Category: Politik

Skoleskyderi i Finland – hvorfor sker sådan noget?

Fight Club
Hvorfor sker sådan noget, spurgte jeg 22. marts 2005 i anledning af en lignende begivenhed, hvor en 17-årig gymnasieelev gik amok og dræbte 10 mennesker – spurgte jeg uden at kunne give noget fornuftigt svar.

Nu er det sket igen på en skole i Finland – en ung mand på 20 år går amok og skyder vildt omkring sig.
Idet man faktisk godt kan forsøge at forstå et fænomen – jeg mener forstå, hvorfor det sker, hvordan det kan ske og hvordan det evt. kan forebygges – uden ligefrem at bifalde det, finder jeg det meget værdifuldt, at nogen faktisk forsøger at grave spadestikket dybere end automatreaktioner som fordømmelse, vantro og kritik af voldelige film og computerspil.

Lenin’s Tomb byder på en sådan lang, tænksom analyse med udgangspunkt i en bog af Mark Ames, der har udforsket området grundigt.

Det mest overraskende er måske ikke så meget mordenes uventede karakter som det er den forståelse, gerningsmændene ofte vil finde enten i de nærmeste omgivelser eller i tilsvarende “segmenter” af befolkningen.

Som et eksempel på det første nævnes en shoot-out begået i 1989 af en Joseph Wesbecker på hans arbejdslads, trykkeriet Standard Gravura – Wessbecker myrdede syv af sine kolleger og sårede tyve:

Ames was able to interview one of the survivors, Michael Campbell, whose body is deformed by the impact of six bullets from Wesbecker’s various munitions. Oh hell, Campbell has told Ames’ contact, “everybody supported him, everybody saw where he was coming from. His only problem was that he shot the wrong people.” He isn’t alone. Another worker at the plant tells Ames that Wesbecker was “pressed into it” And if he’d only got “the right people”, he would have “had a lot more sympathy. Still does, as it is!”

Hvad i al verden kan dog få Campbell til at sige sådan?

Der er her ikke tale om en enkelt mand, for hvem det hele bare slår klik, som det også i dette tilfælde blev forklaret i medierne, men om en desperat, forbitret reaktion på mere end et årtis mobning, pres og ringeagt.

Som Lenin forklarer, er dette hvad Ames fandt ud af:

In 1978, however, after working for the firm for seven years, he started to experience a multitude of problems – this was when he divorced his wife, when he son became sick and his other son got busted. In 1980, naturally enough, the stress of the work he had devoted himself to became too much. He requested that he be taken off ‘folder’ duty, and claimed that it was harming his health – other workers say that the ‘folder’ is indeed damaging. But the company refused to do so, and continued to refuse his request for years: no other worker wanted to take over, and he – a sort of laughing stock with both management and staff – didn’t have any leverage.

The union’s strength had been diminished by economic hard times, and a Reaganite anti-union drive was about to make it even weaker. The plants was exposed to severe job cuts and wage freezes, and the owners – the wealthy Bingham family – were secretly constructing a new plant in Tennessee to shift production. They told the union leadership, when it was discovered, that they had either to agree to austerity measures or face the plant’s closure. The union caved. So, when Wesbecker is expected to continue in a role that could well be killing him for a company that doesn’t appear to care about him and indeed seems intent either on getting rid of him or squeezing the last drop out of him, he looks for every means to escape.

The union will do little, so a doctor writes a letter for him begging the company to take him off the ‘folder’, to no avail. He files a discrimination complaint against the company on the grounds that he is diagnosed as a manic depressive, a form of incapacitation, and the company has made allowances for incapacitation in the past. The company’s ‘Human Resources’ department (how I hate those words, and those people) stonewalls, offering the county’s Human Relations Commission, which supports Wesbecker’s claim, an outlandish string of claims explaining why Wesbecker and only he must be available for the ‘folder’. Eventually, Wesbecker has to drop the claim and take medical leave for psychological stress. When he returns, instead of compromising, they stick him on long-term disability and drastically reduce his pay. The company was planning to cut his disability pension to 60% of its previous value in October 1989 – Wesbecker got them before they got him.

