20180928

The Rule of Low

Reading Christine Blasey Ford's testimony was already convincing, but I don't think anyone who watched her deliver it believed one second that she was lying, including many Republican senators who will anyway vote to elevate Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. 

 In contrast, Kavanaugh exposed himself (!) as a shamelessly partisan judge with major anger management and alcohol issues, not to mention a total disrespect of fairness in justice.



This man should be not only totally disqualified for the SCOTUS, but challenged for his status as a judge altogether. Since he chose indecency, and refused to withdraw his candidacy, he deserves the fair and thourough investigation Ford was deprived by GOP Senators in the most outrageous process ever.

But no.

Even before Donald Trump officially ordered Senators to vote and confirm him, Republican members of the Committee went full throttle behind this disgraced judge, even dumping their 'female assistant' smokescreen to scream in unison with Kavanaugh the 'victim'. Because the only thing that matters for them seems to be making sure the Supreme Court will tilt to the wrong side of History, whatever the cost.

No one objects. Susan Collins just had to say it would be fair to investigate further, and to postpone the vote, but so far nothing.

It seems that Collins doesn't mind ruining her legacy, and remaining forever the betrayer who failed to stand for womens rights in America when they most needed it.

Unless Susan Collins rises to the challenge, and choses decency, the Supreme Court will be tainted even more than when Clarence Thomas joined it, decades before the words 'hashtag' and 'metoo' even existed.

Susan Collins met with Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski to decide how (whether) to vote. They brought on board Joe Manchin, one of the few Democrats able to confirm Kavanaugh to secure his reelection.

History is watching them mercilessly.

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20180812

Mr Putin, tear down that kompromat

The Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki more than confirmed what we suspected (see 'Donald Trump meets his maker, off the record'): this POTUS is totally in the Kremlin's pocket.

Here's our exclusive transcript of their secret talks, and the reason why DJT wanted to keep it off the record:


- Donald Trump: 'Mr Putin, tear down that kompromat'

- Vladimir Putin: 'and lose my most valuable asset? No way'

...

Now I'd love to learn what kind of kompromat Vlad holds on Rand Paul, another populist who just came out of the closet (I mean as a closet Russia supporter) with a trip to Moscow perfectly timed to blur Helsinki's awful optics. 

And speaking of people acting guilty, Bob Mueller probably wouldn't waste time investigating the highly suspicious Devin Nunes.

Anyway, it seems already too late to save the Midterm Elections. Putin keeps undermining moderates and pushing radicals on both sides of the aisle, and I'm pretty sure he's already responsible for the outcome of key recent local ballots...

blogules 2018

20180705

Trump meets his maker, off the record

Unlike last month's Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, the upcoming Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki has been carefully prepared by the leader of America, who these days happens to be... not American:


Donimir Prump or Vladinald Trutin?
Before meeting his maker on July 16, Donald Trump will attend a NATO Summit starting July 11, and meet Queen Elisabeth II on July 13. And what just happened over the past few days?
- the POTUS undermining Putin's nemeses NSA, NATO and the EU, cornerstones of the Western alliance against Russia
- the POTUS defending Russia's annexation of Crimea as legitimate
- new cases of Novachok contamination in the UK, this time without the spy-vs-spy storyline, a convenient 'false no-flag' perfectly timed to torpedo the warnings Brits are bound to give DJT days before Helsinki
- the POTUS insisting on meeting Putin without US witnesses, raising many eyebrows (judging by how XI Jinping and KIM Jong-un played him last month*, how could he win his one-on-one with a supertrained KGB official?)

Now there is absolutely no doubt left about whom Trump is working for, and that's not the American people. We can also confirm that he's very much aware of the fact that he is helping Putin, even if it goes against the interests of his own country. What I'm not sure at this stage is whether he is doing it willingly and not just consciously, but I'm convinced that anyway, Vlad has dirt or kompromat on him (there's already so much of both all over the media).

This is not just about Trump's special weakness for dictators. He can be tough on Russia at times, but he never criticizes Putin.

This is personal.

Don needs to talk to Vlad off the record, and it won't be about the World Cup that ended the day before. 

We'll read declarations about this and that (including probably Syria), and once more, Trump will say that they talked about the 2016 elections, and that Putin is innocent, but 2018 elections will somehow on the agenda.

