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The Cost Of The Upcoming Second Bailout: Democracy Itself

Tyler Durden's picture




Or so claims none other than bailout abuser extraordinaire, the International Monetary Fund. As the TimesOnline reports: "Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the CBI annual conference of business leaders that
another huge call on public finances by the financial services sector would
not be tolerated by the “man in the street” and could even threaten
democracy.
" Yet the man on the street is oddly mesmerized by recurring appearance of solemn-looking political leaders on their daily TV jaunt, so perhaps Mr. Strauss-Khan is unfortunately overestimating the ordinary citizen's attention span or interest in anything more than being able to procure the latest 50 inch plasma TV at sub $500. Or the fact that instead of a formal "Second" bailout (which will still undoubtedly occur "when needed" courtesy of trillions and trillions of new pieces of still unprinted paper, the Obama's latest plan is to have rolling bailouts/stimuli/Cash for Cxxx/dollar plunge enforcement sorties from now until Wall Street bonuses are paid for the 2009 and potentially 2010 calendar year. After all, someone from 85 Broad has to confirm daily that the economic policies are certainly working, contrary to what every Tom, Dick and Harry is seeing after a 5 minute walk on any given street.

More observations from the IMF head:

"Most advanced economies will not accept any more [bailouts]...The
political reaction will be very strong, putting some democracies at risk,"
he told delegates.

"I do believe that the financial sector needs to contribute both to the
costs of the financial crisis and to reduce recourse to public funds in the
future," he said.

Mr Strauss-Kahn said that imposing high capital ratio requirements on banks
was one price the financial services sector must pay to prevent the threat
of further multi-billion dollar bailouts.

He pointed to the debate in the US over the Troubled Asset Relief Programme
and said that in many countries, including France and Germany, he doubted
that politicians would secure the mandate needed to secure any further
bail-outs if banks got in to trouble again, in several years' time.

Europe is in dispute over the spiralling cost of the global economic bailout,
with Germany and France calling for a reduction in state support as their
economies have shown signs of an upturn.

Little does anyone care that the only reason these economies are "upticking" is courtesy of a sympathetic movement in stock markets that mimic what the flailing dollar is doing to US stocks. That, and roughly 5% of world GDP being redirected to promote various one-time stimuli.

In tried and true chatterbox fashion Dominique warns about the dangers of an incipient bubble even as he advocates "exiting later rather than earlier." Mega bubble 2.0 - here we come.

Mr Strauss-Kahn said that while the global economy had made "remarkable"
progress in exiting recession, and was on the cusp of recovery, it remained "highly
vulnerable" to shocks.

He said state support for the world's battered economies must remain in place
if a smooth recovery is to be achieved.

"We recommend erring on the side of caution as exiting too early is
costlier than exiting too late."

Mr Strauss-Kahn is one of a series of high-profile speakers at the CBI
conference, in Central London. Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg
will all speak at the event as they seek to sway influential business
leaders before a general election next year.

In his speech, Mr Strauss-Kahn also warned that the huge amounts of capital
being pumped into China could fuel a pan-Asian bubble
.

And US consumers - relax, you don't have to do what CNBC is telling you and max out all your credit cards (just to make JPM a nickel and dime here and there): you have now been demoted to a second grade economic factor:

Mr Strauss-Khan said that the old paradigm of growth generation based on
households in the US was dead. The future sources of growth and the recovery
will "depend on a new balance between the US and deficit countries on one
hand and emerging markets and surplus countries on the other".

Good luck with that if China indeed, as Albert Edward contends, truly ends up devaluing its currency.




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Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:09 | Link to Comment Divided States ...
Divided States of America's picture

CNBC keeps on saying U or V shape recovery, its so annoying....I really think its an O shaped recovery coz we are going to be fcked up the asshole.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:19 | Link to Comment Rusty_Shackleford
Rusty_Shackleford's picture

Ha HA!  Love it.

The "Balloon Knot Shaped Recovery"

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 19:58 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:14 | Link to Comment Daedal
Daedal's picture

It seems like everyone is angry but are 'too civilized' to take to the streets, and are numbed (or even ridiculed) by the media from doing so. Power in numbers; perhaps ZH can add a new feature that allows for the masses to organize protests.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:41 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 11/23/2009 - 16:47 | Link to Comment VegasBD
VegasBD's picture

Where is the organized civil disobedience page for ZH?  =)

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 22:16 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:16 | Link to Comment D.O.D.
D.O.D.'s picture

Democracy is already dead...

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 19:56 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:26 | Link to Comment ShankyS
ShankyS's picture

Echoing a prior conversation from a prior post - We are SOOOOOO FUCKED!