After his massacre, the company was destroyed and had to shut down: such was the aim. He wished to destroy both the specific agents he saw as responsible for his miserable condition and the company that encouraged the bullying and victimisation that he experienced.

I arbejdspladsmassakrer var dette ifølge Ames et mønster, der gik igen – det var ikke så meget en bestemt mennesketype, der begik disse forbrydelser, som det var et bestemt sæt af omstændigheder, der gik igen fra sag til sag:

Repeatedly, the killer is perceived as mild-mannered, pleasant, the last person to flip out. Repeatedly, it is discovered that the killer is experiencing either direct victimisation or serious distress as the corporate culture undermines basic conviviality. Repeatedly, the victims were picked off and others deliberately left to survive, with the supervisor being a primary target (often lucky enough to be out of the office, however). This is not random mayhem: it is insurgent rage.

Dette ville måske være stedet at indskyde, at selv nok så megen mobning og chikane ikke kan retfærdiggøre et shooting spree, der rammer uskyldige; og egentlig mener jeg personligt, at det er det enkelte menneskes pligt ikke at lade sig undertrykke og ikke finde sig i mobning og chikane, og altså heller slet ikke tillade det at stå på i årevis, som det er sket i disse sager.

Men alle mennesker er ikke lige stærke, og alle omstændigheder ikke lige nemme at komme ud af; f.eks. kunne man forestille sig, at en mand finder sig i chikane på arbejdspladsen, fordi der ikke er andet arbejde at få og familien ellers ville komme til at sulte.

Samtidig bliver det klart, at en god måde at undgå den slags arbejdspladsmassakrer på nok var at fremelske en arbejdspladskultur, hvor omsorg var reglen og mobning og chikane utænkelig – og hvor medarbejderne havde nogle sociale og faglige garantier, der gjorde det umuligt for selv den værste arbejdsplads at behandle nogen så svinsk, som Wesbecker blev behandlet.

Lenin mener dog, at mange ting i det økonomiske system i bl.a. USA trækker i en helt anden retning:

One document, an internal memo from the CEO of the Cernel Corporation, is sickening and vile in its attempt to bully the middle managers into bullying the staff more effectively. The car parks aren’t full at 8am, the boss whines, people are being allowed to come in late, and leave early. The managers are told that if they don’t make sure that everyone is at work, arriving half an hour early and leaving half an hour late, they will be fired: and this is to be achieved by out-of-hours emergency meetings with staff in which they are threatened with the boot. Staff numbers are cut, facilities are cut, benefits are frozen, etc etc. There ought, says the boss, to be pizza men arriving at 7.30pm to feed starving workers. And there is no shortage of official corporate ideology legitimising this. Welch explains, for instance, that fear is “healthy, like pain is healthy” because it “gets you out of that comfortable equilibrium”. It destroys “comfortable equilibrium” alright – sanity, marriages, families, livelihoods, communities…

Middle managers are therefore expected to humiliate and abuse, because it creates the necessary atmosphere for the efficient accumulation of capital. And surprise – the massacres often attempt to target victimising supervisors, screaming middle-managers, puffed up little tyrants who like to spy on the staff or threaten them with disciplinary action on the slightest grounds.

Jamen, hvorfor nu skolerne?
Men det kunne måske forklare lidt om, hvorfor massakrer er forekommet på de amerikanske arbejdspladser. Men hvorfor skolerne? Hvad driver folk som Dylan Klebold og Eric Harris, de to gerningsmænd i Colombine-massakren?

Hvad der er bemærkelsesværdigt er, at Klebold og Harris faktisk er helte blandt et betydeligt segment af den amerikanske ungdom, unge mennesker, der mødes anonymt i chat-rooms og debatfora og udveksler meninger om “St. Eric” og “St. Dylan”.

