The Consumer Trap

Archive for February, 2009

Friday, February 20th, 2009

“Helping Homeowners”: Behind the Bullshit

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Of Boondoggles and the Memory Hole

Remember way back in 2008, when the federal government had to rescue the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, both of which had ruined themselves by making too many mortgage loans during the inflation phase of the housing bubble?  Remember how, way back in 2008, there were campaign promises that the lax lending would be restricted, in order to prevent a recurrence of the implosion?

Guess what.  That’s right:

Seeking to stabilize the foundering housing market, President Obama is offering a plan to help as many as nine million families refinance their mortgages or avoid foreclosure, according to a summary released by the White House on Wednesday morning.

Included in the package is a move to ease some restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which guarantee millions of home loans. Generally Fannie and Freddie cannot guarantee refinancing on mortgages valued at more than 80 percent of the home’s worth.

But the president’s plan would remove that restriction on mortgages the lending giants already own or guarantee.  [The New York Times, February 18, 2009]

Dmitry Orlov is right:  The USA’s ultra-decrepit overclass is completely out of real answers.  All it can do is throw new capitalist boondoggles on top of the craters left by the collapse of the old ones.

And, as they do this, they are displaying a truly Orwellian capacity for forgetting yesterday’s ancient history.

Meanwhile, the cravenness and market-totalitarian stupidity of the Obama Administration, which starts right where the buck supposedly stops, is yet more solid proof that, as the great Noam Chomsky says, we live in a one-party state.  There is the Business Party, which has two wings, called “Republicans” and “Democrats.”

Batten down the hatches, folks.  The worst is yet to come, and the flood will be very deep…

Friday, February 13th, 2009

Market Totalitarian Quote of the Week

“And we want to retain a strong sense of that private capital fulfilling the core — core investment needs of this country.”

– Barack Obama, February 10, 2009

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

The Bonfire of the Retail Vanities

The above two images [click them for a larger view] are of the row of shops across the street from the law office where I work.

From left to right, here is the list of these oh-so-vital service-providers:

Sofa – Table – Chair, upscale furniture boutique

Wishing Well Floral & Gifts

Bone-Jour, gourmet dog food bakery (I’m not making this up!)

Miss Meers, women’s “Sex and the City”-style shoe boutique

Sit Still, haircuts for toddlers

Spoiled Rotten, upscale children’s clothes

Aqua Nails Bar, purveyor of manicures and pedicures

Seeing this string of shops, you have to wonder pretty hard about the future of this society.  This is the stuff for which we allow our overclass to continue closing factories and dictating the technologies and terms of “our” supposedly non-negotiable way of life?  This is the bedrock of an economy?

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

Obamanocchio: “Papa, I Want to be a Real Banker-Boy”

The proof that Brand Obama is merely a re-labeling of Brand Clinton and Brand Reagan could hardly be coming harder and faster.

The latest revelation is the new-and-not-improved economic give-away, which is as venal as it is hopelessly, laughably, moronically, decrepitly ill-targeted.

The great Doug Henwood puts it this way:

They’re worse than I expected, and I wasn’t expecting much in the first place (see: Obamamania, a febrile disease).

[I]t looks like the Treasury and the Fed will pump up some $250-500 billion to help hedge funds buy bad assets – with the FDIC guaranteeing the buyers against losses.  In internal administration battles, Geithner “successfully fought against” stricter rules on executive pay, and beat back the attempts to replace top maangement.

Of course, to say that Geithner won these battles is to say that Obama agreed with him. Once again, the embodiment of hope and change went with the status quo when he didn’t really have to. There would have been little political price to pay for putting the screws to the banksters.

This is looking more and more like Japan’s disastrous indulgence of their “zombie banks” in the 1990s than Sweden’s successful bailout, the model for the “nationalize them and clear the decks” approach. Instead of a few rough years, we’re likely to get a miserable decade.

For what it’s worth, my own view is this:

The problem is that making new loans is not only not the right answer, it’s not even possible. The Reagan Revolution /Great Restoration/New Democrats strategy of relying on credit expansion to fill the demand hole caused by heightened fucking of the working class is now at its final — and completely logical — end.  Either we start to reverse the basic class-fuck from above, or this depression continues to deepen.

Meanwhile, it’s important to ask:  What’s the dream outcome of what’s being attempted by Obama?  Another six month round of credit card balance transfers and fever-brained real estate bidding wars?  Based on what underlying new real production and income?

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

The Plug-In Drug

Here it comes, folks.  They’re beginning the serious ramp-up for selling you “hybrid” automobiles.

This sales effort is going to rely on you remaining woefully under-informed about the basic physics of cars and cars-first transportation.

They want you thinking like this:

To keep you there, they have to hide many facts, including the fact that, in this universe, nothing comes from nowhere.  Hence, having everybody frequently rolling around at high speeds in fragile metal boxes with up to 8,000 often complex parts in them is always going to be the quintessence of an unsustainable activity.

Making lithium-ion batteries, for instance, requires vast extraction of a finite natural resource, production of which starts like this:

As the corporate capitalist hybrid hype mounts, you are also going to continue to be denied access to knowledge of the fact that, even in the best-case scenario — complete fleet replacement, the cessation of aggressive driving habits, etc. — plug-in hybrid  electric vehicles (a.k.a., PHEVs) would only reduce per-vehicle petroleum use by 45% in the USA.

Meanwhile, “the long-term incremental costs of these vehicles are projected to exceed US$8,000, with near-term costs being significantly higher.”

In other words, who among us is going to be able to buy these rolling distractions-from-reality?