Leftfield

Real and Fake: A Tale of Two Economies

I figured out something about Ebay and will try to extrapolate to this article: Management DOESN'T CARE about the small sellers they are shafting in an economy where Ebay should be a lifeline. They have Paypal, a financial business, and they are setting Ebay on autopilot with the vastly reduced labor force needed to supervise only large merchandisers. They are willing to accept decline in that business as a tradeoff. Paypal is their real focus. Stuffing it to the rabble also keeps them acceptable at the cocktail parties in the "highest" circles.
Our leaders don't much care about the real economy either. It is a nuisance, all these small, complaining constituents. Throw them crumbs, throw them lies, but take care of the best people (crony kleptocrats).
It's working!

What’s My Payment?

Besides the necessary downsizing of the unaffordable consumer economy, I hopefully await the downsizing of unaffordable, bloated government.

Nothing Is Ever Truly 'Off the Books' in the Financial World

For years I've assumed Wall St. knew their business even as I read about off-balance-sheet obligations and lots else they cook up. That's their business even though it sounded fishy to me. Now it's our business because these richest of the rich come to the pauperized former middle class for bailouts. We've paid for continued mega-pay employment on Wall St. so they can continue to create more "product" to hit the fan. They need a V-shaped recovery like our government for this stuff to actually work. Luckily for them it's always OPM.

U.S. Credit Card Defaults Soar to Record High

Repeat: "This is a downward spiral which the US government has done nothing to arrest." All our taxes, all our regulation, saddled with more trillions of Wall St. debt and there is nothing that will help the average American who finds themselves in trouble, even if by no fault of their own in these times.
Record credit-card delinquencies so soon after the record Visa public offering just a couple of years ago. Someone had an inkling when to cash out/in just as the bankruptcy law changes signaled someone knew something just before the Wall St. products hit the fan. Elliot Spitzer was removed with impeccable timing as well.
American Express and GMAC quickly became banks for bailout eligibility. And, probably why BAC swallowed Countrywide and Merrill under some DC pressure, I understand. Makes bailouts easier for our overworked public servants. I will support a bill to allow individuals to become banks to qualify for bailouts.

Credit Card Legislation: An Exchange

As a witness to the decline of the formerly middle class these last few decades, I believe that we have a society where the top income tier are mostly wanton exploiters who milk every dime for short-term gain for themselves. Example: Executive compensation reform of the 80's that was touted as performance-based, was gamed egregiously for their short-term benefit and gave us the Wall St. implosion.
Businesses, bureaucracies and institutions are run by MBA types who care nothing about a specific product or industry they manage and run it into the ground laughing their way to the bank personally.
The country was built by imaginative, energetic, enthusiastic innovators of their business. It is being dismantled by the exploitive empty suits running just about everything now.

10 Highest Paid CEOs for 2008: Unbelievable

Overpaying the failed leadership that is now grabbing our kid's futures for themselves as well has gone on too long. The idea that market forces drove these people's payscales because they are so good is fully debunked. The system needs fixing. It is clear they, in aggregate, gamed the system to reward themselves, throw crumbs to the middle class in inflated asset prices and easy credit to mask middle class pay deterioration and now, grab not just from their companies but from the taxpayers. This is becoming the divine right of kings.

Mr. Market Has Spoken

Don't forget the compliant paid-for mainstream media. Where is there any kind of whistleblowing and thought outside the box thinking there? This was taken over by a few interests in ever-increasing concentration. Abetted by, guess who, the regulators.

Hence, we had at least one last reelection, I mean, election of the incumbents, overwhelmingly. With words like these becoming more widespread, will the public awaken?

The main culprits are worse in so many ways it's hard to count. We have a socialist lawyer for a president who was supposed to be the change. The "free market" bankers are socialists now that their companies have losing hands. Without good leadership, we are angry about the incredible incompetence and hypocracy of the leaders. As taxpayers lose their shirts in the collapsing economy, they and their kids are supposed to bail everyone else out.

I'm not aware of a lack of ever-increasing regulation for the average. Rather than blame the markets, we need to blame cheats and their facilitators. Exercise the laws already on the books! Not bail them out.