Trump is making sure no one interferes with the interference. Putin is still shaping the news, splitting democracies from the inside. Both must be happy to see Democrats fall in ideological traps, torn between an organization not yet purged from the Clinton era on one hand, and Independent-Scarecrow socialists like Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the other, between reforming ICE and getting rid of it. If Maxine Waters didn't exist, Don and Vlad would have invented her.

Republicans, who have long imploded along ideological lines, face an even deeper crisis because they enabled and keep enabling Trump and Putin, with Mitch McConnell as America's Paul von Hindenburg.

Without that shameless weasel blocking Obama's Supreme Court pick, the nation wouldn't be this close to the abyss. Trump's nominee for Justice Kennedy's seat will be grilled on such issues as abortion or impeachment, but all will depend on the last GOP moderates willing to take a stand. 
The usual suspects have already made themselves heard: Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski said Roe v. Wade shouldn't be revoked.

And there's John McCain who, like Trump, had to take a fundamentalist running mate (Sarah Palin) to get his nomination. The war veteran recently confessed that he regretted that choice, and I expect him to defend his country till his last breath, particularly against Russia. 

I wouldn't be surprised to hear powerful messages from McCain and Robert Mueller on time to prevent Putin from winning these elections as well.


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 * I couldn't resist pulling, after "Donald Trump: "I never lie, I just invent my own truth"", another fake interview of DJT about that summit: "Trump: The Art of the Dealapidation (Exclusive Interview)".

'Boys with toys: Trump in cartoon being played by KIM Jong-un, XI Jinping, Putin... see a pattern?' (20180426 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/989314185338081282)



20180430

Donald Trump: "I never lie, I just invent my own truth"

