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Slouched
in woe beside the Christmas tree, a lot of Americans missed the point of
2011: Santa Claus had already emptied his goodie sack before the night of
wonders and miracles arrived and was back at the North Pole checking the
balance sheet to see if he could raise a little cash selling some remaining
assets off to the Blackstone Group or maybe work a leveraged buyout deal with
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. A few elves would have to join the unemployment
line, but they could probably get by on half-rations of food stamps. Or maybe
Henry Kravis could feed them reindeer steaks... at a discount, as long as
they last.
It's
remarkable how the year's great mega-holiday blowout suspends time and
circumstance. I didn't see how the European banks were going to make it to
December 25, but then, heading into the shopping frenzy home-stretch, swap
lines opened up between the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank
and around $600-odd billion in ZIRP loans flowed to over 200 Euro banks.
Maybe that will cover the next two weeks of aggregate debt rollovers, and
then what? They can't even look forward to President's Day over there -
unless we rented out the George Washington and Abe Lincoln brands to them.
Who
is still not impressed with the ability of these central banks, and their
owner-operators, to keep re-circulating immense loads of notional money?
Alas, every wash-rinse repeat cycle leaves the certificates a little paler
and thinner, and it won't be long before they just appear to be blank paper.
But rackets as grand and insolent as these would not be possible, except in a
culture so estranged from truth that anything goes over without notice. I
wonder about that scene around the American Christmas tree, though - the
empty space between the floor and the lowest boughs where the gaily-wrapped
presents used to appear.
I
reckon it will take a few weeks, perhaps through the whole winter, for a
sense of swindle to set in among the rooked. You may notice a pervasive
undertone of grumbling in the background - and winter is the right time for
that - like the eerie, ominous chords of ice groaning in the darkness on a
still night around the frozen lake. But eventually come
the tumults and torrents of spring. I suppose what baffles many of us in the
ethers of bloggery is the apparent failure of that
demographic slice acquainted with thinking to register any objection to the
travesties and organized brigandages of these
times. At any other time in the life of this republic, such folk with active
frontal lobes would have identified arrant criminal activity for what it is.
Apparently, the nostrums of Paul Krugman are as
powerfully narcotic as the raptures of Nascar.
I'm
afraid events are a little too far gone now. There was some hope that Mr.
Obama would restore the rule of law, but he has gone even farther in the
opposite direction by disabling even the levers of truth - and in so genial a
style that nobody noticed that, either. That thinking demographic slice
of the public I averred to must have mortgaged their souls the past three
years just to keep on keeping on. Hence, when the truly rooked wake from their zombie sleepwalk, there will be hell to
pay for sure. Sometimes an intellectual governor on events no longer
even avails, as was the case in the French Revolution. When the lawyers,
political theorists, and philosophers got into the act, the blood really
flowed.
Will
that happen here, in the months and years ahead? I do think so. We've grown
ourselves a toxic aristocracy of privilege and mega-wealth as cheeky (or
worse) than the fops and strumpets of Versailles. I confess,
I feel a bit lusty for some Grand Guignol
action myself. There are stock figures in The New York Observer's
weekly "Shindigger" column who I would
enjoy seeing treated after the manner of Vlad III,
Prince of Wallachia, the celebrated "impaler." And what better place for it than Zuccotti Park, a much more intimate venue than the
agoraphobia-inducing Place de la Concord. You see what happens: in the
absence of the rule of law even prudent men turn to the reptile agencies of
mind.
The
truly interesting thing about America's romance with our Wild West was that
there was always an Unwild East to return to - if
you survived adventuring in one piece. Well, first the frontier closed about
100 years ago, and now we wake on Christmas morning to discover that the
whole land, from sea to shining sea, has gone feral with rot. Enjoy this
nebulous week of suspended animation while it lasts. I'll be back next Monday with the 2012 forecast.
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