Jason’s blog thingy

This post is mainly about the global finance system. Scroll down past the ESB pics below to skip the more boring bits if you like…

Got the call not long after waking up that my new 2nd set of eyeglasses were ready. Headed out to 24th and 2nd to JMV optical where Victor had my new incredible 1920 vintage eyeglasses. Woot! Not only are these impossible to get in Aus, they’re quite difficult in the states. I heart Fabulous Fannies
On the way there, I kept spotting the Empire State Building between the other enormous New York buildings and on a whim decided to go up. Got off the wrong subway stop – 42nd st instead of 30 something. I walk out of the subway and there’s the Chrysler building: ’sorry sir there is no viewing platform in this building’. At least I got to walk through it. Walked to the ESB. Its under construction of course. 40 minutes of queues and ticketing then I’m up there. You know that it’s going to be a great view, but when you actually look out it’s dizzying. Like watching a movie then suddenly your in it. Took a lot of pics.

downtown

before I went up

vertigo

I also went to the toilet on the 86th floor! Highest poo eva! (bar aircraft)

Last Chance To See
Douglas Adams wrote a book called ‘Last Chance To See’ about seeing endangered animals before they are extinct. I am in New York City and it seems that capitalism is about to become extinct. So here we begin Jason’s version of ‘Last Chance To See’ – The Awkward Death Of Capitalism.
Today the United States government through it’s treasury bought an insurance company, AIG, for $85 Billion Dollars of taxpayers money. The alternative was financial ‘Armageddon’. This is because AIG provides insurance to banks against their loans defaulting. If AIG goes down, SO DOES EVERY BANK THEY INSURE and AIG is the biggest insurer in the world. How is it that a company that was supposed to be protecting banks against the crisis they are facing (the US mortgage collapse) is itself a victim of the exact same crisis? DEREGULATION. The Glass-Steagall Act, made after the banking collapse that caused the 1930 depression, separated normal deposit banking from investment banking. It was repealed, not by a republican, but by Bill Clinton in 1999. This deregulation allowed everyone to invest in everyone else and everyone to loan to and borrow from everyone else. Also, rules about how much real money a bank had to have versus how much they were allowed to pretend they have (debt ratio) were relaxed. Fannie May and Freddie Mac had only $1 for every $80 they’d loaned out when they were taken over by the Government! There were other changes too, many introduced by Greenspan that contributed to the whole thing.
Why do these risky things? GREED. The changes turned some banks and financial institutions into ‘Millionaire Factories’. Credit was cheap and easy, ratings agencies gave AAA ratings to ‘instruments’ based on housing mortgages given to people had no credit rating, no job, no money, no prospect of ever paying off their loans.

Lots of arseholes got rich.

Of course my analysis is a little simplified.

When I first began reading about this years ago, the alternative sources that I read said that this will destroy the US economy. That it will take a while, but combined with US foreign debt, the estimated 3 trillion dollar cost of the war and problems with oil, the result will be much much worse than the 1930’s depression.

So without further adieu, here is Jason’s Capitalism Disaster Tour Of New York City.

The New York Stock Exchange. Down 450 points = 4% = 700 Billion Dollars

Tourists and news crews outside the Stock Exchange watching money vanish.

AIG. Bailed out by the govt to the tune of $85 Billion US taxpayer’s dollars to prevent financial armegeddon

AIG had such a lovely building too!

More news crews at the NYSE

Goldman Sachs temporary World Headquarters – used to be run by Henry Paulson (current Secretary of the US Treasury) – stock price plummeting.

Morgan Stanley World Headquarters – stock price plummeting, in merger negotiations

Lehman Brothers World Headquarters – bankrupt. Biggest bankruptcy ever in history.

This used to be the World Headquarters of Bear Sterns. Bailed out by the govt for $29 Billion Dollars, sold to J.P. Morgan

Hope you enjoyed my experience of what may well be the end of US hegemony.