Russell spent some time commenting on an earlier blog. I poo-poohed his comments and stuck to my guns about doing business with thieves. That may have been a mistake and I think that it may well be time to serve up a big portion of crow for self-consumption.
Theft is theft. The big boys have been doing it on a progressively greater scale for quite some time now. I have a tendency of forgetting that the amounts that they steal from each other are significant in the same sense that the amounts that they steal from us are significant.
I think what tipped me over to the side of seeing this as problem was the sudden realization that MF global may have been one of the bigger turning points. Where the big boys had been previously satisfied with a parasitic role of milking everyone for a small amount, MF Global was where they decided to go after big game and become a true predator.
Yes, it is all the same thing. Pervasive petty thefts in a setting of "financial services" is one thing. One has come to expect such a thing, it is the modern equivalent of the hated gabelle, irritating, good for some displays of dissension, but it just becomes part of the landscape. It is a wholesale operation where the weakness of the host can be masked.
MF Global showed that the big boys would be more than willing to pull down one of their own without even a trace of hesitation.
Now I am worried about what they would decide to do if us low lifes who have been milked for what we are worth are now found to be worthless. Now that the big boys have thrown away any semblance of respect for the rule of law, what are the rules of the game?
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I have so many posts on so many subjects, I am bound to be wrong on something because I will be disagreeing with myself. LOL
Chris Whalen asked some very pointed questions about the AIG takeover.
Mostly he noted that the insurance industry had been writing sideletters (by agreement) on its reinsurance essentially saying that they would not be honoring the main contract. This allowed the "insured" to show various regulatory bodies the contract, but fail to provide the side letter. Warren Buffet's (previously) favorite underling went to jail for this.
Well AIG is an insurance company, and derivatives are often a type of insurance policy.
He asked wheather the contracts that the government honored when they bought up AIG had side letters, and that nobody was saying anything because they did not want the market to implode. Goldman was a major benificiary.
The rules (for "them") are no rules. So what do we do? Invest in beans, bandaids, and bullets; and network locally with like-minded folks. We must form "tribes" for our mutual support. It all starts local, then grows as tribes ally with each other against the corporate fascist government thieves. United we stand, divided... well you know where that leads.
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