blogules: 'Thank you for accepting this interview in your Mar-a-Lago lair.'
Donald J. Trump: 'You know I'm getting tired of Fox News, and I can't accept interviews with fake news anymore. I totally trust your self-proclaimed Weapons of Mass Disinformation, and I liked your one-on-ones with KIM Jong-un* or Macron** for your Agence Fausse Presse.'
b: 'You spend between one quarter and one third of your time in this Florida White House. Don't you like the original?'
DJT: 'Problem is I don't own 1600 Penn Ave yet. What I can do is transform this place into a profitable landmark. Fees have already tripled, we overcharge taxpayers tens of millions for security detail, and people will pay fortunes to visit Mar-a-Lago after 2036.'
b: 'Why 2036? You expect to die when you're 90?'
DJT: 'Of course not, I'm in an amazing shape, and will live longer than 250 years, according to my physicians Ronnie Jackson and Harold Bornstein, who signed the diagnostics I dictated them. I simply plan to retire after my second series of two mandates but for that, Mike Pence will have to pull me a Medvedev between 2024 and 2028.'
b: 'Why not change the Constitution to pull us a XI Jinping instead, and become president for life? Justices Kennedy and Ginsburg may not even survive your first term.'
DJT: 'I like your way of thinking. Indeed, we're doing a tremendous job at destroying US institutions, and justice is where we've been the most efficient so far.'
b: 'If it weren't for that Russia Probe...'
DJT: 'Total witch hunt. There's no collusion, all the rumors are fake, the ties between Manafort and Russia, Flynn and Putin, my whole campaign team and Sergei Kislyak, me and the Russian mafia...'
b: 'First time I hear about that last one.'
DJT: 'Vladimir's mole at the New York Times thinks they'll publish a scoop pretty soon about it, but that's a complete fabrication. Something to do with real estate, which is impossible: I've never been into this business.'
b: 'Come on, that's an outrageous lie.'
DJT: 'I never lie, I just invent my own truth. You know, something I learned from Dr Norman Vincent Peale is that if you don't like facts, you just have to repeat to yourself what you want to hear, and you soon believe it completely. I would pass all lie detector tests with flying colors. I know I would, because I practice every day for the moment Robert Mueller calls me in.'
b: 'I noticed behind your desk this original Time Magazine cover, featuring you as Man Of The Year for winning the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. Isn't that a bit too much?'
DJT: 'Yuge, but I'm bigger than truth. And I deserve these awards, just like I deserved each and every one of my Academy Awards - by the way my favorite is for 'Titanic', an epic about the GOP. See what I've achieved with North Korea?'
b: 'Well you accepted the dictator's invitation, which all your predecessors refused, and by doing so, you helped KIM Jong-un save his own bacon, get a lifeline from XI.'
DJT: 'Maybe, but I scared him big time. Hell, I scare everybody. Believe me, I'd do anything to get this Nobel Peace Price - I'd nuke the hell out of Iran, Japan, you name it.'
b: 'Japan is a US ally...'
DJT: '... and Shinzo is a great guy. We have many Nazi friends in common, and he knows how to lose gracefully when we play golf. But Japan is cheating us bigly with trade. They don't buy as many US cars as we buy Japanese cars.'
b: 'But many of these Japanese cars are made in the US, and American cars are not competitive in quality and design.'
DJT: 'I know, that's why all my Trump cars are made in China. But Vlad asked me to demolish all international treaties. Plus my voters love to see me whack a mole everyday, and hear them scream.'
b: 'Do you think you can win again in 2020?'
DJT: 'Of course I will. Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica are still helping me, and I instructed my administration to do nothing to prevent Vladimir from further screwing our system. Even if they didn't need to be briefed, because they already receive monthly payments from Moscow, who as you can imagine has dirt on many members of Congress.'
b: 'So no collusion, right?'
DJT: 'No collusion whatsoever between me and American values. I'm here to destroy this nation, and Make Amerika Great Again, so sue me.'
b: 'If I do, who'll represent you, now that Michael Cohen is in trouble?'
DJT: 'Rudy Giuliani would take a bullet for me. Michael Cohen said he would, but now I'm not so sure. Anyway if Mike flips, I'll tweet him to death - that's what I call flipping the bird. And if tweets are not enough, our old mobster friends will carve nice concrete shoes for him to fertilize the Hudson River along with Jimmy Hoffa.'
b: 'Your friends are falling one by one around you, and most of the time you're the one pulling the trigger. How long can you keep that pace?'
DJT: 'You'd be surprised to see how many people are willing to experience their 15 minutes of shame. I already fished scores of them from the worst trashcans, and you haven't seen the bottom of it.'
b: 'So far, we've seen quite a few bottoms, but no swamp draining.'
DJT: 'Come on - crazy Stormy Daniels, phony Karen McDougal, that's ridiculous. Me having an affair with a porn star or a Playmate, can you imagine that?'
b: 'As much as it makes me nauseous, I can: you were a regular at Heffner's Playboy Mansion, and even made a cameo in a soft porn movie.'
DJT: 'That was long before I became Evangelical, and met Mike Pence. You know, this guy is such a religious fanatic that he already experienced a third coming.'
b: 'Actually, your Veep does have three kids.'
DJT: 'And they're smart kids. Of course not as smart as mine. My kids inherited my stable genius genes, and like me, went to nice schools because their father was smart enough to make nice gifts to nice schools.'
b: 'Your father made your own career possible with his money and connections. You couldn't have succeeded in New York real estate all by yourself.'
DJT: 'Everybody says I'm a genius in real estate, one like the world has never seen before.'
b: 'But five minutes ago, you said you'd never been in that business. And I noticed that you even tweeted it for good measure.'
DJT: 'That's a hoax. The only real estate project I'm interested in is The Wall.'
b: 'Will it ever be erected?'
DJT: 'Already done, look at these pictures.'
b: '... Impressive... Looks like a 3,000 mile long Mt Rushmore with your face reproduced a billion times on it. How come no one has ever seen it?'
DJT: 'There was a fantastic article about it in the National Enquirer, by the great John Barron.'
b: 'Isn't John Barron your alias when you call the media?' 
DJT: 'John is not that great, but we get well together. Me, I never call the media. Frankly? I never watch the media, they're all fake news.'
b: 'And you don't attend White House Correspondents' Dinners.'
DJT: 'Did you see that nasty woman on stage? Michelle Wolf? I was watching her...'
b: 'Because you never watch the media.'
DJT: '... and I asked myself if Hillary were president - by the way she's not because I won the unwinnable election, remember how awesome that was? - if Crooked Hillary were president, would this Wolf bite that nastily?'
b: 'I think, for starters, that President Clinton would have had the guts to attend the meeting, and as usual, to face her critics. And that she would have laughed her best Kate McKinnon laughter while swallowing the bitter pill.'
DJT: 'She's a loser. She enjoys it. You know, the WHCD I went to? Barack Obama and Seth Meyers were so nasty to me, I promised never to get back. Obama can be very nasty. Did you know that he fired Comey?'
b: 'What? You fired James Comey!'
DJT: 'Wrong. I never fire anybody. I pretended to during 'The Apprentice', just like I pretended to be a businessman, but the fact is that in real life, I don't know much about business, and I can't tell anyone 'you're fired'. I always do it by proxy, or via tweet, or I bully the guy until he resigns.'
b: 'Deep down, you're a coward.'
DJT: 'If I'm a coward, what does that make of Republicans supposed to guarantee checks and balances in this country?'
'Regardless of how Kim Jong-un plays Moon Jae-in, MJI sure knows how to play Trump (sce CNN):' (20180429 - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/990464140513689600)


