Credit crunch: Lazarus comes forth

A difficult case

The man was flailing, the doctors saw his condition and some diagnosed somewhere between the trivial and the critical; it could become terminal, but no one knew what was wrong.

Between a twitching eye and a radical emergency yet unforeseen, the sceptics gathered and simply said the man was faking it, it could never be that serious, don’t waste precious medicine on him.

Meanwhile the experts were conducting all sorts of tests on him but no one could afford the cost of treatment that he fell into a cardiac arrest – rather than do something in the private hospitals, they were looking at the bill and the insurance costs of reviving the man as they allowed themselves to be stunned by the fact that they were losing him faster than they could think.

A global contagion

There were similar cases all around the world but no one thought the vector was the same, each medical team everywhere was prescribing their treatments without comparing notes as each and every one of the affected relapsed into a state that warranted a quarantine that roped in countries.

He was moved out of the hospital with gold-trimmings into the state hospital where doctors who had done serious inner-city medicine had other plans and ideas; rather than the finesse of cosmetic surgery effete they brought in the defibrillator.

Stand Back! A charge of $700 billion was applied as the pads hit the chest, a beep, but he was still flat-lining; this thing was looking like haemorrhaging fever of Ebola virus proportions, somebody had to do something - pretty damn quick, none of the medicine was working – yet, we were assured the shock would revive the man.

In another room, some were praying, some were swooning and probably more had resigned themselves to the last rites – the man was as good as dead.

Treatments from the land of penicillin

In the land of penicillin, the doctor who had been a house officer for 10 years was thinking about a new kind of treatment just as the man in Iceland had already been wheeled into the refrigeration of the mortuary and the stone rolled over in front of the cave – we learnt that the house officer whilst tending his patients realised that strain in Iceland had a similar DNA profile to some of the ailing patients around Europe and he pulled their supply line of adrenaline - the man died.

He then put forward a drug regime that had chemicals pumped into the men in a concoction that would have made a 1930s hospital look like a cosy kindergarten; the men still did not seem to revive, they were all terminal, if not fatal.

He kept the regime up and he must have felt like Jesus felt as he loved the free market capitalist system and its trappings so dearly, we had been buoyed by his humour, his camaraderie, his ability to make us feel so good even when we have been so bad and we were in quite a bad way already.

We wept as the grand palace of the most magnificent illusions and mirages that were thought we were living in suddenly disappeared without a souvenir to show for living the good life.

Lazarus rises from the dead

Over the weekend, the doctors compared notes and advocated regimes of treatment that looked like the regime that the man from the land of penicillin had instituted.

Roll away the stone, he said and he bellowed – Lazarus! Come forth! A man came out of the cave having been dead for days and the bandages were removed and he was given food.

Men are reviving everywhere now, the stock markets are gaining their highest ever rallies, meanwhile we are sure we would find out what was responsible for that bout of severe illness, the men were probably poisoned, there would be a strict regime of diet and freedom, the drugs are still being administered to avoid rejection where some men have had to have heart transplants - cash injection of trillions seems to have done the job, so far.

Those men who as cannibals had craved and eaten Dutch flesh have been throwing up without respite, somehow, the third did not get Spanish flu, what a strong constitution he must have - say I. Those up North would now never be able to get away scot free and be alone from the land of penicillin.

What a long day of harrowing weeks and troublesome months of foreboding at the hospital, we are not sure we have a cure yet.

Notes on the idea

This wraps the story of the resurrection of Lazarus round a serious medical contagion baffling the experts describing the bailouts and rescues of the banking systems around the world and falling stock markets.

The land of penicillin as you know is the United Kingdom where penicillin was discovered, everything else is simply the workings of a crazy imagination.

Credit crunch: No man is an island ... it tolls for thee

The times are troubled

In these troubled times when the markets have gone into irrational freefall such that the first principles of free marketeering have failed to contain the excesses and fear rules like the darkest pall of an approaching tornado; one is left to reflect.

When the storm started brewing last year, there must have been many who thought their savings were secure, their pensions were fine, the stock markets had just reached their highest peaks and the values of their homes were in the stratosphere.

I first got hit by the fallout of the occurrences in the United States in November when my mortgage interest rate got a 50% hike which in monetary terms was a good whack on the goolies.

It affects us all

I have been fine, but a lot more has been going on and it has come closer to home than one finds comfortable.

If ever we thought the credit crunch as a distant rumour we know reality now; if ever we thought our savings were safe as in they were put in Fort Knox, there are many who cannot enter to get their money now; if ever we thought the bailout would quench the fire like a tsunami would wipe out everything, we only have to see how the markets tumble like an avalanche at Mount Everest.

The Titanic and the free market

There was a time when a great ocean liner [1] was built that many touted as unsinkable, so was the great free market economy that brought prosperity to many.

As it went through the waters of the Arctic Ocean someone spotted a large iceberg just as some saw that the debts and mortgages cannot been sustained but no one did anything about it and ripped into the hull of the ocean liner.

