$700 Bn not enough? What about $5 trillion? What...still not enough?

This time I will be brief and its one of the few times that I will allow myself the empathy-induced weakness embedded when arguing morals.

They had it all...money, drugs, women, youth, ignorance, arrogance. The masters of the (capitalist) universe had it all. And they decided to take us for a looooong ride.

What I would like to start with is this 'dude' called Henry Paulson. The guy is simply unbelievable. Consider the following:
He was happy (and on his knees to Democratic 'big chief' Pelosi) when asking for a $700 bn bailout for Goldman Sachs....sorry... I meant the US banks and the US economy putting forward the 'mainstream' economy as the main reason that the taxpayer should give that money (and to amplify the urgent need for the bailout we started hearing to words like systemic risk, too-big-to-fail etc.).

So good old Henry-boy gets his $700 bn check (by the way remember that this figure was derived only by the means of scientific and rigorous analysis of the style "a figure that seems large enough to calm the markets"), takes it to his banking mates, they give him a bone (or sugar cubes -not sure) and off he goes living happily after.

In the meanwhile the rest of the world follows suit and the whole money available for banks amounts to a staggering $5,000bn. That is 5 Trillion people!!! I mean its 1/6 of the global economic output....HEEEEYY!! you read that? 1/6 of the GLOBAL ECONOMIC OUTPUT is available at the banks. But of course this is for the sake of prosperity of the mainstream not the bankers.

I really wonder how much would it cost to buy and give away -for free- all the subprime mortgages (I mean the actual houses and not derivative products). Wouldn't this fix the problem?

Back to Henry-boy, his mates are unrest and bankers lurk at the darkness...

They use with abundance all the money they need (around $290bn of the first $350bn) and they declare they do not need anymore. What they now need is a rising economy and most important customers and a fresh wave of consumption!!!

Remember, not everyone got the money they needed...only the one's Henry-boy chose to give the money to and by doing so eliminating most of his buddies small competitors, and now is the time of the larger one's (citi-cough-group-cough).

So good old Henry-boy takes the 'change' (60bn) back and also has some slack to spare ("mommy mommy...see what a good boy I am, I didn't gave away all the 700bn ").

But of course there is some collateral damage associated with such financial manipulations. And the crises moves on to the real mainstream economy (what?? 700bn didn't do it? neither did $5tr)? And the name of the likes is GM and Chrysler. Can you imagine these two filling for bankruptcy? Well that would signify the capitulation of a depression. I am not saying that they should survive as they currently are (bloated and arrogant), what I am saying is that if you give $290bn to ensure the wellbeing of banks and prosperity (supposedly) based on the need to safeguard the real and mainstream economy, you might as well give 25bn to ensure that the real blue-collar employers remain in the game.

But noooooooo!!! Good'old Henry-boy declares that the automotive industry is not to be assisted with that money!! So what is the deal? There is systemic risk if GS fails and there's no systemic risk if GM fails? Can you imagine the market sentiment if GM fails? Can you imagine the feeling and moral of a whole nation if GM fails? Oh and by the way, following the congress hearings if one fails another one will definitely fail (probably Chrysler) . And if they file for chapter 11 (bankruptcy) it automatically means that they will file for chapter 7 (liquidation) since nobody would buy a car from a bankrupt company further spirallng down.

I would prefer nobody would get any money from the taxpayer in the first place, that's the free market economy that for so many years US was adopting (and rubbing it in Europe's nose as not being 'entrepreneurial' enough), so what happened now? Oh, you screwed up? Oh your model does not work now? Then sod off, remain isolated, arrogant and ignorant and do not hand the bill to Europe and the BRIC economies. But since I am forced to pay for the banks cock ups, I prefer GM and Chrysler to be saved on 1/20 the price alongside the money mongering institutions that Henry-boy works for.

GM and Chrysler hand out $70k decent pension plans to millions of people and are in the shite.
Goldman Sachs and the likes hand out £50m indecent bonuses and golden parachutes to a handful of people and are in the clear....

Think of the following:
GM employs 900,000 people and its assembly workers payroll in 2005 (booming economy) was 8.7bn.
Goldman employs 29,905 people and its bonus pool ALONE (not the total payroll --just bonus) on 2007 (credit crunch period) was more than $18 billion.

Who do you think that if left unemployed will be better to weather the financial crisis storm? Who do you think is more responsible for the financial crisis ? Automotives or banks? Why save the banks and not the automotives? Damn me!! If you save the banks first then you should be willing to save the rest of the world as far as I am concerned.

And with rational empathy I say the following, US I used to respect you, I used to think you are smart, I used to think that you can do it....US I do not think that anymore...I now think that you are a puppet government for lobbyists, feeding your people fake promises and fat lies. One of your best and brightest, Edward Luttwak wrote a an excellent book titled "Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook". If one reads it, it is easy to make the connection between how to create a real coup using means of force and how to create an economic coup against a country's entire population.

But my god I should't be thinking that!!!! Now, I am a conspiracy theorist and ipso facto whatever I write is invalid...as if by definition.

Ok, back to reality (and because I do not want to be left without friends and social belonging): scrap the above...I was lying...all is good..the governments are perfect and they are working for the ordinary person's prosperity. There is no such thing as the collapse of a whole politicosocioeconomic system (namely capitalism and free market economy), just a credit crunch.

Am I your friend again?

P.S. Told you I would be brief, didn't I?