Want to Know Who Really Runs the United States?

 

A Visit to Zombie Town

Dow down 99 points on Monday. Gold fell $28 an ounce – its fourth straight day of losses. Stock markets have been slipping all over the world, especially in Europe. But outside of Russia, and maybe Greece, so far there is no sign of real panic. That will come later.

We’re spending this week in Washington, zombie watching. Yesterday, we spent the evening in the lobby of The Willard hotel. A choir sang carols.

 

“Hark the herald angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King!”

 

In one corner a group of cronies sat negotiating a deal; whose ox they were goring we don’t know. Pairs of women sipped their champagne and nibbled their cookies. A few tourists gawked at the splendor of it: a Christmas tree worthy of Yosemite… ceilings rivaling those of the Louvre.

 

dre-blog2 Photo credit: Andrew Bossi

 

Your editor – his laptop in one hand and a glass of Cabernet in the other – sat in another corner, enjoying the singing and inconspicuously recording events.

 

As Timeless as Prostitution

Politics is the leading industry in this town. When JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was on line on Thursday, the other end of the line was here. Dimon was adding his backing to the so-called “cromnibus” bill – which, among other things, again allows Wall Street banks to take risky derivative bets with consumer deposits.

Here’s one of our dear readers with the story:

 

“The US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, stepped into the ring.

Perhaps what prompted his intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out, that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks.”

 

Compared to New York, D.C. is remarkably quiet. Not too much traffic yesterday. Few people on the streets in the downtown area. It was quiet, calm, peaceful – like the beginning of a horror movie.

Our hotel has a completely different clientele and atmosphere than the boutique New York hotel we stayed in last week. In Lower Manhattan we saw “hipsters” and artists… publishers and filmmakers. Everyone seemed young and fashionable. The shops were busy. The old buildings – with their industrial windows and loading docks – recalled yesterday’s.

Washington, on the other hand, is as timeless as prostitution. Here, men still wear business suits and ties. Women are not quite as chic as New Yorkers. All look as though they take themselves too seriously… as though the future of the planet depends on what they did today. They must be trying to compensate for the fact that their work – and their lives – are parasitic and pointless.

They come and go in the hotel lobby. One is off to try to pull a little pork out of a Nebraska senator. Another is looking for help with a Pentagon contract. They are all zombies, we reckon, all getting without giving anything of any real value.

 

Zombie InvasionDon’t believe that Washington is zombie infested? Think again.

Photo via gothic.net

 

Jamie Dimon – Hero

Dimon must be a hero to this crowd…

He is not in politics … and not even a full-fledged master of zombie arts. After all, he must spend some of his time at JPMorgan Chase offering real services – or at least the appearance of them – to get clients to part with their money.

On Thursday, he did the rest of the nation a grave disservice. But in helping to push Republicans and Democrats to the scammy bipartisan “cromnibus” bill, he helped keep the lights on in Washington.

The federal government was getting ready to shut down. Then Dimon got on the phone. It was probably a tit-for-tat payback. The feds helped keep his lights on in 2008. Now, he has repaid the favor.

Colleague Dan Denning, newly returned from 10 years in Australia, is appalled. He was a congressional page 25 years ago. All of the twisted roots he saw sink into the D.C. earth in the 1980s have now grown into full-sized trash trees. They now cast their long shadows over Washington… and the nation.

It was in the beginning of the 1980s that President Reagan’s budget director David Stockman lost his famous battle for the soul of the Republican Party.

Stockman believed the GOP should remain true to its best traditions and should demand balanced federal budgets. But the progressive wing of the party was more interested in winning elections and distributing pork than in fiscal rectitude.

The Reagan administration went on to run some of the biggest deficits in history. And that was just the beginning. Among the bits of grease in the $1.1 trillion spending bill passed Saturday night was a provision allowing Dimon’s Wall Street cronies to “donate” up to $230,000 each to the Republicans and Democrats. This will help cement their control of the political process.

It was a win-win deal: Dimon got something. And the feds got something. That must be why the Wall Street Journal labeled it a “rare bipartisan success.” We understand the bipartisan success part: Both Washington and Wall Street benefited.

It’s the “rare” part we don’t understand.

 

dimonbillfoldBehold this here billfold, which shall henceforth be wide open to zombies on both sides of the aisle, so that they may continue to preserve our hard-won privileges in bi-partisan unity, amen.

Photo credit: AFP

 

The above article is taken from the Diary of a Rogue Economist originally written for Bonner & Partners. Bill Bonner founded Agora, Inc in 1978. It has since grown into one of the largest independent newsletter publishing companies in the world. He has also written three New York Times bestselling books, Financial Reckoning Day, Empire of Debt and Mobs, Messiahs and Markets.

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Michael deloatch
Michael deloatch

you know I object strenuously to all the noise about raising the contribution limit everyone knows a dollar just doesn’t go anywhere anymore they’re just cushioning for another 99% haircut on real worth of USD in next year or so

TE
TE

@Michael, mind telling me why the limits for income reporting haven’t budged in nearly 30 years if the dollar isn’t worth less? Or the minimum income required to file taxes? Minimum wage has more than tripled yet those limits remain the SAME.

Why is it that the banks, and banksters, don’t pay full boat SS or tax on their earnings like the poor schmuck that makes $10 an hour has to?

Why is it that the banks and brokerages can issue and reissue multiple income reporting all the way through November, pay not a freaking dime in fines, but the fact their lousy paperwork costs citizens in extra taxes and fines is A-OK with us all?

Why is it that only the uber rich and connected get the benefit of the destruction of our currency, and country?

I object. STRENUOUSLY.

F*ck them all.

But, no worries, the bad shit ain’t going down until after January 20 when the Repuke majority is sworn in.

THEN the bad shit can happen and the blame game will carry Hillary – or whatever evil is lurking for us next – into the WH in ’16. JUST like it happened for O in ’08.

Saddest part of this shit is how distracted and polluted most ‘murkins thoughts are. They truly have no idea what is going on and will band behind whatever crap the MSM touts. As proven by the torture polls.

No wonder it appears God has turned his back on us. After thousands of years of this shit, could you blame him?

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