"That scheme (buying equity shares) as well is 'dead on arrival' as the latest Citigroup nationalization scheme underscores. The dilemma Paulson has created with his inept handling of the crisis is simple: If the US Government paid the true value for these nearly worthless assets, the banks would have to write down huge losses, and, as Levy economists put it, 'announce to the world that t hey are insolvent.' On the other hand, if Paulson raised the toxic waste purchase price high enough to protect the banks from losses, $700 billion 'will buy only a tiny fraction of the 'troubled' assets.' That is what the latest nationalization of Citigroup is about.
It is only the beginning. The 2009 year will be one of titanic shocks and changes to the global order of a scale perhaps not experienced in the past five centuries. This is why we should speak of the end of the American Century and its Dollar System. How destructive that process will be to the citizens of the United States who are the prime victims of Paulson's crony capitalists, as well as to the rest of the world depends now on the urgency and resoluteness with which heads of national Governments in Germany, the EU, China, Russia and the rest of the non-US world react. It is no time for ideological sentimentality and nostalgia of the postwar old order. That collapsed this past September along with Lehman Brothers and the Republican Presidency. Waiting for a 'miracle' from an Obama Presidency is no longer an option for the rest of the world." Scary stuff. FULL 11/26/08 ARTICLE BY ENGDAHL ON CITIBANK AND MORE IS AT: http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/1126.html [ah, for the good old days, when lefties talked about crisis and there was none!] -- Jim Devine / "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