There was an emergency which has been called a credit crunch and all the experts and crew gathered to find ways to either keep the boat afloat or save the souls from perishing.

When they finally got the life boats out the women and children were allowed on first, these for the US Treasury were the banks – the men had to stay behind – men and women, families, people struggling with high prices, unaffordable mortgages, astronomical energy bills and so on.

Bale out or bail out

As we have been told, if the women and children in the eyes of the US Treasury were safe, they might just end up helping the men – bunkum.

There was no way they could bail out the water fast enough to stop the boat from taking on more water and sinking – this is no funny situation we are bailing out like mice from a sinking ship – they say this financial situation is as bad as the Depression of the 1930s, I can go back to 1912 as see a great human disaster of Titanic proportions.

It tolls for thee

But we pray as we have baled out in the cold icy waters that we might just be able to hold out till when Carpathia arrives; for this affects all rather than the few, it is global in its ramifications and local in its effects, no man is an island adrift from these times and troubles – it brings us to the quietest contemplation of realities of life and death for in the words of John Donne [2] we did ask for whom the bell tolls long ago as the financial turmoil began to unravel – Alas, as he went on to say – it tolls for thee.

And so suddenly we have to heed the words of our leaders, we are all in this together and all countries should coordinate their plans together to get out of this rather humongous mess.

The abridged version of For whom the bell tolls [3] appears below but the fuller version of the sonnet appears here from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions [4].

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Sources

[1] RMS Titanic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] John Donne - Poetry Foundation: The online home of the Poetry Foundation

[3] Home -> Inspirations -> Poems -> For Whom the Bell Tolls - John Donne

[4] John Donne - For whom the Bell Tolls

Bale out/Bail out - World Wide Words

Between reflective Obama and reflexive McCain

Still no bailout yet

There were probably some people waiting with bated breath to hear that a deal had been done for the $700 billion bailout of US banks.

In fact, at one time, the news suggested that a deal had been done in principle and not long after it appeared no deal had been done yet [1], people have been shouting at each other – I suppose you can call that debate.

The maverick decides

The move by Maverick McCain to suspend his campaign [2] and move lock, stock and barrel to Washington to trash out a deal with the emotion of concern that almost left us impressed with his commitment was a stunt in everything but name.

Barack Obama refused to be barracked into conceding that leadership was about dropping everything for one thing when generally leaders have to contend with multiple issues in different spheres and still be on top of things.

In fact, once again, the man showed a sense of balance and proportion that one would have expected of an older head like McCain’s who by tradition, one would have thought would be wiser too.

Need for an unadulterated debate

The Presidential candidates do indeed need to work on helping trash out a bi-partisan deal but that should have been done in the background without infecting the debate and negotiations with campaign distraction – McCain’s move was more to stir up the waters and try to wrestle from our minds the fact that he is not that clued in on financial matters.

The foreign policy presidential debate which might take place today would indeed have been overrun with questions about the financial turmoil hitting the markets – it is unlikely that Senator McCain would have been able to convey an air of competence on those matters – in fact, we are just about getting bored with the military and prisoner of war anecdotes that bear no particular significance to the lives and people of today.

News comes in now that Senator McCain would be attending the debate after all [3] – Bless him! Or did I mean something else?

Reflect on the reflex

This man is impulsive, reactionary, driven by sensational whim and devoid of the coolness under pressure that is needed to run a ship of state that is global in its remit.

The fact is 300 million Americans will be electing for 6.3 billion people of the world the next person who can dictate the pace and direction of the near-future world order.

If indeed suspending his campaign in order to concentrate minds had yesterday achieved the impossible and unlikely result, we might have praised him for having great insight and foresight; but as it stands, he has again been reckless and intemperate in the appreciation of issues; I am beginning to have a greater fear for John McCain as president than the looming tsunami of a recession turning into a depression.

None of the options available would have been my choices, but with the choices we now have, I am as sure as I can be that McCain cannot be the right option for a world that needs the calming influence of a reflective leader rather than the impulsive determination of a reflexive maverick.

Sources

[1] BBC NEWS | Business | Bush says bail-out will be passed

[2] McCain suspends campaign to work on Wall St plan | U.S. | Reuters

[3] McCain will attend debate, campaign says - The Debates- msnbc.com

Bailout: The premise that stinking shit becomes durable gold

Our duty of care betrayed

I have agonised in private and silently wept with tears streaming down my eyes as I read and heard of how the vulnerable had been betrayed.

Harsh as it may sound, babies by reason of our humanity and bond of parental love do not have to expect because they do not know, that we owe them a duty of care.

We as highly developed social animals just know that our babies’ needs are to be met and sometimes at great cost. We tend to believe that our governments have accepted and engaged in the duty of ensuring that health and safety rules and regulations are strictly adhered to, enforced without laxity and infringements punished severely.

In no place is this need for confidence expected, required and implicitly demanded than in food safety – except in places where a government has malevolently decided to commit genocide by allowing poisons and harmful substances to be ingested as food, it should be a given that our food is safe.