 

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:28 | Link to Comment falsepositive
falsepositive's picture

Total chaos is probably the precursor to the World Bank's New World Order.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 16:45 | Link to Comment Mad Max
Mad Max's picture

All the NWO paranoia seemed, for so long, to be just tinfoil hat stuff for the righter than right wing nutcases.  Now it's seeming way too close to current events.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 16:48 | Link to Comment VegasBD
VegasBD's picture

Go back and watch V for Vendetta again, now that movie as WAY TOO MANY current parallels to todays events. Erie.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 17:35 | Link to Comment falsepositive
falsepositive's picture

Tinfoil hat or not, too few people are willing to question authority because they are afraid of the consequences.  We will see what it takes to tear people away from their TVs and do something to change the current course of affairs.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 19:33 | Link to Comment New_Meat
New_Meat's picture

dude--try Saul Alinsky and the Columbia nut-jobs "collapse the system" thinking.  all part of O Plan

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:37 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 11/23/2009 - 20:39 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:38 | Link to Comment digalert
digalert's picture

The dow 11,000 CNBS pep rally squad is forming now.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:41 | Link to Comment FullMetalJacket
FullMetalJacket's picture

Coming to a set of accounts near you....

http://www.bordertimbers.com/financials.html

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:45 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 11/23/2009 - 17:49 | Link to Comment Mad Max
Mad Max's picture

I am so glad to hear that the revolution will be televised.  I had always heard that it wouldn't be.  I just need to set my Tivo for it.  When's it scheduled?

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:45 | Link to Comment carbonmutant
carbonmutant's picture

The democratic legislators that we elected during the last administration are not listening to the people who elected them.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 18:25 | Link to Comment Anonymous
Mon, 11/23/2009 - 19:06 | Link to Comment Rainman
Rainman's picture

Agree. I did listen to them.....in horror. They is doin' what they said they wuz gonna' do........wrapped up in a nice package with a pretty bow. We're seeing nothing now but the FUKK YOU backwash of one party liberal rule.  

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 15:49 | Link to Comment primus
primus's picture

"Mr. Strauss-Khan is unfortunately overestimating the ordinary citizen's attention span or interest in anything."

Job one for O Team will be to keep the Wal-Marts well stocked, the propaganda cable TV running and the rolling blackouts to a minimum in the coming months.

We also need a good straw man.

My guess is that the next sales pitch will be that the Iranians, along with their hidden nuclear facilities, have also been colluding with terrorists to destablize the dollar, outsource US jobs and undermine the global economic recovery!

Selective service, anyone?

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 16:06 | Link to Comment SWRichmond
SWRichmond's picture

"Most advanced economies will not accept any more [bailouts]...The political reaction will be very strong, putting some democracies at risk," he told delegates.

The democracies are already dead, as was pointed out above; we were never supposed to have a democracy in the U.S. anyway, it's supposed to be a republic.  What additional  bailouts "put at risk" is the oligarchy that runs these so-called democracies, and Strauss-Kahn, being a central banker, knows whom he serves.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 17:34 | Link to Comment loup garou
loup garou's picture

Just after the completion and signing of the Constitution, in reply to a woman's inquiry as to the type of government the Founders had created, Benjamin Franklin said, "A Republic, if you can keep it."  Not only have we failed to keep it, most don't even know what it is. Even though nearly every politician, teacher, journalist and citizen believes that our Founders created a democracy, it is absolutely not true. The Founders knew full well the differences between a Republic and a Democracy, and they repeatedly and emphatically said that they had founded a Republic.

Article IV Section 4, of the Constitution "guarantees to every state in this union a Republican form of government"… Conversely, the word "democracy" is not mentioned even once in the Constitution. Madison warned us of the dangers of democracies with these words:

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths...".

"We may define a republic to be… a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans and claim for their government the honorable title of republic."

~James Madison, Federalist No. 10, (1787)

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 16:23 | Link to Comment BorisTheBlade
BorisTheBlade's picture

"Most advanced economies will not accept any more [bailouts]...The political reaction will be very strong, putting some democracies at risk," he told delegates.

If you replace "democracies" with "existing power structures (or institutions)", you could actually agree with him. He couldn't care less about democracy, but telling delegates outright that another wave of bailouts would put at risk their asses is non comme il faut. So, from diplomatic to normal language that would mean: "If we give more money to the banks, then there is non-zero probability that public will rape us". Better safe than sorry.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 16:53 | Link to Comment Marley
Marley's picture

"He who controls the past, controls the future" - 1984

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 16:44 | Link to Comment Mad Max
Mad Max's picture

Long on armband manufacturers.

If I were a chinese shirt maker I'd be stocking up on dark brown cloth.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 16:51 | Link to Comment JohnKing
JohnKing's picture

Bi-Partisan support of financial fraud and serfdom for the peeps. These senators oppose auditing the FED:

Senator Judd Gregg (R., NH)
Senator Lamar Alexander (R., TN)
Senator Bob Corker (R. TN)
Senator John Kyl (R. AZ)
Senator Charles Grassley (R., IA)
Senator Ben Nelson (D., NE)
Senator Richard Shelby (R., AL)
Senator Jim Bunning (R., KY)
Senator Jim Merkley (D., OR)
Senator Kay Hagan (D., NC)

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 18:24 | Link to Comment faustian bargain
faustian bargain's picture

Tennessee must be so proud.

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 19:19 | Link to Comment glenlloyd
glenlloyd's picture

Grassley's one of my two craptastic senators. The other is Harkin, who is a vocal proponent of the Health Care Reform Bill.

I need to send more emails to these two losers, especially now that we find Grassley opposing RP and Fed audit.

I hate these assclowns!

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