blogules 2018
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* "Exclusive interview with KIM Jong-un - Season III" (March 2018), "EXCLUSIVE-Second interview with KIM Jong-un" (February 2017), "Exclusive interview with KIM Jong-un" (December 2013)
** voir "Macron en mode G.I." (April 2018)

20180226

Some light at the end of the barrel?

Will this time be different, or will Parkland just be one more line in the endless list of mass shootings silenced by Amerika's almighty gun lobby?

What's most different so far, beyond the powerful voices of Millenials (from The Gunshine State*, of all places!) is the fact that heavyweight household names Delta Airlines and American Airlines stopped their NRA group travel discounts. We've entered #metoo-like, it-s-gonna-hurt-my-bottomline territory, and there's a momentum to sustain early enough before the mid-term elections to prevent the usual cover ups.

The NRA's role is not to defend Americans, but to sell more guns. And all their 'solutions' reach the same goal. If even trained cops cowers away from school shootings, tell me what would arming teachers with weapons achieve, beyond securing new streams of revenues for them, and funded by taxpayers?

History will look back at lawmakers who today broadcast NRA's corrupt narratives the way people look today at those who defended Big Tobacco and helped them cause hundreds of thousands of deaths that should have been prevented.

Change must also come within the NRA, which evolved into a dangerous caricature of itself, like Billy Graham's movement under his son's helm (now a fundamentalist program fueling hatred against other religions). That's possible because there will be more money to make in the pedagogy around guns than in their sales.


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* a.k.a. Florida, see "Red blogule to the Gunshine State - shootfirstlaw.org Hammered down by the NRA"

20180201

The nuclear option


Devin Nunes proves, once again with the help of Paul Ryan, that he would do anything to defend Donald Trump and torpedo the Russia Probe. And just like last year, his fellow GOP lawmakers seem ready to remain complicitly "speechless" (I seriously wonder how much kompromat Putin and his friends have on these guys).

This time, Nunes, who had to recuse himself from the case (a 'nothing burger' that already produced at least two guilty pleas from campaign members), wrote a dangerously misleading memo denounced by the very man Trump chose to replace James Comey: new FBI chief Christopher Wray warned the White House that this memo shouldn't be published. As if it weren't enough, Adam Schiff revealed that Nunes edited it without consulting the committee.

Like the POTUS he so desperately wants to protect, Devin Nunes acts guilty in a such blatant way it would be laughable if so much weren't at stake. US democracy is under attack, and Trump is seriously considering the mother of all diversions: preemptive strikes on North Korea

Victor Cha toyed with the concept (see "Alert!") before refusing to be the Ambassador in charge of evacuating tens of thousands of US citizens from the peninsula.

Let's be clear: there is no guarantee preemptive strikes would incapacitate Kim Jong-un's nuclear program, and there is no scenario where they wouldn't lead to mass destruction in Seoul and South Korea. We're talking hundreds of thousands if not millions of victims.

Normally, there shouldn't be any scenario where Nunes and Trump avoided impeachment. We know that Republicans won't lift a finger before mid-term elections, but the gimchi is expected to hit the fan long before that - White House hawks seem willing to strike after the Pyeongchang olympics.

Brace for a funeral March.


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20180117

No changes in Trump's cognitive abilities

White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson, who tested Donald Trump for 4 hours on Friday, said that the POTUS should lose 10 to 15 pounds over the next year, but also that "there’s no indication whatsoever that he has any cognitive issue".