Profiteering on the lives of the helpless

Not being a parent, even I had a pain in my heart and it ached so painfully when I read that the protein content of baby formula had been boosted by adding a false-positive indicator – melamine [1].

I had to read up on that stuff and found it could be used in fabrics, plastics and fire retardants – it was definitely not, I repeat, definitely NOT for food or consumption even though it was partly soluble in water.

Some smart guy must have deduced that the test for protein content was poorly constructed since it only tested for the presence of nitrogen; so diluting the milk and adding melamine was a sure way to boost assumed protein content and make great profits no matter whose ox was gored [2].

They killed the babies

Sadly, it has been 4 dead babies and 54,000 infants sick, babies developing kidney stones some resulting in renal failure and parents literally helpless with desperate anxiety seeking respite for their child as well as being unsure of what now to feed their baby.

This is in China where the one-child policy [3] is still in force and this is not to say that the loss of one child can be assuaged by the presence of another – one cannot begin to understand the unspeakable torture and pain the babies and the parents are going through.

Fundamentally, this episode of deliberate poisoning of food for profits is more far reaching than the localities in which the outrageously malevolent middle-men of the dairy market plied their devilish trade.

To my mind, hell is too cold to receive their evil and wicked souls – it is no doubt the best place to send them to, but before they are sent off, they have a price to pay and none of them have enough in money, means or their own very lives to pay for their heinous unforgivable crimes.

Confidence, trust, integrity and reputation

As far out as Asia, Europe and Africa [4], food products from China are undergoing stringent scrutiny to outright bans [5] and worse is yet to come because we now have a collapse in confidence that standards not are being adhered to, such that we do not trust those products to be harmless, since there is clearly no integrity in their standards and this has completely sullied the reputation of doing business in China; it will no doubt adversely affect all other products from China.

The highlighted words in the previous paragraph cannot be quantified in any measure but they are the basis on which any transaction can be comfortably conducted in our world.

The loss of any of these is priceless; there is probably nothing that can done to regain them without a very costly expenditure, a great act of contrition, meaningful restitution, a sense of justice meted out to offenders and the long passage of time.

It applies to all people, their activities, businesses, organisations, companies, governments and life – it allows relationships to be built and partnerships to thrive; the absence of any would lead to strife and possibly the loss of lives.

The bailout is just as bad

In the same vein we see the $700 billion bailout [6] of banks in the United States where the Treasury is seeking funding to buy toxic assets off banks so that they can return to the business of banking and ease the credit crunch.

Much as we have heard so much about the lack of confidence; the fact is, the problems were brought on by untrustworthy practices in granting sub-prime mortgages where the debts were given ratings of integrity when in fact they were borne of disreputable transactions.

It is now clear that the banks were engaged in practices that would put the ordinary man behind bars for years, but as banks they are about to be absolved of their misdeeds by having the public buy off their toxic assets.

Stinking shit becomes gold

The US Treasury would have us believe that these toxic assets have short half-lives and in time they would appreciate in value and can be sold off for profit offering a net gain to the tax payer.

At the risk of sounding crude, the bailout is supposed to turn horribly stinking shit into durable gold, over time – I would like to see the alchemist that would conduct that experiment. The assets have become irradiated with the toxicity of dishonest, disreputable provenance, they cannot be treated with a bailout to give them respectability - who is buying this shit?

You cannot afford to lose it

I have this much to say, when confidence is lost and people have no trust in each other such that they cannot vouch for the integrity of the other and stake anything on the reputation of another – there is no price that can buy back trust, restore confidence, confer integrity and enhance reputations as much as not losing it in the first place.

With hindsight, it is just too obvious that nobody can afford to lose the confidence of others, create an atmosphere of distrust, convey a lack of integrity and become disreputable – the price is just too high.

What is clear to all is the price of these losses is looking like $700 billion and that is a hefty price to pay for millions of little white lies that secured paltry mortgages around America encouraging the world to think they could invest in the reputation of liars and their accomplices (the banks) as a worthwhile business venture.

Address trust or pay more still

I would contend that the price to regain trust would be a lot higher than $700 billion and if those people who instigated, tolerated, condoned, encouraged and abetted the lying are still in position to play with money, we have another gaping black hole of lies to swallow up more money without restoring confidence and buying back the foundation of good business dealings – trust.

Unfortunately, no one is addressing that simple fact, it is the loss of simple old-fashioned virtues that has created this big problem and until that clear truth is spelt out and the criminals are made to pay for their lies and dishonest activities – we might well prepare for a depression because I see $7 trillion going into this bailout and things getting no better.

Sources

[1] Melamine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Melamine use "rampant" in China feed business - Yahoo! News

[3] One-child policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] FACTBOX: Africa, Asia, Europe: bans and recalls on China milk | International | Reuters

[5] Medical News Today News Article - Europe Bans Chinese Baby Foods Containing Milk

[6] Financial crisis: Good points and bad points of US bail-out - Telegraph