Watch this meltdown as it happened live on tv, I think most of the people watching CNBC were probably confused as hell...

I was at first, but I caught on quick, the bottom line is everything you see happening around you is an illusion, kind of like everything you learned in school...no value except in this crooked system which is now breaking down.  . . read more

After reviewing the contents of this Citibank-friendly new law called the Financial Modernization Act, I asked him: "Do you think the big banks have too much power"?

He paused for a few seconds and replied: "Not Yet." Intrigued by his two word answer, I noted the rejection of modest pro-consumer provisions, adding that now that the banks had had their round, wasn't it time for the consumers to have their own round soon?

He allowed that such an expectation was not unreasonable and that he was willing to meet with some seasoned consumer advocates and go over such an agenda. We sent him an agenda, and met with Mr. Summers and his staff. Unfortunately, neither his boss, Bill Clinton, nor the Congress were in any mood to revisit this heavily lobbied federal deregulation law and reconsider the blocked consumer rights.

The rest is unfolding, tragic history. The law abolished the Glass-Steagall Act which separated commercial banking from investment banking. This opened the floodgates for unwise mergers, acquisitions and other unregulated risky financial instruments. Laced with limitless greed, casino capitalism ran wild, tanking economies here and abroad.

One champion of this market fundamentalism was Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve. Last October before a House Committee, Greenspan admitted he was mistaken and expressed astonishment at how corporations could not even safeguard their own self-interest from going over steep speculative cliffs.

Greenspan and Summers were deemed "brilliant" by the press and most of Congress. Summers' predecessor at Treasury, Robert Rubin, was also a charter member of the Oracles--those larger-than-life men who just knew that the unfettered market and giant financial conglomerates would be the one-stop shopping mart consumers were assumed to be craving.

Now the world knows that these men belong to the "oops oligarchy" that bails itself out while it lets the companies collapse into the handcuffed arms of Uncle Sam and bridled taxpayers who have to pay for unconditional megabailouts. Instead of the Wall Street crooks being convicted and imprisoned, they have fled the jurisdiction with their self-determined compensation. Corporate crime pays, while pensions and mutual fund savings evaporate.

Now comes the next stage of the Washington rescue effort in a variety of stimulus packages which every vendor group imaginable wants a piece of these days. When trillions are offered, many come running.

As the public focus is on how much, when and where all this money should be spent, there are very serious consequences to be foreseen and forestalled. First, consider how much more concentrated corporate power is occurring. Forced or willing mergers, acquisitions and panic takeovers of big banks by bigger banks along with bankruptcies of companies further reduce what is left of quality competition for consumer benefit.

Remember the anti-trust laws. Obama needs to be their champion. The fallout from the Wall Street binge is likely to lead to a country run by an even smaller handful of monopolistic global goliaths.

In the stampede for stimulus legislation, there is a foreboding feeling on Capitol Hill that there is no proposal on the table to pay for it other than by the children and grandchildren. Just the opposite is raining down on them. Everybody including the private equity gamblers, Las Vegas casinos and Hollywood studios along with the banks and auto companies are looking for tax breaks.

So with the economy deteriorating and taxes being cut, where is the enormous money coming from? From borrowing and from printing money. So look out for big time inflation and decline in the dollar?s value vis-à-vis other currencies.

In all the hundreds of pages of stimulus bills, there is nothing that would facilitate the banding together of consumers and investors into strong advocacy groups. We have long proposed Financial Consumer Associations, privately and voluntarily funded through inserts in the monthly statements of financial firms.

If this bailout-stimulus-Wall Street funny money waste, fraud and abuse sounds confusing, that is because it is. A brand new paperback "Why Wall Street Can't Be Fixed and How to Replace It: Agenda For a New Economy" by long-time corporate critic, David C. Korten will explain some of the wheeling and dealing.

You don't have to agree with all or many of Korten?s nostrums. Just read Part II: the Case For Eliminating Wall Street. He considers three central questions:

First, do Wall Street Institutions do anything so vital for the national interest that they justify trillions of dollars to save them from the consequences of their own excess?

