Hate to say I told you so...

So after my little rant about the state of the economy the other day, here we are faced with the administration trying to push through a "rescue package" for the financial institutions of the country which numbers 700 billion dollars.

There are numerous reasons why this "bail out" should bother us all. Firstly, we are talking about the same banks and lending institutions that have irresponsibly loaned us back our own money (I use the word "own" in the collective sense) and enjoyed reaping huge profits in interest for the past x amount of years. We are talking about the same banks that charge us for practically every service they offer. The same banks that charge us extortionate fees when we go overdrawn. The same banks that enjoyed massive returns from playing the stock markets with our money, and the same banks that, if they go under, will lose our money for us. And now the government wants to save wall street with 700 billion of OUR money?!?!?!

Are you serious? No. Come on. ARE YOU SERIOUS?

First of all - where was this 700 billion dollars for health care when it was needed? Where was this 700 billion dollars for education when it was needed? Where was this 700 billion dollars for the troops putting their butts on the line when they needed it?

Secondly, every taxpayer in the country should be up in arms about this. Our money, that the government is withholding, is going to bale out the fat cats of wall street because they got greedy? You have got to be kidding me.

If nothing else, the financial meltdown has just gone to show what a completely bare-faced liar Dubya is. Sure you can fool people if you tell them the same lie over and over again, but George, the economy is not a person. It responds to market forces beyond your control.

"The economy is strong."
"The economy is strong."
"The economy is strong."

Crash.

Separated at birth?

So after my little rant the other day about the financial institutions, I thought it time to inject a little light relief into the blog.

As I've been immersing myself in American culture, it has come to my attention that there are a number of people on TV who bear a strking resemblance to one another. Humour me for a moment if you will.....

Here we have FOX 5's very own roving reporter Linda Schmidt and the Canadian warbler Celine Dion.

Long before Tina Fey did her little skit on Sarah Palin I had commented on the similarity between the two of them. If you are in any doubt, see below:

And finally...

Our illustrious leader, Dubya, and a distant cousin.

Financial (Band) Aid

Today we learnt of the collapse of that great financial institution, Lehman Bros. I say institution because apparently they have been around in some sort of shape or form since the civil war.

Yes, today, Lehman Bros. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

News reports in New York tonight have been treating this like some kind of national disaster, showing footage of (ex) Lehman Bros. employees leaving the building with all their deskly possessions in bags or under their arms. I can't say I feel sorry for these people. They gamble with other people's money. They got greedy. They lost.

With the exception of maybe the secretaries, I can't imagine that many people at Lehman Bros. get paid poorly. In fact, while they were telling all of their middle income clients to invest in index linked savings plans and portfolios of stocks - all of which have pretty much nosedived in the last year and lost their clients money, I'm sure most of these people still got paid handsomely. I'm also pretty sure they got a nice Christmas bonus - probably comparable to what some of us make in a year. If any of them were sensible, they stashed some of that money away for difficult times, such as now. I'm sure many of them aren't going to be homeless overnight.

Sorry if I sound unsympathetic but I have little or no time for banks or financial institutions. They play with our money, they charge us exorbitant interest rates, they are quick to whack us with charges when we go overdrawn (which I've never understood - how does that help me when I clearly have no money as it is?) and they loan each other money to keep each other afloat. Well finally their greed has come around to bite them in the ass. The tens of thousands of folks who find themselves in the misery of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and under the threat of foreclosure must see this as some kind of moral victory, as must those who have lost their jobs in the last year because of the economic downturn, despite being told repeatedly that the economy is strong. So, Lehman Bros. employees are now unemployed. Well, welcome to the party - pals!

Reports I have heard/read, put Lehman's debt at anywhere between 16 Billion and 618 Billion dollars. How is that acceptable? Don't you kind of scratch your head when you're a billion dollars in debt? Doesn't that set alarm bells ringing somewhere? Helloooooo?

Another thing that made me chuckle on the news tonight were analysts complaining about all the tax dollars New York was going to lose because of all these salaries that were no longer going to get paid. Come on! Seriously? You don't think the rest of us aren't going to pick up that tax burden? No, I think New York is going to be just fine.