Hvorfor? Og hvilken slags unge mennesker ser op til sådanne uhyrer, mennesker som – i hvert fald i min opfattelse – vidt overskrider grænsen mellem, hvad der kan og ikke kan forsvares?

Vel, ifølge Ames er der mange af de samme ting på spil – Ames hævder faktisk, at det slet ikke er muligt at profilere gerningsmændene, kun de omstændigheder der frembringer dem:

As has been repeatedly pointed out, no successful profile of a typical school shooter has yet been devised. Good students, bad students, wealthy ones, poor ones, ones from stable familes, others from broken homes… there’s no archetype. This is because, as Ames puts it, “It isn’t the office or schoolyard shooters who need to be profiled – they can’t be. It is the workplaces and schools that need to be profiled”. Now, this bit is rather crucial. I quote verbatim from his list of characteristics to watch for:

– complaints about bullying go unpunished by an administration that supports the cruel social structure;

– antiseptic corridors and overhead fluourescent lights reminiscent of a mid-sized airports;

– rampant moral hypocrisy that promotes the most two-faced, mean, and shallow students to the top of the pecking order; and

– maximally stressed parents push their kids to achieve higher and higher scores.

Pointen i Ames’ punkt nummer to er, at triste, fremmedgørende omgivelser forværrer effekten af års mobning og ydmygelse.

Så reelt er der mange af de samme ting på spil som i ved arbejdspladsmassakrerne: “Many of the most miserable, demeaning things that can happen at work can happen at school, and anyone who remembers their school years knows that it seems to matter a great deal more at that age, and it seems to last forever, even if its only a few years“.

Hvis man gerne vil undgå flere af den slags massakrer (og det vil man!), er det altså ikke de potentielle gerningsmænd, man skal profilere – det er omgivelserne.

Og dette forekommer i mine øjne at være en endog meget vigtig indsigt, såvel som et i mine øjne endog meget vægtigt bidrag til fremtidig forebyggelse af om ikke alle, så dog mange af den slags tragedier.

Link til analysen hos Lenin’s Tomb.
Link til Mark Ames’ fremragende artikel om Virginia Tech-massakren.

The big bailout – moderne tids største tyveri?

Det kan godt være, der er nogen, der er glade for amerikanernes store økonomiske “redningsaktion“, og det kan også godt være, den er nødvendig, men… er det virkelig godt at lade finansverdenen køre friløb i årevis, ophobe hidtil usete profitter, pumpe penge ud til dårlige lån baseret på en “boble” i form af boligprisernes himmelflugt, og så simpelt hen friholde dem, der har forårsaget miseren – på alle andres bekostning?

Glenn Greenwald er ikke tilfreds:

Whatever else is true, the events of the last week are the most momentous events of the Bush era in terms of defining what kind of country we are and how we function — and before this week, the last eight years have been quite momentous, so that is saying a lot. Again, regardless of whether this nationalization/bailout scheme is “necessary” or makes utilitarian sense, it is a crime of the highest order — not a “crime” in the legal sense but in a more meaningful sense.

What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism — where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We’ve retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.

Måske det simpelt hen er Bush-regeringens grande finale: Efter en inkompetent ført krig i Irak, baseret på en løgn, efter at have gjort USA til krigsforbrydelsernes og torturens internationale bannerfører, efter skamløst at have gennemførst ulovlige aflytninger af tusinder af amerikanere, efter Guantanamo og Abu Ghraib, skulle der jo ligesom noget til, som de for alvor kan huskes for.

Mange havde frygtet, at det ville blive en krig mod Iran – en ulykke, som Bush-regeringen dog ikke har fundet for godt at påføre verden, og som den amerikanske hær næppe er klædt på til heller. Men … verdenshistoriens største tyveri, 700 milliarder dollars (ca. 4 trillioner kroner) hældt direkte fra skatteydernes lommer over til Bushs venner på Wall Street – det er vel et lige så godt bud?