Second, is it possible that the whole Wall Street edifice is built on an illusion of phantom wealth that carries deadly economic, social, and environmental consequences for the larger society?

Third, are there other ways to provide needed financial services with greater results and at lesser cost?

Ralph Nader is an American attorney, author, lecturer, political activist, and perennial candidate for presidency as an independent candidate. . . read more

It's certainly true that U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson doesn't look much like the traditional depiction of Santa Claus.  However, in 2008 America he is playing that role with a vengeance which will undoubtedly affect and afflict all of us for decades to come.  Indeed, Santa Henry's trillion-dollar giveaway to those who caused much of the present financial crisis is already arriving.  While it may seem paradoxical, not to mention inappropriate, to reward those who got us into the present economic mess, Santa Henry is loyal to his former Wall Street colleagues, investment bankers, and other assorted cronies.  They are Santa Henry's Elves, in a manner of speaking. . . read more

It's holiday season in Manhattan and despite the economic downturn, there seems to be no shortage of well-dressed humans cavorting, laughing, and spending freely. Walking among them, a homeless man begs for money-shaking his tattered coffee cup (adorned with images of Greek architecture) to rattle the few coins therein. A veteran of the first Gulf War, this man is no longer concerned with yellow ribbons. Right now, he'd settle for a scrap of food and a dry pair of shoes.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and nearly 400,000 experience homelessness over the course of a year. Forty-five percent of America's homeless veterans suffer from mental illness and half have substance abuse problems. According to the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients, veterans account for 23% of all homeless people in America.

The homeless vet is barely noticed by the 30-something corporate lawyer whizzing past him, on his way to dinner. It's a holiday gathering to celebrate hope, change, and all that good stuff. The lawyer-still proudly wearing his Obama button-is running late and his colleagues have already ordered appetizers: shrimp cocktails all around (for only $17 each).

The United Nations Environment Program has estimated that a quarter of the destruction of mangrove forests stems from shrimp farming. After the 2008 Burma cyclone, Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan blamed "encroachment into mangrove forests, which used to serve as a buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and residential areas." He added: "All those lands have been destroyed. Human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces."

The homeless vet sees a Wall Street type-still proudly wearing his Obama button-approaching him. "Hey buddy," the vet tries, "how about a bailout?" The Wall Street type doesn't laugh. The Wall Street type doesn't even see the homeless vet. The Wall Street type tosses his half-finished Coke onto the sidewalk.

As labor activist Ray Rogers explains, "The reality is that the world of Coca-Cola is a world of lies, deceptions, corruption, gross human rights and environmental abuses!" Rogers told Democracy Now that Coke "contracted with paramilitary death squads to torture, kidnap, and murder union leaders at its bottling plants in Columbia." If geo-political issues aren't enough to move you, consider what Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences says about Coke and its ilk: " The relationship between soft drink consumption and body weight is so strong that researchers calculate that for each additional soda consumed, the risk of obesity increases 1.6 times."

The homeless vet picks up the Wall Street type's Coke and downs it in one big gulp. Afterwards, he tosses the empty cup onto the sidewalk and glances to his left just in time to look through the restaurant window and see the corporate lawyer cheerfully biting into a piece of shrimp.

At that precise moment, an underwater tremor deep in the Pacific Ocean creates a powerful wave that will develop into a tsunami aimed directly for a popular vacation destination once protected by mighty mangroves.

Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net/

After more than sixty years, the global bully is found to be incompetent. Just as the Cold War ended suddenly and unexpectedly in 1989, the American nightmare is imploding in 2008, even though it could take another twenty years to give up the ghost completely.

The trouble is that in the hands of this clueless giant are most of the weapons sufficient to obliterate the planet. But America wants more, ever more, and running out of credit could trigger a psychotic breakdown. We should be terrified. Not just because of the economic chaos to come, but because of what will happen when this highly armed political dinosaur starts thrashing about in its death spasms.

This time, will the world say "No" when the crunch comes? . . read more