Winston Churchill had a few choice remarks concerning truth and the falsehoods that so often pose as truth. The truth was so precious, he remarked, that it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies. And of lies, he said "a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on!"
The recent news concerning Wikileaks' revelation of what really goes on in embassies around the world has had the Internet, and mainstream media, all abuzz. We live in a world, you must realize, where the truth is a sad third cousin that seldom gets invited to the dinner table. When it is revealed, for example, that conservative Arab governments have been urging the US to attack Iran, sounding a virtual harmony to the position taken by Israel on the matter, long time US diplomats get all in a huff about the danger of allowing this truth to be known. For in many ways, the government is an institution that is much like a magician. It creates illusions, based on lies, half truths and mangled statistics, and presents them to the general public as "official" reality. Churchill had yet another remark so applicable to our present time: "There are a lot of lies going around...and half of them are true!"
The big lies that have stood virtually unchallenged in recent years now permeate our society to the core. Our financial institutions have lied about their operations in virtually every aspect of the housing boom and bust that has brought our economy to the brink of depression. They don't have clear title to properties, and yet they foreclose as if they do, paying service companies to simply create fraudulent copies of missing documents so they can proceed. In many cases the loan in question was packaged in two, three, four or more different securities and sold off to pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds or the next chump in line willing to be the bag holder in the greatest theft of wealth the world has ever seen. And now they lie to themselves about their own insolvency, lobbying congress successfully to make polite gentlemen's agreement to change the way the toxic assets are reported on their books so they do not have to mark down losses from the calamity they created with their boiler room junk loan operations. Then they go merrily on to the Fed discount window and obtain credit at a quarter of one percentage point in interest--so they can offer that same credit to customers at 20% to 30% interest rates.
Ilargi of Automatic Earth put it so well today when he wrote: "Why do many Americans pay 10-20-30% interest on their credit card debt to the very same banks who at the very same time borrow at a rate that's some 100 times smaller? How mad is that? Why is that seen as somehow normal? Is it because there is a moral idea that those who rack up debt deserve to pay dearly for doing so? Well, if such an idea exists, it's apparently applicable to some, but not to others. Because the one and only justification provided as the reason that Wall Street's finest have access to the ultra low rates, is that they racked up enormous debts."
The Fed itself, creates a cool trillion in quantitatively eased pixel money and buys bonds to fund our debt. All the while it skillfully protects itself from the searching light of truth and refuses to allow any outside authority to audit it, even congress. It refuses also to reveal who the shadowy foreign counterparties are that received mega billions in bailout money. The truth about these dealings is perceived as "dangerous." The bodyguard of lies closes ranks, and secrecy and fraud go hand in hand through our most august institutions.
Ilargi of Automatic Earth put it so well today when he wrote: "Why do many Americans pay 10-20-30% interest on their credit card debt to the very same banks who at the very same time borrow at a rate that's some 100 times smaller? How mad is that? Why is that seen as somehow normal? Is it because there is a moral idea that those who rack up debt deserve to pay dearly for doing so? Well, if such an idea exists, it's apparently applicable to some, but not to others. Because the one and only justification provided as the reason that Wall Street's finest have access to the ultra low rates, is that they racked up enormous debts."
The Fed itself, creates a cool trillion in quantitatively eased pixel money and buys bonds to fund our debt. All the while it skillfully protects itself from the searching light of truth and refuses to allow any outside authority to audit it, even congress. It refuses also to reveal who the shadowy foreign counterparties are that received mega billions in bailout money. The truth about these dealings is perceived as "dangerous." The bodyguard of lies closes ranks, and secrecy and fraud go hand in hand through our most august institutions.
Wikileaks is now saying they will make a "mega dump" of documents that will reveal more shocking truth about a major US bank early next year. I can't wait. My bet is that the truth will reveal little more than I have inscribed about the issue in so many articles concerning our financial institutions: insolvency, fraud, deception, corruption, wholesale looting of the public purse--all for our own good, of course. We live, supposedly, in a land where all men are created equal, but they don't stay that way for long. As Orwell put it: "Some animals are simply more equal than others."
So while you go on chewing on the official line that the recession ended a year ago and we are in a "recovery," another two million jobless citizens learned another uncomfortable truth about their dilemma when long term unemployment benefits were terminated for them this week. The Republicans, flush with new power obtained in the last election, shrug their shoulders and say they'd love to help out, but the benefits have to be paid for. Did I hear that correctly? Let me quietly inform them that, with a $1.3 trillion deficit, nothing is being paid for! Every aspect and facet of officialdom is deeply in the red. Was there money for the big banks to cover their bad bets and make good their losses? Yes, by the truckload. No questions asked. Will there be money for the unemployed? Sorry...We're closed.
Last December I wrote that 2010 would be the year when the truth would out concerning all the fraud and criminality of the banking system that destroyed our economy. It's certainly been an interesting year, and Wikileaks has barely scratched the tip of the iceberg. I'll have more to say about this in my annual interview with the Nattering Nabob for his 2011 predictions. Stay tuned.
