"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."   

The Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Words can have consequences whether written or spoken. The early Christians knew this which is why a lot of what is written in later parts of the New Testament of the Christian Bible seems vague or disjointed or seems to refer to some sort of foretelling.  They had to couch their message in terms that the Romans would find difficult to assign to their present. Lest they become lion fodder for the amusement of others.  A while later these same Christians then enacted some rather heinous retribution on anyone who spoke against their church.  This has continued to be the case up through the 20th Century, as members of the White Rose society learned in Germany under Hitler  and countless others found out in Soviet Russia.

Even or especially telling the truth can get you in heaps of hot water. Funny thing about the truth and honesty. Seems we humans are very OK with telling it about others but not so much when others tell it about us. Wikileaks is a case in point. But then so were the civil rights workers and anti-war reporters and marchers.

Which brings us up to the present.  As I stated in a comment to a blog entry on another site, there are certain truths can can have far reaching consequences indeed.

And this is the thing that nobody, especially the Fed and Washington don’t want anyone to know. That legally these banks are holding pieces of paper which they bought at ridiculous prices that now they really cannot collect on. That legally they are insolvent.

And if this information truly got out in manner that everyone could grasp, these banks – BOA, Citi, JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sacks – would be as welcome as Typhoid Marry.

That the true state of the financial health of these institutions remains buried, which is why the Federal Reserve has fought tooth and nail to keep it so.  Not just for those in this country who are vested but also those in the rest of the world. For we are in truly a global economy now. It is not a domino effect but rather a game of pick-up-sticks.


That what ever effects one bank or corporation can (and quite often does) effect others. When the financial world froze in 2008, it literally froze everywhere and the effects are still being felt.  And investors can and do react to any negative thing they hear.  We are no longer an island unto ourselves. If you do not believe me, just take a look at who owns who and how much.  So when word of the impending collapse Bear Stearns and then Lehman Brothers started to circulate, it sent shock waves around the world.

So anything that is to be done about this mess has to be done in manner as not to upset the apple cart. Or as the wicked witch of the west observed, "These things must be done delicately, or you hurt the spell".  Rest assured that the leading powers of the world will do what ever is necessary to avoid a repeat of or greater financial crisis similar to that of 2008. Since the one thing they do not want at all is the inevitable social and political convulsions that would follow. But they certainly will not broadcast it.

I read a lot of blogs and comments about how congress and the president are not acting forcefully enough with respect to financial regulation and how they are in the pockets of Wall Street and others. This may well be true and most likely is. However what each can do is far more constrained on an international level now that it was 30 years ago.  And an order of magnitude more so than when FDR was in office. When our banks and corporations were just ours.

Being physically isolated from the rest of the world has a tendency to narrow ones point of view.  A very dangerous situation when the whole world is but a keystroke away. What one does and what one says in the halls of Washington or Berlin or London or Paris or even Beijing or Tokyo has to take this into consideration. A sad but very real fact of life these days.  We can no longer afford to have a Chevrolet mentality in an internet world.