Random Drawings...
I haven't been writing about economics because
a) by now, everyone knows how bad the situation is, and
b) anyone who bothers to read has by now tried to figure out what's going on.
Edit:News flash...
A friend of mine just left a Wall Street bank. There were lines to the door. The teller told him that people have been withdrawing money since 7am, when the bank opened. That means that the very stupid and very dangerous public myth that's going around is having its effect.
It's a lie. The banks are NOT going to close today or tomorrow, and that "friend in banking" is not real. Taking your money out of the bank is the worst thing you can do right now. It's also worthless. If our economy crashes, the money stuffed in your mattress becomes worthless pieces of paper. Don't bother saving money - if things collapse, you can't save your money, even if it's hidden in your mattress. If you're really worried about the Apocalypse, go buy some seeds and gardening tools.
One thing that concerns me is the amount of lies and public myths that are spreading around. Today I received, from two different people, "insider" information that "friends in banking" told them that "they" are going to close down banks today. I already deleted the texts, but they were exactly the same, which leads me to believe that you all have gotten the same thing, or WILL get the same thing today or tomorrow. But
it is a lie. It's not true and there's no truth to it. I am a "friend in banking" and I can tell you it's bullshit.
Likewise, my LJ-friend Lin showed me another lie that I see popping up all over the place, including Wikipedia: the lie that the
Community Reinvestment Act had anything to do with this crisis. It's a lie.
Here's the facts. (A quick and rough overview: the lenders who followed CRA issued LESS subprime loans then everyone else.) It's a lie perpetuated by the far-right libertarian crowd who can't man-up and admit their direct responsibility for this crisis. They recklessly deregulated EVERYTHING for the last thirty years and THAT is what caused this shit storm.
Also, a lie on the left is that there is any sort of conscious will. That is, the lie that some evil cabal of bankers and rich dudes are
deliberately doing this. Naomi Klein alludes to this, but is finally changing her tune. She's right to say that periods of crisis are exactly when people in power push the extremes of their ideology, but in this case, the very crisis is caused by the ideology that everyone has believed in for thirty years. More importantly, all of the bankers and regulators (including Congress, Paulson and Bernanke) know this, and although the bankers are still trying to prevents any laws passing that would hurt them in the future, they all know that this crisis could make them disappear and lose everything. They understand that their laissez-faire policies failed completely and are more interested in staying alive then acting as a global
Svengali. Anyway, I think the public is partially to blame for this mess, since they've been placidly cheering laissez-faire deregulation (for some reason that I will never understand). There were plenty of people warning everyone about this, but they were all Cassandras, all pilloried, laughed at, and ignored.
( The rest is mainly text, and isn't really worth reading... )
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