OOPS
Commenting on the Fed chief's emergency February appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, Mike Whitney felt the senate chamber sit “stone-silent throughout” Bernanke's briefing, which sounded eerily similar to the damage reports delivered to the captain of the Titanic.

“For the most part, the pedantic Bernanke looked uneasy; alternately biting his lower lip or staring ahead blankly like a man who just watched his poodle get run over by a Mack truck,” Whitney related, before helpfully translating the Fed chairman's jargon-choked obfuscations: "Discount everything I've said here today if the economy blows up - as I fully-expect it will - from decades of regulatory neglect and the myriad multi-trillion dollar Ponzi-schemes which have put the entire financial system at risk of a major heart attack. We are deeply sorry, but we have totally fucked up your economy with our monetary hanky-panky. You are all in very deep Doo-doo. Prepare for the worst. Our Sincerest Regrets, The Fed” [International Clearing house Feb 16/08]


ATTACK OF VAMPITE SUCKING CREDIT
With $11,000 billion in mortgage-backed securities overvalued by up to 30%, one-quarter of U.S. household wealth could vaporize, reports from France. “That represents $2,750 billion worth of debt that will probably not be repaid and will become losses for the financial system.”

But these credit-related risks are covered by insurance contracts called Credit Default Swaps. The insurance coming due bears a total value of $45 trillion - “over three times the United States' gross domestic product.”

As the Fed continues to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars in more borrowed money into the credit meltdown, with little measurable effect, “capital is being sucked out of the system faster than it can be replaced,” Whitney explains.

JPMorgan Chase describes what's happening as a "systemic margin call," in which the whole financial system is facing demands to come up with cash it does not have.

Banks are becoming lead liferafts. Looking at $570 billion in junk “paper” that no one wants, U.S. banks are quietly borrowing $50 billion each month from the Federal Reserve to keep their doors open. But the Fed is letting banks “borrow against all sort of dodgy collateral," frets financial analyst Christopher Wood. "The banks are increasingly giving the Fed the garbage collateral nobody else wants to take ... [this] suggests a perilous condition for America's banking system."

The Fed's latest plan - “to turn itself into Wall Street's pawnbroker” - by taking on $200 billion in risky bank debt is “a drop in the bucket,” Krugman shrugged. With $11 trillion in U.S. mortgages still outstanding, “hope is not a plan.” [New York Times Mar 10/08]

Indeed.

Like the Wilkins Antarctic ice shelf, enormous stress cracks are spreading through the U.S. banking system, as gold hits a new $950 high, oil-that-runs-everything surges past $105 a barrel - and more than 30% percent of U.S. homeowners who bought in the last two years owe more on their mortgage than their house is currently worth.

By the end 2007, one in every five outstanding subprime adjustable rate mortgage hostages was delinquent; one in every 20 was already in foreclosure. This translated into more than 3.6 million mortgages past due or in foreclosure during the final three months of last year. But with a pyramid of lenders holding the same mortgages and trying to cover their losses, it's proving almost impossible to work out house-saving deals.

REAL PEOPLE
Bernanke's interest rate cuts aren't enough, Whitney worries. “The banks need capital; and fast. Meanwhile, the waning dollar has sent food and energy prices soaring which is leaving consumers without the discretionary income they need for anything beyond the basic necessities. As a result, retail sales are down and employers are forced to lay off workers to reduce their spending. This is all part of the self-reinforcing negative-feedback loop that begins with falling home prices and then rumbles through the broader economy… “ [Global Research Feb 22/08; Reuters Feb 12/08; McClatchy Newspapers Mar 6/08]

Real people are being really hurt. Because they spend a higher share of their incomes on food and fuel, low-income Americans trapped in stagnant or declining wages are being hit hard by soaring basic costs. Dairy product prices have risen 15% since 2006. Veggies are up 10%. And unless they cut back, the average middle-income household must spend $378 more per year on gasoline than it did a year ago. In Michigan, one in eight residents now receives food stamps; at least 28 million Americans will be receiving food stamps this year. Recipients must be living in near-poverty to qualify for benefits averaging $100 a month per family member. [New York Times Mar 31/08]

As their tax base crunbles, New Jersey is looking at a $3 billion deficit, New York is facing a $5 billion shortfall, and California needs to cut $16 billion from its state budget to balance its books - as required by law in all states (but not the federal government).

Governor Arnold “Rambo” Schwarzenegger is preparing to lay off 20,000 teachers and support staff, while eliminating $5 billion in education services. Another $650 million in cuts will decimate health-care services to more than 7 million senior citizens, disabled people and children. Low income AIDS patients like Everardo Orozco, who has seen his share of life-saving meds payments skyrocket from $400 to $3,200 per month, will die. And across America, as Bush continues to pour money into the bottomless Iraq and Afghanistan debacles, hundreds of thousands of poor children, the disabled and elderly Americans will see their health coverage erased in budget cuts. More than 10 million people lose access to dental care, medical specialists and prescription drugs. [Washington Post Mar 31/08]

ECONOMIC EXODUS
Problem is, with U.S. Treasury bonds now evaluated as less reliable than Germany's, foreign cash needed to service U.S. debt is fleeing to safer currencies offering higher returns than Bernanke's reduced rates. During the last three months of 2007, foreign bond investments crash-dived from $113 billion to $56 billion.

