oldsmobile is gone and General Motors teeters on the brink of bankruptcy. They’ve arranged a midnight marriage of convenience with Chrysler, two giants now seeking merely to stay alive by holding on to each other. Ford is selling its stake in Mazda to try and stay afloat, and still it is not enough. So they go, hat in hand, to Washington to beg for charity. In imagination land they are still giants, still kings in the kingdom even as GM tries to sell off its world headquarters building in Detroit. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic, GM trying to sell an office building when homes in Detroit are being auctioned off for as little as $50.00.

Unlike 1987, America’s investment banks ceased to exist last month. Victim or beneficiary of socialism, they remain alive only as ghosts of the once-vaunted American banking industry. Living in an imagination land of self-inflicted, self-induced self destruction, the likes not seen since the death of Jim Morrison. Still they promise, “We’ll be back! There were more bank failures in 1987 then there are today!” But the banks failing today are by far bigger than the banks that failed in 1987. Washington Mutual alone with 2,239 branches exceeds the number of banks that failed in 1987. Washington Mutual was sold off to JP Morgan who, itself, is not in great shape. The banking industry is failing just as the auto industry is failing; buying each other up isn’t salvation, it’s holding on to a floating deck chair, awaiting death or rescue.

“Unemployment might reach 8% as a result of this downturn.” Or, would you like a large order of lies with your shit sandwich? Official unemployment statistics are at 6.1%, officially adjusted for hurricanes Gustav and Ike but not adjusted for contractors, newly-graduated students or the self employed. After all, you must first have a job before you can be unemployed and if you’re self-employed then it is up to you to decide when you’re unemployed. Commission-only sales people aren’t unemployed, they are just earning next to nothing. Do they quit and become unemployed? Or do they hang on, waiting for a miracle? Maybe next month those Tahoes and Escalades will start selling again.

Claims for unemployment were led by the manufacturing sector, followed by transportation and then by machinery. Next was white collar and management. This isn’t 1987, this is a systemic breakdown of the economy. From millionaire Wall Street stock traders to framing carpenters to carpet salesmen down to “would you like fries with that" jobs. Buried in the government numbers were 6,097 September first-time claims for the “limited service restaurants” (fast food), the demise of almost 400 Linens and Things stores, and the announcement that Chrysler will eliminate 25% of their 18,000 white-collar employees. Hazy days in imagination land are over for the former Chrysler management now looking for new jobs. Who will hire experienced automotive management in America when even fast food is laying off?

How bad is bad? Even repo drivers are starting to suffer, as the glut of cars has filled the repo lots. The cars aren’t selling and the car companies are now coming to the opinion that leaving the car with someone who might pay you is a better option than owning a car that they can’t sell. $15,000 trucks are going for $5,000 at auction and more repossessions will guarantee even that unsustainable price will fall. Plus, the car companies must pay for the privilege of taking a beating. The administrative and court costs of trying to chase down the unemployed to seek money that they don’t have is literally seeking blood from a stone. From framing carpenters to Chrysler executives, this is no mere recession. A recession is a slow down, and this is a collapse.

Whole industries are disappearing before our eyes, and after Christmas we will begin the wholesale slaughter of malls, merchants and chain stores. Seven hundred automotive dealerships have folded in 2008 with two months still left in the year. Retail pharmacies that have spent the last eight years buying each other up like a game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos, anticipating growth through market share, instead find that they have swallowed the whole shit sandwich. No growth, slow growth and the profits built on debt fade away, just a vision of yesterday in imagination land.

But what of you and I? To hell with the mega corporations and their overstuffed, overpaid CEO’s. To hell with Wall Street and the bankers, to hell with profit and loss. To hell with throwing billions and trillions of dollars into the boiler in a failed attempt to raise a head of steam in a vain attempt to save their corporate ship from the rough waters of reality, so that they might again snooze on the deck chairs in imagination land. But point is point, message is mission now. The ship is on the rocks and can’t be saved, and the captain’s only role now is to save the innocents.

This isn’t 1987 or 1992, this is 1929 and 1932 is coming. For twenty years we have exported the nation's industrial base and national wealth and now we are left with credit card receipts in ashes and sackcloth. So let's say it, let’s just admit it, this is a depression and not just a depression but a whopper of a great depression. No mortal eyes know where we will be in twelve months, but the continued stock market turbulence is proof positive that they don’t have a clue as to what is going on. So the chances that they can fix it are equal with the chances that they will only make it worse.

The next administration must begin work on day one to feed the people. Not report to some building and fill out paperwork then go home and wait for the mailman, but feed the people. Unlike 1929, America is an urban nation, a well-armed nation with a short temper. A nation about to take a big bite out of a shit sandwich and America can handle that, but for God sakes just quit lying to us about it. If it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. If it smells like a shit sandwich it’s a shit sandwich, and its not an hors d’oeuvre or a crepe but a full-blown shit burger.

http://theservantsofpilate.com

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Your link isn't to the article -- it sells a religious book.

Is there a link to Cox's financial articles?

--p!

[Daveparts]

2. Check out my Journal

Here at DU,

PS, it not a religous book any more than the Davinchi Code, it is a secular book for the Christian left.