The world falling apart
Aug. 8th, 2011 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoI guess I shouldn't be surprised so much, as I've been predicting many of these things for some time, but events of the last few days are still coming as a bit of a shock.
The US markets, of course, did as I expected today. S&P lowered the US government's rating from AAA to AA+ on Friday after the markets closed. I expected a panic to brew over the weekend and it did, so that a massive selloff today dropped the Wall St. indexes by over 5%, or as much as they lost in the entirety of last week's madness. This goes to show that, as I've been saying for some time, the markets are no longer underpinned by rationality, but are running largely on emotional or lemming-like forces. The proof appears particularly in the fact that the interest rates on US Treasury bills, the formal instrument of federal government borrowing, actually went DOWN today. This clearly indicates a lot of buying action, generated no doubt by the shifting of large sums of money being withdrawn from the stock markets. But these "investors" (and I use the term very loosely, because I think "speculators" and "gamblers" would be more appropriate) ran from the stock market because the government credit ratings had dropped, and instead put their money right into government loan certificates, lending it to the very institution whose credit rating has just been lowered. This is not rational, it is clear stupidity or at least ignorance. Meanwhile, S&P was running around lowering the credit ratings of other corporate bodies who, the agency said, "had too much of their funds invested in T-bills." So various large insurance companies and banks had their own credit ratings lowered merely because they owned US government debt paper, even while the market itself was demonstrating INCREASED faith in that same paper. Absurd enough to make you cry, isn't it?
A couple of people have pointed out, as well, that with the departure of the US from the ranks of the AAA rated governments, ALL the remaining AAA countries have universal health care. The US was the only AAA country without it, even though we were being told by conservatives that we couldn't afford it and it would bankrupt us. Odd and ironic, no?
I am also bemused by the rioting in London. Not by the fact that it is happening, but by the way in which many UK dwellers are responding. These are people who oppose the actions taken by various Islamic states against their rebellious citizens in the last few months, yet they are calling for similar actions to be taken by the UK government against its own subjects. If you're trying to make my head explode, folks, you won't succeed. But you will make me lose some respect for you. Any riot, once it begins, quickly draws in a criminal element that has no interest in the original cause and is there just to do damage and take advantage of the situation. But that doesn't mean that there isn't validity to the underlying cause. Western governments can indeed be just as oppressive as those in the Middle East, and they do so far more often than they want to admit. The US has demonstrated the same propensities that Assad or Qaddafi have shown us, and has done so repeatedly during its history. But the pot just loves to call the kettle black, doesn't it?
Then, on a much less earth-shaking level, someone who is a reasonably promising writer and otherwise sound tells me that every English teacher he ever had insisted that the construct "John and me" was ALWAYS wrong and should be replaced by "John and I" in all cases. Holy crap, Batman! Has US education really fallen so low? A quick check of Google shows me that this is not what anyone really seems to be saying. Quite the contrary. "Mary cooked dinner for John and I" is still incorrect, just as it always has been. "John and me went to Mary's for dinner" is also incorrect. Surely nowhere in the US, even in benighted TX or KS, is this being taught in schools. Surely? *whimper*
OK, I'll go bed now and try not to think about this stuff.
The US markets, of course, did as I expected today. S&P lowered the US government's rating from AAA to AA+ on Friday after the markets closed. I expected a panic to brew over the weekend and it did, so that a massive selloff today dropped the Wall St. indexes by over 5%, or as much as they lost in the entirety of last week's madness. This goes to show that, as I've been saying for some time, the markets are no longer underpinned by rationality, but are running largely on emotional or lemming-like forces. The proof appears particularly in the fact that the interest rates on US Treasury bills, the formal instrument of federal government borrowing, actually went DOWN today. This clearly indicates a lot of buying action, generated no doubt by the shifting of large sums of money being withdrawn from the stock markets. But these "investors" (and I use the term very loosely, because I think "speculators" and "gamblers" would be more appropriate) ran from the stock market because the government credit ratings had dropped, and instead put their money right into government loan certificates, lending it to the very institution whose credit rating has just been lowered. This is not rational, it is clear stupidity or at least ignorance. Meanwhile, S&P was running around lowering the credit ratings of other corporate bodies who, the agency said, "had too much of their funds invested in T-bills." So various large insurance companies and banks had their own credit ratings lowered merely because they owned US government debt paper, even while the market itself was demonstrating INCREASED faith in that same paper. Absurd enough to make you cry, isn't it?
