Wickedness Abides (James Howard Kunstler)

[Tace]

James Howard Kunstler -- World News Trust

"While Dubai is not big enough to set off financial repercussions outside the Middle East, the main fear is that investors could flee risky markets all at once in search of safer havens for their money." -- The NYT, Vikas Bajaj and Graham Bowley, reporting

Nov. 30, 2009 -- Apart from the stark self-contradiction in this quote from The New York Times, you have to love the fatuous "It's all good" self-assurance where global banking is concerned. No problemo y'all! A mere overdraft incident, a cash-flow hiccup... and yet "the main fear" is that investors could flee risky markets all at once in search of safer havens for their money . Gosh, well, as long as they don't flee the New York Stock Exchange, the Hang Seng, the FTSE.... And, hey, do you suppose anybody bought any credit default swap "insurance" on the deals that financed scores and scores of super-giant condominium skyscrapers and hotels amounting to the greatest spec construction folly in the history of the world?

Snapshots of the stupid fucking work-in-progress have been circulating around the Internet for five years, the disbelief was so monumental. I confess, when I first saw the Palm Island I was impressed at what a superb air-strike target it presented. And then, when the real estate assemblage of artificial islands arranged like a map-of-the-world came along, I could only imagine the megalomanical glee rising in the throat of a jet bomber pilot (nationality unspecified) as he closed in on it.

Whom the gods would punish, they first make completely crazy. That includes us, here in the USA, by the way, but pound-for-pound Dubai is the current champeen. The monstrosity they built in their waterless convection-oven of a city-state makes Las Vegas look like a mere strip mall in comparison. Throw in a few other affronts to nature, such as an indoor ski "mountain," a beach cooled by an under-the-sand refrigerated pipe network, golf courses that have to be hosed down with acre-feet of desalinated sea-water, and forget about "the gods" -- one begins to see the monotheistic hand of "Old Scratch" himself working the levers of the construction cranes out there.

Frankly, I have no idea whether the Dubai fiasco will send seismic ripples thundering through a global banking establishment that is already crippled in more ways than you can count. But it does remind those in thrall to the dazzlement of "green shoots" that debt comes a'creeping, and runs so far, deep, and wide through the broken system of mutual assurances constituting international finance, that Ben Bernanke and his counterparts in central banks 'round the world could drop helicopter loads of paper cash on every rooftop, intersection, parking lot, field, forest, and camel raceway and never make a dent in the fatal web of false obligations we have woven for ourselves.

more

http://worldnewstrust.com/news/commentary/wickedness-abides-james-howard-kunstler

[sui generis]

1. oh good grief.

this crazy fucker is talking about bombing the place? Wickedness? What the fuck?

It was a public works project that created jobs, addressed engineering challenges, and speaks to human vision whether some sour fucker in the U.S. agrees with that vision or not.

Where was this idiot when we were building the twin towers? Let me guess . . .

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Talk about totally misunderstanding an essay---and a place

"Human vision" and "engineering challenges" are outweighed by environmental recklessness and the near-slavery under which the holders of those "jobs" suffered.

[sui generis]

5. and that's different from corporate america how?

It's not misunderstanding - it's refusing to swallow the outrage-by-proxy.

There are very real reasons for the market issues that have nothing to do with this person's judgment of hubris that caused the problem; most notably the far and never ending reach of our own bubble burst and war-without-end. I just don't have any respect for misinformation, most especially if its only purpose is catharsis.

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. If only someone had given the Sheik (or for that matter, Goldman Sachs' Finest)

just a paperback copy of Quaker economist E F Schumacher's book, Small Is Beautiful. But would have taken any notice of the Ernst the Shoe's words of wisdom? Did GS' Finest? Hardly.

[TheWraith]

3. Fuck Mr. Y2K and his gibberish. nt