Hot on the heels of this news is the news that Bank of America has just purchased Merrill Lynch for fear of them going the same way as Lehman Bros. (and Bear Stearns) Again, the financial institutions bale each other out. Honestly, this whole thing is like a house of cards waiting to come down and as I said before, I'm not sympathetic because the banks and lending institutions have allowed it to happen to themselves - they got greedy. They overstretched themselves in the sub-prime mortgage market and in real estate deals. They leant people more money than they could realistically afford (or pay back) and they gambled our money on stocks and shares, hoping that the Federal reserve would continue to bale out the economy with interest rate cuts and keep the stock market bouyant. They did all of this with little concern for the consequences should the market take a dive (even though the warning signs have been there for a long time). And now they get to reap what they sowed.

The sad thing is that the people that are going to bear the brunt of it are you and me.

A day remembered.

I know I have posted on this blog that 9/11 was indirectly one of the reasons how I ended up in New York, but I have never really recounted how I remember the events of that day. I just posted my recollection to another site and thought it would be remiss not to put it here on the anniversary of that dreadful day.

I was working for a broadcast facility in London at the time and in fact it was my first day off shift. I came off night shift that morning and fell asleep on the sofa. When I woke up it was 1pm’ish local time ( I don’t remember exactly) and I turned on the TV and the first tower was there - just smoking that awful black cloud into the bright blue sky. The TV had literally been on about ten minutes when I watched the second aircraft strike the second tower. To this day I remember thinking to myself - ridiculous thought that it was - “There can’t have been people on that plane. No-one would fly a plane load of people into a building.” It was just too surreal.

I immediately picked up the phone and called work. Our job was to transmit video feeds around the world and I knew it was going to be a miserable day to work - the phones would be ringing off the hook. I spoke to one of my co-workers who told me every other one of my colleagues had called in and offered to help. He had watched the whole thing happen there and immediately said to someone - “That’s a terrorist attack.”

As it happened we had an American working with us at the time. He was producing a show for one of the outdoor networks, covering the Tour of Portugal cycling race. He wasn’t the most popular guy - a loud, brash man - the classis American stereotype - but we all pitied him that day, wondering how it must have felt watching your countrymen be attacked like that while you worked in a basement in a foreign country.

Our work area had an entire wall of monitors, probably 40 screens, so we could monitor all the incoming and outgoing feeds. Over the next month, we all watched those planes striking those buildings over and over again, and in the months that followed we had a birds eye view of ground zero (there were cameras on the site 24/7) and we pretty much saw everything that happened there, short of actually being there ourselves. I have to say, it was probably the most depressing time of my life. You never get desensitized to those images. Never.

Probably as surprising to me as the attack itself was the response of my government. Personally I think the “War on Terror” is a ludicrous endeavour. We had already fought our war on terror - and we’d done it for over twenty years without a satisfactory result. I grew up seeing the bombs in London, at Harrods and in the City. I grew up seeing the violence in Ireland - the bloody mayhem at Enniskillin. Sure, the Prime Minister of the day took credit for the Northern Ireland peace process, but it was the prevous PM who’d done all the legwork. So when he stood up and committed us to war I really couldn’t believe it. He claimed we didn’t negotiate with terrorists when in fact we did, and as anathema as it was to the population at the time, it had lasting and positive results.

He who forgets the lessons of history is doomed to repeat them.

I don’t believe the perpetrators of 9/11 “despise our way of life” or “our freedoms” as we’ve oft been told. I have my theories but that’s not for this entry.

I live in New York now and I have a young family. I fear for my daughter, knowing that I live in a place that is a prime target - but life goes on. It always has and it must if we are to honor those who perished that day.

I left work tonight and looked toward ground zero where two search lights send twin columns of white into the night sky above the city. It is a sombre and beautiful sight. I wish I had a camera. It’s a fitting tribute to those who died. Brilliant in its conception, respectfully muted in its execution.

9/11 is truly a sad day, because it reminds me of just how awful man can be to his fellow man.