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DOES IT AMOUNT TO A HILL OF BEANS?

Neither McCain no Obama is going to step outside the lie and swap Mammon and might for philosophy and subtlety.
The Money Mess has shown where we are headed (and that we are well on the way) so nothing much, short of a step change in our culture, equivalent to the Second Coming, is going to stop the societal madness that hands Bush, Blair, Brown and their ilk, power over so many while others run us ragged with impunity.

The body language of Brown today suggest that he thinks he is blameless.

This was not the gait of a man at the dispatch box who intends acknowledging that the Government should have known that the entire UK financial system was exposed to high risk loans - and all of the instruments that were driven off those loans like derivatives that have yet to come into play.

The buck clearly won't be stopping with Brown unless its stapled to his forehead.

In my world once things calm down and the inquest happens the buck will find its rightful home.

As a general thought if the measures taken today do work then all we have to worry about are iffy derivatives and CDS in a few years.

I am no economist or financier. But I think the numbers, if we are unlucky, are so big that similar measures could not be taken when or if that iceberg is hit.

Perhaps Paul Mason could elucidate if there is the said risk? Perhaps he should also wear a black silk hat for his reports!?

What price BoE independence now ?

Back to appeasing the stock market parasites as usual, the hedge fund vultures will be laughing their heads off.

Please pick up on the following.

Despite today's actions, the TED Spread (3 mth LIBOR minus T-Bill) is at a record high. The 3 mth US and Euro LIBOR-OISs are at record highs. Tomorrow is settlement day for the Lehman swaps and nobody knows what the numbers will be.

I'm not an economist or a banker, but it seems to me that the devil is in the technical detail of this crisis. Do the experts really think that the UK's attempts to fix the problem will work?

Also, how on earth are we going to pay for a mix of public sector debt and liabilities that are now within a whisker of being at 85% of our GDP? Common sense says that the UK taxpayer is now monstrously exposed and I want to hear Gordon Brown and David Cameron tell me how they intend to prevent this situation turning into an economic and social rout.

HELL ROAD (#1 expanded)

The 'processing power' of the human brain is phenomenal. Coupled with an apparent imperative to 'gain control' of self and surroundings (possibly a survival pressure) from birth; doomed to use modern society for reference while so doing. This is a recipe for disaster and with additional impingement of pressures of schooling-for-earning, takes its toll.

To be inherently bright is to be impacted more keenly, with a potential for greater dysfunction. Hence our culture yields a pool of high achievers (in school terms) with all manner of odd behaviours from anorexia/bulimia to all-consuming need to 'succeed' at this, or that, narrow function; usually at the expense of human/social competence.

These are the proto politicians.

Those who avoid this living hell inside their minds, either through being 'a bit slow' or some fortuitous gift of quiescence; on contacting the searing aura of the 'driven ones' step back and let them have whatever prize they crave: chalk monitor, head boy, political lackey, minister, or prime Minister.

Political parties seek out these driven gottabes, as they submit readily to the whip, drawn by the carrot of coveted status. The party plants a rosette on each unworthy breast, and parades them as party-proxies, for election to Westminster. Those of us who still vote, for whatever quaint reason, bring them into Parliament.

These are the people who have 'delivered us into evil' over and over and over again, and who now struggle, amid the wreckage of prior 'normality' to restore the illusion.
To witness J Gordon Brown’s evident joy, that he can blame America while bluntly applying his mythical skills in 'bold' acts of (NB: 'courageous') recovery, underwrites every depressing truth of this inverted pyramid of ability, that is British democracy.

The route from womb to maturity is now as impassable as any road in Iraq or Afghanistan.
And in both cases, WE have made it so by installing governance that fails to understand the true priorities of mankind, and that nihilistically enacts unconducive legislation.

Credit crisis? It doesn’t even register on this scale.

I was unimpresssed by the Emily Maitless segment this evening. I know that the 'bail out' has just happened but that is why I need to have it explained to me in an intelligent manner. I didn't get the impression that Emily Maitlis knew the first thing about what has been going on. Her interview with Darling was coyly combative rather than inquisitive and during the very brief studio segment with Paul Mason, where I was actually learning something, she appeared to have lost interest and was certainly unengaged. Even if this subject matter leaves her cold, shouldn't someone be putting together some intelligent questions for her?

A TANGLED WEB

There was something not quite right about Paul's piece.

Question

"Who's lending us this money ?"

I think the public has a right to know such basics.

Good edition tonight. I've been away a while but I'll be looking in every night while the crunch plays out and we run up to the US election. Next Thursday's debate will be monstrous - trust an internationally acknowledged oracle on that...

I'm afraid I have to concede Waalen #6 had a point about Emily Maitless being 'disengaged' in the bit with Paul Mason: I noticed that too but as it happens I rarely watch TV and have only seen Emily present the program a few times and on this occasion I did reflect for the first time that I really do like the way she presents it so she must be doing something right. Equally on this occasion I found Paul Mason a little difficult to follow: usually he's very clear.

Of course these are prepared scripts and teleprompts (I expect) we're talking here. As any actor will affirm, short of learning your lines off by heart it's next to impossible to appear genuinely spontaneous and engaged under those constraints.

All these billions and trillions of pounds sterling, dollars and euros floating about ... let me share with readers who also didn't know it a remark I picked up in the Wiki attributed to US senator Dirksen (though he says he never actually made it):

"A billion here, a billion there - pretty soon you're talking real money."

Credit crunch, Emily, more gloom, despondency, more mistakes, Brown looking like a saviour when he is the architect of this mayhem...no, no Emily is far too nice for these encounters. We need an attack dog to get answers.....Jeremy?

I think nr 8 above has a good question, are we borrowing this money from the Chinese for example?

I know GB has been in charge of the economy
for a long time in good times and bad but most of the experts agreed that he has done the right thing now and whether George Osbourne would have come up with such a plan is questionable.

GB has been attempting to break new ground in balencing laissez faire economics with social justice but after the days of Maggie T. it was the right thing to do I don´t begruge him mistakes because no-one has as yet achieved this impossible dream long term. If you want fincancial safety you sometimes have to sacrifice social freedoms, the German ambassador was on the other night complaining about Anglo Saxon economics taking undue risks, but the truth is that Germans as a whole live a lot less free society than we do. Owining houses and the pound being high against the euro has meant that normal working and lower middle class Brits have been able to go to Spain and have a villa with a pool when they retire and have a much better life. the benefits to home ownership are thus socialological rather than just pure economics. In Germany wage inflation has been zero for the last ten years, many people end up in the minus doing a full time job and as for student support, you can forget living off 650 euros a month. That is the price Germany pays for not taking risks I´m afraid ambassador!