(no subject)
It occurs to me that a lot of people probably aren't aware of exactly what's been going on in the US recently, and of the scale of the problem, beyond the knowledge that the Federal government initiated a huge bailout of the financial sector (indeed, the largest bailout since the Depression).
Having said that, from watching and reading the news the last few days, it's obvious that people realize that something *important* is happening. In fact, I'd say it's been many years since there's been this level of anxiety in mainstream Western society over the general direction of things. It was amusing, and surreal, to see talking heads on the television news actually coming out and saying stuff like "don't worry, capitalism is still the best system, keep the faith" (that's almost a literal quote from a pundit on The National last night!). The legitimacy of the system hasn't needed such direct defense in quite a while.
Bush himself addressed this fact in a delightfully direct manner, when asked about the justification for such a huge bailout. First he alluded to the danger of the chaos rippling out to the "average citizen", but eventually he came out and said:
“People are beginning to doubt our system, people were losing confidence and I understand it's important to have confidence in our financial system.”
I wonder how people would feel if they realized how close the entire financial sector was to *complete collapse*, what the global implications would have been, and that it was only narrowly averted by emergency action from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed Reserve, is a former academic who is well known as a student of the, yep, you guessed it, Great Depression. Must be pretty fucking trippy for him.
Having said that, from watching and reading the news the last few days, it's obvious that people realize that something *important* is happening. In fact, I'd say it's been many years since there's been this level of anxiety in mainstream Western society over the general direction of things. It was amusing, and surreal, to see talking heads on the television news actually coming out and saying stuff like "don't worry, capitalism is still the best system, keep the faith" (that's almost a literal quote from a pundit on The National last night!). The legitimacy of the system hasn't needed such direct defense in quite a while.
Bush himself addressed this fact in a delightfully direct manner, when asked about the justification for such a huge bailout. First he alluded to the danger of the chaos rippling out to the "average citizen", but eventually he came out and said:
“People are beginning to doubt our system, people were losing confidence and I understand it's important to have confidence in our financial system.”
I wonder how people would feel if they realized how close the entire financial sector was to *complete collapse*, what the global implications would have been, and that it was only narrowly averted by emergency action from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed Reserve, is a former academic who is well known as a student of the, yep, you guessed it, Great Depression. Must be pretty fucking trippy for him.