This exclusive shot from the visual acuity test confirms that DJT remains as comfortable with truth distortion as ever:
'No changes noted in the President's cognitive abilities' (200801)



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20171217

Happy New Year 2019

It's that time of the year, and for the 21st time*, I have no choice but to wish you a happy next year, considering what's going to happen in 2018:

January 2018:
Full mailbox for Donald Trump on the morning of the 20th: 1 letter congratulating him for his first year in office (From Russia With Love, signed by The Former Spy Who Still Loves You), 457 letters of resignation from White House staffers who completed the full year required for their résumés, 3,580 letters of candidacy from child molesters with the required KKK kredentials.


February 2018:
As announced, the US wait until the end of the Pyeongchang Olympics to launch preemptive strikes against North Korea. The new Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, 'apologizes' for not including the Paralympics: 'Our bad, but thanks to us, people with disabilities will have even more airtime'. If all targets are destroyed, they only represented a fraction of Kim Jong-un's arsenal, and Seoul is destroyed minutes after the first strike. By the end of the day, the whole peninsula is flattened. Hundreds of millions of Americans will only learn months later that, in retaliation, they've been poisoned by chemicals spread in their water systems by sleeping cells.


March 2018:

Science: the Russia Probe is successfully sent to Mars by the GOP Congress.

April 2018:
As asset bubbles keep popping, World Leaders convene in Moscow around a freshly reelected Vladimir Putin. Xi, Erdogan, Abe, Duterte, Modi, Trump, and their friends agree to focus on the reforms that should have remained their only priority: undermining their respective democracies. 


May 2018:
Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle dressed as a Minion, the mildest set she could find in his collection of Nazi uniforms, Stormtrooper gears, and Britain First Party costumes.


June 2018:
Saudi women are allowed to drive, but only driverless cars that are fully covered with an opaque burqa.

July 2018:
Not a single goal scored during the whole FIFA World Cup in Russia... an unexpected consequence of net neutrality.


August 2018:
From al Qaeda to ISIS to Idiotheocracy: the latest terror franchise to rise from the ashes of the precedent one has further dumbed down the message of fundamentalism to the most basic grunts, facilitating the merger with extremists from other religions. Their propaganda videos soon go viral among hardcore Teletubbies fans.


September 2018:
The POTUS realizes that trying to cast away investigations against him didn't work: Robert Mueller (from Mars), and Trump's victims of sexual harassment (from Venus) manage to revive the threats of impeachment. Looking for new diversions, DJT reveals the plans of the future US Embassy in East Jerusalem, inaugurates statues of the Klan Founders in the Rose Garden, and starts WWIV against Iran.


October 2018:
As soon as Theresa May resigns, the British Pound spikes to 312,788 Bitcoin, that's to say one millionth of a zimbabwean dollar, or the equivalent of half a second of work in North Korean slave wages.


November 2018:
Landslide victory for Mainstream Republicans at the mid-term elections: 'Our top donors kindly rewarded us for the generous tax cuts we offered them', triumphes Mitch McConnell. 'We're also glad that the GOP managed to end in the third position - we need all the votes of the Gropers Offshore Party'. The former Democratic Party also failed to reunite,  Progressives finishing a distant second, and the RNC fifth, far behind the Green Party, even after Hillary Clinton raised record funds for her Rhodam National Convention.


December 2018:
And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to... AlphaGo. The World's most powerful A.I. platform solved all conflicts, all famines, and all environmental and refugee crises by removing mankind.



blogules 2017
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* see "Happy New Year 2010" (Jan 2009), "Happy New Year 2011" (Dec 2009), "Happy New Year 2012" (Dec 2010), "Happy New Year 2013" (Dec 2011), "Happy New Year 2014" (Dec 2012), "Happy New Year 2015" (Dec 2013), "Happy New Year 2016" (Dec 2014), "Happy New Year 2017" (Dec 2015), "Happy New Year 2018" (Dec 2016), "Happy New Year 2019" (Dec 2017)... and in French: "Bonne Année 2009" (Jan 2008), "Bonne Année 2010" (Dec 2008), "Bonne Année 2011" (Dec 2009), "Bonne Année 2012" (Dec 2010), "Bonne Année 2013" (Dec 2011), "Bonne Année 2014" (Dec 2012), "Bonne Année 2015" (Dec 2013), "Bonne Année 2016" (Dec 2014), "Bonne année 2017" (Dec 2015), "Bonne année 2018" (Dec 2016), "Bonne année 2019" (Dec 2017).

20171103

Politically Correct as in Post-Clinton

Donna Brazile's revelations* didn't come as a surprise. Everybody knew that the Clintons sank the party they helped reform a quarter of a century earlier. Well we knew for the political part, but the financial dimension is so much engrained in their fabric that this latest scandal makes perfect sense.