Camre: “Islam ud af Europa”

Mogens Camre holdt søndag middag en tale til Dansk Folkepartis årsmøde, hvor han kræver “islam ud af Europa”, skriver Berlingske Tidende:

“Islam kan ikke integreres. Islam vil dominere Europa. Og islam er uforenelig med vores værdier. Derfor skal islam sendes ud af Europa,” tordnede Mogens Camre og modtog efterfølgende et stort bifald fra salen.

Berlingske Tidende påpeger, at forhenværende medlem af Dansk Folkeparti Merethe Egeberg Holm sidste år sagde næsten det samme fra samme talerstol, da hun udbrød “Ud med alle muslimer i Europa og ind med jøderne i stedet!”

Holm blev efterfølgende ekskluderet fra Dansk Folkeparti. Det vil næppe overgå Camre, men man må unægtelig indrømme, at hans krav rejser nogle praktiske problemer. Hvordan vil man smide “islam” ud af Europa? Islam er et abstrakt begreb, der er til stede, overalt hvor der er muslimer.

Der bor en del muslimer i Europa. Hvad vil Camre gøre ved det? Smide alle muslimer ud – men hvor skulle de i givet fald tage hen? Tvangskonvertere dem, der ønsker at blive?  Og hvad med konvertitter og andre europæiske statsborgere, som trods alt har 100% lige så meget ret til at være her som alle andre, ja, som Camre selv?

Og hvad så med det, der bliver tilbage af samfundet? I Storbritannien ville sundheds- og skolevæsnet nærmest forsvinde, hvis det ikke var for indvandrere fra nær og fjern. Og hvad så i øvrigt med muslimer i Bosnien og Albanien, som også er en slags Europa?

Og hvad med religionsfriheden?

Enhver journalist med respekt for sig selv burde fra nu af gå ud fra, at hvis Mogens Camre ikke bliver smidt ud af Dansk Folkeparti for dette her, så er det Dansk Folkepartis officielle politik, at alle muslimer skal smides ud af Europa, og indrette deres spørgsmål til partiets talsmænd efter det.

Problemet er ikke, at jeg tror, det ikke kunne lade sig gøre at smide “islam ud af Europa”. Det 20. århundredes historie viser uhyggeligt og smerteligt, at det kan lade sig gøre. Men … ønsker Dansk Folkeparti med Camre i spidsen virkelig at lade præcis den samme retorik føre os ud over den samme kant én gang til?

Det virker helt utroligt.

Kvinder i Alaska siger nej til Sarah Palin

Jeg har modtaget nedenstående i en mail fra en bekendt i USA:

Alaska Women Reject Palin

Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was to be held outside on the lawn in front of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage. Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women, or men. I had no idea what to expect.

The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee. It made me wonder what other things have started with small groups of women talking over coffee. It’s probably an impressive list. These women hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to local media outlets. One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, a long-time uber-conservative Anchorage talk show host. Turns out that Eddie Burke not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally “a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots,” and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call and tell them what they thought. The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

I felt a bit apprehensive. I’d been disappointed before by the turnout at other rallies. Basically, in Anchorage, if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it’s a success. So, I thought to myself, if we can actually get 100 people there that aren’t sent by Eddie Burke, we’ll be doing good. A real statement will have been made. I confess, I still had a mental image of 15 demonstrators surrounded by hundreds of menacing “socialist baby-killing maggot” haters.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t tailgating when I saw the crowd in front of the library or I would have ended up in somebody’s trunk. When I got there, about 20 minutes early, the line of sign wavers stretched the full length of the library grounds, along the edge of the road, 6 or 7 people deep! I could hardly find a place to park. I nabbed one of the last spots in the library lot, and as I got out of the car and started walking, people seemed to join in from every direction, carrying signs.

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was
absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn’t honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn’t happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up. He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn’t be heard. Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

So, if you’ve been doing the math Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin’s rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery. Feel free to spread the pictures around to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans. The citizens of Alaska, who know her best, have things to say.