A couple of people have pointed out, as well, that with the departure of the US from the ranks of the AAA rated governments, ALL the remaining AAA countries have universal health care. The US was the only AAA country without it, even though we were being told by conservatives that we couldn't afford it and it would bankrupt us. Odd and ironic, no?
I am also bemused by the rioting in London. Not by the fact that it is happening, but by the way in which many UK dwellers are responding. These are people who oppose the actions taken by various Islamic states against their rebellious citizens in the last few months, yet they are calling for similar actions to be taken by the UK government against its own subjects. If you're trying to make my head explode, folks, you won't succeed. But you will make me lose some respect for you. Any riot, once it begins, quickly draws in a criminal element that has no interest in the original cause and is there just to do damage and take advantage of the situation. But that doesn't mean that there isn't validity to the underlying cause. Western governments can indeed be just as oppressive as those in the Middle East, and they do so far more often than they want to admit. The US has demonstrated the same propensities that Assad or Qaddafi have shown us, and has done so repeatedly during its history. But the pot just loves to call the kettle black, doesn't it?
Then, on a much less earth-shaking level, someone who is a reasonably promising writer and otherwise sound tells me that every English teacher he ever had insisted that the construct "John and me" was ALWAYS wrong and should be replaced by "John and I" in all cases. Holy crap, Batman! Has US education really fallen so low? A quick check of Google shows me that this is not what anyone really seems to be saying. Quite the contrary. "Mary cooked dinner for John and I" is still incorrect, just as it always has been. "John and me went to Mary's for dinner" is also incorrect. Surely nowhere in the US, even in benighted TX or KS, is this being taught in schools. Surely? *whimper*
OK, I'll go bed now and try not to think about this stuff.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-09 08:21 pm (UTC)Tsar Nicholas II: I know what will make them happy. They're children, and they need a Tsar! They need tradition. Not this! They're the victims of agitators. A Duma would make them bewildered and discontented."
The state often dismisses insurrection as simple criminal elements. It's a trick as old as time. What *I* see when I hear that line, and when I see government reaction to the atrocious scenes unfolding in the UK is a vested interest scrambling about trying to defend the status quo.
The trouble with the looters in the UK is that they do not appear to be terribly educated. They don't know what is hurting them. They only know they are hurting. Their solution to this is to thieve and generally behave like moronic savages. This makes them very easy to demonise, and therefore bury any meaningful debate about the root cause of this criminality.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-09 08:51 pm (UTC)That was the year in which both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. It was also the year in which the Democrats held their convention in Chicago and failed to come to grips with any of the big issues of the time. Meanwhile the "Yippies" were demonstrating outside and Mayor Richard J. Daley authorized the use of police force to suppress dissent against the "business as usual" of the politicians. The media circus and trials that followed were a farce, of course. In fact, I wrote an alliterative poem at the time when Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale and the rest of the "Chicago 8" were on trial in a kangaroo courtroom presided over by right wing judge Julius J. Hoffmann. It was pretty well received in my undergraduate writing class as I recall.
Anyway, those were tumultuous years and it didn't end there. We had no idea that Kent State was still in the future, and the riots and demonstrations that followed that instance of government over-reaction are still burned into my mind as if with a red hot iron. I have never forgiven the federal or state governments of the US for their actions in that time period, and I look with suspicion on every instance of civil unrest anywhere in the world. What would be the difference between Tien An Min Square in 1989, Kent State in 1972, or the Battle of Lexington in 1775? The only difference is who came out the winner and who got to write the history books.
Mind, I'm not ascribing noble purpose to the rioters in today's UK, nor am I justifying any acts of violence. But I also note that the reaction to the violence that I see is that of the wealthy, comfortable individual who prefers not to have to think deeply about what's going on. Complaints about shuttered stores, or a disruption in the delivery of goods and services, but no thought given to the lives and suffering of the real victims. Instead I'm seeing demands that rioters be denied all government services for the rest of their lives. Welcome, friends, to the 18th century, when the wealthy still had the power of life and death over the under classes, and wielded that power without concern or mercy. We see the vestiges of that era in the writing of many British authors, including very notably Charles Dickens...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-09 11:26 pm (UTC)And I should add, that I am not likely to give them the benefit of the doubt if ANYTHING associated or even just co-located with the protests is threatening to me personally. I would want the police called whether the looters were part of the protest or not. To be so charitable as to say that I shouldn't want the police involved is just plain stupid.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-10 12:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-10 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-10 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-10 08:40 pm (UTC)To say that ALL the Islamic states have "declared all out war" upon protesters recently... well that's a form of Islamophobia in itself, because it isn't true, and you should check yourself before making such an association.