The Death Trip Continues

The Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe cost $115 billion in today's dollars.

The New Deal cost $500 billion, and it rebuilt the United States - actually built the place for the first time in its country-ass, lonesome-mile, wagon-train across the burning prairie history.

The War in Iraq cost about $600 billion in these terms - or $3 trillion according to Joseph Stiglitz.

See the great slideshow at CNBC. Then shed a few tears.

The Great Bank Bailout - 4 trillion dollars. Cry yourself a river. Then get pissed and do something for a change.

Today in Place Bellecour here in Lyon the cops didn't police a big protest - they led it. They dressed up a mannequin in a Police Nationale uniform and full headgear and hung it by the neck from a giant crane. The strangulation of public services by a blind unseeing grasping state shovelling money to the top of the ladder - or some such symbolism. Their speaker said "the great eye of Mordor sees all, and means evil to us." Well actually, he said, "reductions, limitations, privatizations, destructions of public services, we accept none of this, and we will fight it.

Meanwhile, Sun Microsystems laid off about 6000 people, bringing the number of layoffs in the tech sector to nearly 60,000 in the last 2 1/2 months. Startups - the "jobs of the future" - are cutting deeper. The auto industry, which still accounts for about 2.5% of the US economy, has laid off 100,000 people since January. And fricking Citigroup is laying off 50,000 in one swoop.

This is of course the middle-class past present future, getting whacked. Where's the peep?

Bailout leader Henry Paulson objected to the idea that bank bailout money be used to help ease home foreclosures. This prompted Rep. Barney Frank to say "The fundamental policy issue is our disappointment that funds are not being used out of the $700 billion to supplement mortgage foreclosure reduction," Frank said."

Naomi Klein has been doing a great job of explaining how the crisis is being used as "shock therapy" to force changes that before would have been unacceptable. I was struck yesterday by how she clearly feels the window on reform is closing, and that the crisis caused by the wealth-making practices of banks is being used to make even more money for the same banks.

The process is staying crooked, as Klein pointed out:

really what [Washington is] saying is, we can’t afford to enforce the law, because there is an economic crisis, that somehow, because there’s an economic [crisis], legality is a luxury that Congress can’t afford. That is a very scary statement. But this . . . bear market, has the temperament of an ill-tempered two-year-old. I mean, it throws temper tantrums whenever it doesn’t get what it wants, whenever it is frightened.

That's pretty much how it will be run until the loyal henchmen derail it.

Did I Just Feel Sorry for United?

As a regular user of United Airlines I have no sympathy whatsoever for a management system that someday is going to make me bust a blood vessel at a customer service counter after my third flight has been canceled in the same day. They are manipulative and deceitful on a regular basis, and seem to think the yellow-brick road to solvency lies through fields of stranded, price-gouged, or just plain hungry customers. Ben Stein's classic piece about United's financial screw-job on its own employees is required reading for air travelers everywhere.

And yet today I got a mass mailing from United management complaining about how finance capital has done a screw-job on them! The industry's CEO's have come together to denounce speculators and start a social movement. Wow is it fun to see the shoe on the other foot, the foot getting shot by oneself, the dog lying down and getting up with fleas, etc etc. Sign up with the corporate running dogs if you must, but first read their poignant denunciation of international finance.

Our country is facing a possible sharp economic downturn because of skyrocketing oil and fuel prices, but by pulling together, we can all do something to help now.

For airlines, ultra-expensive fuel means thousands of lost jobs and severe reductions in air service to both large and small communities. To the broader economy, oil prices mean slower activity and widespread economic pain. This pain can be alleviated, and that is why we are taking the extraordinary step of writing this joint letter to our customers. Since high oil prices are partly a response to normal market forces, the nation needs to focus on increased energy supplies and conservation. However, there is another side to this story because normal market forces are being dangerously amplified by poorly regulated market speculation.

Twenty years ago, 21 percent of oil contracts were purchased by speculators who trade oil on paper with no intention of ever taking delivery. Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known. Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab. Some market experts estimate that current prices reflect as much as $30 to $60 per barrel in unnecessary speculative costs.

Over seventy years ago, Congress established regulations to control excessive, largely unchecked market speculation and manipulation. However, over the past two decades, these regulatory limits have been weakened or removed. We believe that restoring and enforcing these limits, along with several other modest measures, will provide more disclosure, transparency and sound market oversight. Together, these reforms will help cool the over-heated oil market and permit the economy to prosper.

The nation needs to pull together to reform the oil markets and solve this growing problem.

We need your help. Get more information and contact Congress.

Hell, for once United management is right. I'll try to remember this moment next time I give them $907.00 for a 350 miles x2 round trip from Santa Barbara to San Francisco.