Krakkede investeringsfirmaer blev fritaget for kontrol

Firma: Jeg fylder lommen uden din intervention - Staten: Men hvis du taber, giver jeg

SEC svarer vel nærmest til det danske Børstilsyn, og SEC har altså bevidst vendt øjnene væk fra de største firmaers excesser:

As we learn this morning via Julie Satow of the NY Sun, special exemptions from the SEC are in large part responsible for the huge build up in financial sector leverage over the past 4 years — as well as the massive current unwind

Satow interviews the above quoted former SEC director, and he spits out the blunt truth: The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms.

You read that right — the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1.

Instead, the 2004 exemption — given only to 5 firms — allowed them to lever up 30 and even 40 to 1.

Who were the five that received this special exemption? You won’t be surprised to learn that they were Goldman, Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.

As Mr. Pickard points out that “The proof is in the pudding — three of the five broker-dealers have blown up.”

So while the SEC runs around reinstating short selling rules, and clueless pension fund managers mindlessly point to the wrong issue, we learn that it was the SEC who was in large part responsible for the reckless leverage that led to the current crisis.

You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

Lad de store komme til fadet – skatteyderne tager skraldet, og fanden tager de bagerste. Sand risikovilje: Hvis jeg vinder, rydder jeg bordet, hvis jeg taber, kan vi dele i porten. Heads I win, tails the taxpayers lose, som Paul Krugman siger.

En passende mindesten over Bush-æraen. (Via Boing Boing)

Hvor er racismen?

Læserbrev sakset fra Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

How racism works

What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?

What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?

What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama were a member of the “Keating 5“?
What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election
numbers would be as close as they are?

Punditokraterne: Legaliser narkotika

STOP PRESS! Et fornuftigt og velovervejet indlæg hos Punditokraterne.  Will wonders never cease?

Niels Westy taler om og især imod diverse populistiske forslag om at “slå hårdt ned” på de seneste dages vold på Nørrebro (politiet lover en “offensiv og hård strategi“, som vil være lige præcis lige så nyttesløs) og foreslår i stedet at fjerne markedet ved at legalisere de stoffer, striden antages at stå om:

Det er utrolig[t], at på trods af, at bekæmpelsen af narkotihandlen og den medfølgende kriminalitet – det være sig herhjemme eller i udlandet – har været en lang perlerække af ufatteligt omkostningsfyldte fiaskoer, både økonomisk og menneskeligt, så er der åbenbart politisk konsensus om at lukke øjnene for virkeligheden, og lade s[om] om, at politiet rent faktisk kan gøre noget.

Men hvis man ønsker effektivt at bekæmpe den organiserede kriminalitet, er det noget helt andet der skal til, man skal nemlig fjerne deres indtægtsgrundlag – og her er både den billigste, effektiveste og mest humane fremgangsmåde at afkriminalisere narkotikahandlen i en eller anden form.

Desværre er der intet der tyder på at politikerne har lært noget som helst af den massive historiske data, der entydigt viser, at det ikke er muligt at vinde kampen mod narkotika.

Tværtimod: Krigen mod narkotika er strøet med ofre, men brugen af narkotika er ikke iblandt dem. Krigen mod narkotika tillader os nok at holde den “puritanske”, moralske fane højt, men prisen i form af menneskelig lidelse er høj. Jeg skrev det selv for år tilbage, i en artikel om, hvorfor narkotika bør legaliseres:

Hvis vi virkelig er i krig mod stofferne, er der ikke noget, der tyder på, at det er stofferne, der er ved at tabe. Det må være muligt at gribe det bare en smule mere intelligent an.

