Much was set in motion at the end of last Friday, after the stocks & bond markets had closed for the weekend, when Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' rating from AAA to AA+. Which is still higher than the best rating of the two other stock & bond services..
Somewhere along the who gives a shit trail, a few little problems do show up. Why, for instance, would anyone take the word of an information seller whose product is based on guesswork? And who managed to base its findings on figures with a two trillion dollar mistake? Why, could this be the same company that gave AAA ratings on "Collateralized Debt Obligations" (mortgages)? One of the three agencies to approve of the filthy lucre standard of money collecting (what was that part about placing bets on who and how many would fail) which got them and us into this mess in the first place? And who then gave A ratings to Lehman Brothers right up to its buried in toxic ass-ets that started the falling dominoes?
Their official findings noted several key points. We have big debt. We're Americans, we like things big, dammit. We got that debt by trying to fix the mess those fuckers created. Anyway, we all knew there was some trouble ahead. But three of their findings aren't even being discussed, and those deal with the political situation of the country. A country in which a small faction of the unapproved merger of religion and politics, extreme right fundamentalists, were willing to destroy the country in order to save it. And let us get real for a moment - if the US goes down the tubes, most every other nation will be pulled along. These people were willing to create global havoc to get their way.
Even the conspiracy theorists have been left with mouths open, gurgling their fears. Since these kinds of actions have set old banker procedures and mores in place, many people knew in advance that this downgrade was going to happen. The question is who gets to profit from creating such instability? Every buddy buy gold now. Who's selling? That this event would produce a world wide psychosis is predictable. Who profits from the disarray? Or is it a smokescreen so we can't focus on something else?
Standard & Poor, by the by, is owned by McGraw Hill. My days in large bookstore management go back to the 1970's. At the time, McGraw Hill was a textbook publisher which also operated retail student needs stores on college campuses.. They suddenly saw the light - and were reborn as a discount book chain. As this conversion started to happen, there were any number of rumors that McGraw Hill had benefited from a huge influx of money - from mob sources. And Lyle Stuart (who had a fondness for publishing books other's wouldn't touch) circulated a newsletter with this information, and noted odd shipments for other companies that had suddenly turned up or was last seen on the McGraw Hill loading docks. Fell off a truck, honest! Mr. Stuart soon stopped his "for bookstores only" notes. (The one I remember was two pages, folded, and stapled together.)
Stuart, a well respected gambler, published a book which, on its flypaper book covers, claimed to have a police memo which linked Los Vegas casino and hotel operator Steve Wynn to the Genovese Crime Family. The book's text went on to disprove and refute much of the memo's claims. But Wynn sued anyway. He won. Stuart was ordered to pay $3 million defamation dollars. The verdict was later overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court. Stuart, however, had been forced into bankruptcy, and his publishing business taken over in one big gulp by another communications company.
So who's trying to throw their feces at what little is left of the United States' good name? Stuff like this doesn't just happen, it is planned. So are the London riots of the have-naughts. And the freedom riots of the Middle East. And S&P's downgrade which was built on a house of cards already blown away.
Who profits from fear? And... who is it that is really doing the fighting? I mean, Rupert Murdoch was kind of pushed out at the first chance... or was he?
fin
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