I don't feel sorry for Bernie Sanders, who would have lost anyway, but for a country that should never have lost its most vital institutions to its worst enemies.

I'm glad this comes out now. Not as a distraction to the Russia probe, but to silence Hillary, who hijacked the conversation thanks to her book tour, poisoning minds with the notion that the DNC remains totally under her spell. 

We badly need different voices. Obama yes, but only on rare occasions, and on essential issues. We don't need grandparents in the Pelosi - Biden - Sanders variety (if they're over 65, make them fun listening to, like Liz Warren or Al Franken - what a 2020 ticket!). We need fresh, new voices, like Kamala Harris, Chris Murphy, or better Deval Patrick, should he return to politics. And the Democratic Party must totally reform itself. Otherwise, the Barry Sanderses, Oprah Winfreys, or Mark Zuckerbergs will dance on its grave.

Can Al Franken draw the US electoral map as well?


Of course, same goes for Republicans, who must step into the post-Trump era before DJT destroys what's left of it. For the moment, the GOP's soul relies on a 81 year-old with brain cancer (John McCain), two senators on the way out (Jeff Flake with a better potential than filpflop Bob Corker), and the one cool guy who could change it all, Ben Sasse.


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* "Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC" - Politico 20171102 exceprts from her book

20171030

Wall Street v. Wall Street

Here we are again, on the eve of massive asset bubbles purges. And as always (see for instance "Mondialisation : du "free market" au "fair market" - 20070726, "This is not a financial crisis" - 20080711*):
  • This is not a financial crisis, but a crisis of finance
  • This is not an economic crisis, but a crisis of economics
  • This is not a political crisis, but a crisis of politics. 
Which means, as always, that:
  • we will not solve anything by rejecting finance, economy, and politics - that's exactly what brought us the rise of extremism and populism, Brexit, or of course Trump.
  • we must to the contrary embrace finance, economy, and politics - at their core, starting from  their definitions, exposing smokescreens and impostures, demanding transparency and accountability.
So what happened after Lehman? Further desertion by people with basic notions of economics, or at least traces of common sense (I won't even mention 'moral compasses'). If it weren't for the A.I. algorythms and high-frequency trading that amplify and perpetuate the illusion, the most blatant bubbles would have probably alreaday burst years ago.
DJI chart (2nd biggest component after Boeing, Goldman Sachs weighs 11.6 times more than GE)

Nasdaq - better real/virtual ratio than before the dotcom crisis, but Apple (14.6% of the index, 4.9% of the DJI) and co will eventually meet reality.

Politicians? They totally surrendered. Back in 2009, they still had the power to change things by injecting tens of billions of dollars, and by passing a few legal safeguards - but now governments are weaker than ever, and they let their agenda be set by the very firms they bailed out without actually purging the system. 

Exhibit A: Goldman Sachs, who were instrumental in frauds leading to major crises (e.g. betting against toxic assets they helped create, or forging figures with the Greek government), are now stronger than ever, and still runnig the show (Steven Mnuchin, Gary Cohn, Mario Draghi, Robert Zoellick, Jose Manuel Barroso...). They aim at becoming the alpha and omega, or rather the Alphabet of finance since, like google, they're investing massively in A.I. to comfort their leadership.

Beyond this caricature, our financial systems rejected finance as an enabler for the economy. Not just Wall Street against Main Street, but ultimately Wall Street against Wall Street*. Emboldened by impunity (except maybe in Iceland, that lone country where The People put corrupt politicians and banksters in jail), these guys prolonged the bailouts with a wonderful invention, Quantitative Easings: after emptying governmental chests, they simply decided to print money for themselves - officially to fuel the economy, but actually to improve already indecent balance sheets, and to widen wealth (and reality) gaps in abyssal proportions. They brought back derivatives, fantasy league ratings, or gambling, and they're gutting Dodd-Frank like they gutted Glass-Stiegel.

What happened after Lehman was Lehman on steroids.

What happens next is for history books. 

And if by 'miracle' these guys manage to prevent the fall until after the Mid-term elections, all bets are off.

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* also 'the ultimate stage of free market is the negation of the market' ("Le stade ultime du libéralisme, c'est la négation du marché (le déni d'économie continue") - 20110302) 
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