Læs også:

USA – torturens spydspids

Leftist scumbag Andrew Sullivan opsummerer, hvordan USA nu står i spidsen for torturens globale revival:

A new survey of global public opinion [PDF] reveals the appalling truth. Americans are now among the people on earth most supportive of government’s torturing prisoners. The United States is in the same public opinion ballpark as some of the most disgusting regimes on the planet:

Support for the unequivocal position was highest in Spain (82%), Great Britain (82%) and France (82%), followed by Mexico (73%), China (66%), the Palestinian territories (66%), Poland (62%), Indonesia (61%), and the Ukraine (59%).   In five countries either modest majorities or pluralities support a ban on all torture:  Azerbaijan (54%), Egypt (54%), the United States (53%), Russia (49%), and Iran (43%).  South Koreans are divided.

So America’s peers in the fight against torture, in terms of public opinion are Azerbaijan, Egypt, Russia, and Iran. This is what America now is: a country with the moral values of countries that routinely torture and abuse prisoners, like Egypt and Iran.

Gad vide om diverse Hollywoodfilm af den slags, hvor den heltemodige cop tæver det levende dagslys ud af skurke, som herefter straks kryber til korset, spiller ind – jeg holder selv meget af Hollywood-film, men har det ikke altid helt godt med den konstante legitimering af politivold.

Eftersom tortur stort set altid rammer folk, som senere viser sig at være uskyldige, er det i alle tilfælde knap så hensigtsmæssigt; er voldelige overgreb virkelig altid helt fjong, når bare de bliver begået af folk i uniform?

Sully runder af:

The only other countries where support for torturing terror suspects has grown are India, Nigeria, Turkey, South Korea and Egypt. In all other developed countries, support for an absolute ban on torture has actually risen in the past two years. America is now leading the way in legitimizing and celebrating torture as a legitimate tool for governments.

This is the Bush-Cheney legacy – to be continued under McCain-Palin. McCain was once a torture victim, but since 2006 has supported the torture of prisoners by the CIA. In fact, prisoners across the world who have been tortured by the CIA in the last two years can, in the terror of their cells, know that John McCain made it possible, by caving into the war criminals in the White House in 2006.

How can the country that pioneered the Geneva Conventions now be a nation more supportive of torture than any other developed nation on earth? Of course, it matters that we have had a president and vice-president actively endorsing and campaigning for the use of torture, and torturing prisoners routinely in jails where there is no escape and no due process. But the key segment of the pro-torture enthusiasts are evangelical Christians. Yes: evangelical Christians are now the greatest supporters of doing to prisoners what was once done to Christ.

Det er dem, vi følger som en hund sin herre: de torterende, krigsførende amerikanere og deres gale kristne evangelister. Men selvfølgelig holder vi dem skarpt op på vore egne standarder for menneskerettigheder! – der er endda set eksempler på, at CIA-hold er blevet nægtet kaffe, når de tanker op  i Kastrup  på vejen fra Guantanamo til Damaskus.

Se blot, hvordan vor egen standhaftige Fogh viser den frie verdens leder, hvor skabet skal stå.

Krisen skyldes grådighed og inkompetence

Ja, det er ikke mig, der siger det, men Nobelprisøkonomen Joseph Stiglitz.

En alternativ forklaring, der er ved at vinde udbredelse i liberale og republikanske kredse i USA, er, at det skyldes de huskøbere, der har ladet sig lokke af de billige lån til flekslignende rentevilkår. Omend måske det var mere relevant at skyde skylden på de lånehajer, som i stor stil har udlånt pengene på umulige vilkår, udbetalt store bonusser til sig selv og herefter tørret ansvaret af på andre, så vidt muligt gerne på skatteyderne, som vi også har set ved Roskilde Bank.

Stiglitz skriver i hvert fald:

The new low in the financial crisis, which has prompted comparisons with the 1929 Wall Street crash, is the fruit of a pattern of dishonesty on the part of financial institutions, and incompetence on the part of policymakers.

We had become accustomed to the hypocrisy. The banks reject any suggestion they should face regulation, rebuff any move towards anti-trust measures – yet when trouble strikes, all of a sudden they demand state intervention: they must be bailed out; they are too big, too important to be allowed to fail.

The present financial crisis springs from a catastrophic collapse in confidence. The banks were laying huge bets with each other over loans and assets. Complex transactions were designed to move risk and disguise the sliding value of assets. In this game there are winners and losers. And it’s not a zero-sum game, it’s a negative-sum game: as people wake up to the smoke and mirrors in the financial system, as people grow averse to risk, losses occur; the market as a whole plummets and everyone loses.

Og så er det selvfølgelig spørgsmålet, eller om det som ved tidligere kriser nogenlunde kan lykkes at ride stormen af. I alle tilfælde kan krisen gribe ind i valgkampen og måske give Obama det momentum, der skal til for at vinde valget.

Og måske der vitterlig også skal en demokratisk politik – med et FDR-lignende investeringsprogram og en tilhørende renopretning af velfærdsstaten (den velfærdsstat, som også i Danmark hænger i laser) – til for at rebe sejlene.

Stiglitz har i hvert fald ikke megen tillid til Bush-regeringens evne til at klare ærterne:

It is difficult to have faith in the policy wherewithal of a government that oversaw the utter mismanagement of the war in Iraq and the response to Hurricane Katrina. If any administration can turn this crisis into another depression, it is the Bush administration.

Hvor galt det går, får vi så at se. Som Stiglitz gør opmærksom på, er netop de værste af de finansielle dårligdomme, der har udløst krisen i USA, eksporteret til resten af verden. Også i Danmark risikerer vi at komme til at betale prisen.

Link: The fruit of hypocrisy

Det går rigtig godt med økonomien

Ikke noget at se her, passér gaden!

De uansvarlige venstreorienterede inde på Politiken har tydeligvis ikke fattet, hvor godt det går, men det var vel også bare, hvad man måtte forvente:

»Hvis de øvrige finansielle institutioner bliver nervøse og ikke vil låne penge til de resterende banker, så vil det få stor betydning – også for de almindelige amerikanere. Lavkonjunkturen bliver forværret og det får ubehagelige konsekvenser for boligmarkedet«, siger Per H. Hansen og uddyber:

»Situationen skaber mere usikkerhed på de finansielle markeder internationalt. Bankerne låner løbende penge til hinanden, og den situation bygger på en klar aftale og forståelse af, at man får sine penge igen. Den forståelse er ved at være lidt flosset, for bankerne kan ikke længere gennemskue, hvilke banker der er risikable at låne penge ud til«.

»Højkonjunkturen var blevet blæst op til en boble, der nu er bristet, og konsekvensen er, at bankerne bliver meget forsigtige og dermed trækker endnu mere luft ud af lavkonjunkturen. Bankerne spiller en væsentlig rolle i økonomien, men usikkerheden i øjeblikket lammer bankerne, og dermed er vi inde i en ond spiral«.

Ond spiral – faldende huspriser, vissevasse. Alt, hvad der skal til, er McCain som præsident og flere skattelettelser til de rige, så skal alt nok blive godt.

De uansvarlige venstreorienterede inde på Jyllands-Posten har heller ikke set lyset – “pengekrisen har sænket Forstædernes Bank, og Handelsbanken overtager en lokalbank”, hedder det. Flere skattelettelser og sociale nedskæringer, siger jeg, så skal alt nok blive godt!

In other news taler Nacho Escolar om en lignende udvikling i Spanien, hvor presset på regeringen udmønter sig i en “murstensafpresning” – en joke, der går på spansk økonomis årelange forgudelse af “murstenene”, forestillingen om, at man “ejer” noget, fordi man har et skøde og en kolossal kreditforeningsgæld.

Over hele verden begynder taberne af det pyramidespil, der hedder “ejendomspriser”, at få kolde fødder. Jeg ser frem til et indlæg fra hele Danmarks liberale helte, der forklarer, hvorfor alt i virkeligheden er godt, og alt hvad der skal til er lidt skattelettelser og sociale nedskæringer og så skal “markedet” nok finde ud af resten. Passér gaden, og lad være med at tro på alt, hvad du læser i MSM!