But with Middle East oil still sold in daily depreciating dollars, inflation is roaring in the Persian Gulf - and spreading worldwide. The French media are warning that Bernanke is stoking “global inflationary fever, risking a devastating boomerang: rejection of the dollar as the global reserve currency.”

Even worse, the French continue, “The massive and repeated rate reductions Bernanke has chosen directly challenge the status of the American currency… As he acts this way, he reinforces the already well-anchored sentiment that the dollar - weighted down by the United States' $9,000 billion debt that cannot be reimbursed - is overvalued, which amplifies the American currency's slide.”

Which means: “The inflows of foreign capital that have allowed deficits to grow and the currency to maintain its value… are in the process of drying up. During the last three months of 2007, the influx of foreign investments went from $113 billion to $56 billion.”

Just like the ice sheet scientists in Greenland and the Antarctic, French economic observers are now talking opening of the dollar's risk of “collapse” - and “the overthrow of the global economic and financial system with the disorderly desertion of this fallen idol.” [Contre Info (France Mar 16/08]

Don't believe it? Do the math. If you dare:

Of $11,000 billion in mortgage-backed securities, direct exposure to defaults = $5,591 billion.
Credit Default Swaps that must be covered by a tippy pyramid of insurers = $45,000 billion.
Real estate overvalued 20% to 30% = another $2,750 billion that will probably not be repaid.

Total possible wipeout:     $57,000 billion
Total United States debt:   $9,000 billion
                                     $66,000 billion

But...

Total capitalization of U.S. banks, government agencies and savings banks: just $1,681 billion.

This is why Whitney states, “Many of the banks are technically insolvent already, hopelessly mired in their own red ink. The system is self-destructing.” [McClatchy Newspapers Mar 6/08]

PANIC NOW, AND AVOID THE RUSH
“This phenomenon is further reinforced by the flight of capital abandoning dollar-denominated securities, the value of which is melting like snow in the sun, and seeking refuge in raw materials markets,” a translated French news story points out.

Gallic advice is simple: Don't worry, panic!

“The man occupying the Oval Office is obviously not equal to the situation, and the next team will not be in command before next January,” comments Contre Info. [Contre Info Mar 16/08]

DOUBLING DOWN
Bush loves to “double-down” - even when he doesn't know he's gambling. As Bernanke was terrifying senators, another $330 billion in short-term funding needed to set rates for long-term municipal bonds dried up and blew bye-bye. The $2 trillion market for collateralized debt obligations, the multi-trillion-dollar mortgage-backed securities market, and the $1.3 trillion asset-backed commercial paper market also went away. This is “draining a small ocean of capital from the financial system and pushing many of the banks and hedge funds closer to default,” Whitney worries.

Then Paul Krugman sounded a siren in the New York Times, revealing how “the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York came as close as a Fed official can to saying that we're in the midst of a financial meltdown.”

As the veteran reporter went on to relate, Tim Geithner's pronouncement triggered “a full-fledged financial panic” as “investors pulled hundreds of billions of dollars out of asset-backed commercial paper” in a “de facto bank run” that “sent shock waves through the financial system.”

But even as Bernanke eviscerates the dollar by cutting federal interest rates on loans… “the rates that matter most directly to the economy, including rates on mortgages and corporate bonds” - keep rising, Krugman points out. “And that's sure to worsen the economic downturn.” [New York Times Mar 10/08]

Which is like saying that Duct-taping the wings back on and having them fall off anyway is bound to make further flight more perilous.

Because now even the most responsible borrowers are having trouble getting loans. "Lenders can't lend in this environment because they fear they are not going to get paid back," says Daniel Alpert, a managing director at Westwood Capital investment bank in New York. "And guys who own homes have no value left to hock."

Or as Barry Ritholtz, chief executive of new York investment firm, FusionIQ and author of the economics blog, “The Big Picture”, puts it: "Banks went from giving money away like drunken sailors to not lending to the most credit-worthy borrowers." [New York Times Mar 9/08]

BURNING THE VILLAGE IN ORDER TO DESTROY IT
The USA is not the only country paying for unregulated greed that would have made Gordon Gekko blush. Canada's five big banks “have lost $74 billion!” reports Serge Truffaut in Le Devoir. “More than half of Germany's public banks, the Länder-owned banks, would have gone under in recent months had the German central bank not repeatedly injected funds [after] managers of these establishments exposed them to the risks finance à go-go that the subprime market symbolizes to an even greater extent than their American analogues!”

With European and UK firms that insure and guarantee borrowers' loans are now on the hook for $2,400 billion, debt-crushed American households without savings are “no longer able to use their home as a cash machine, they will reduce their consumption to a minimum. The first victim? China, but also a certain number of other countries in South-East Asia where it subcontracts the manufacture of the goods it assembles,” Truffaut trembles.

Let's look. Asian stocks have already fallen sharply in step with the dollar, as the inability of U.S. consumers to buy adult toys sours Asian stock markets. Exports of finished products to the United States, such as televisions and video cameras, make up as much as 10% of the Gross Domestic Product of East and South East Asian countries.

"U.S. growth declines by 1 percent, Asian exports to the U.S. will likely fall 2 by percent," groans Yutaka Harada, chief economist with Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo. For every less yen the dollar buys, Sony faces losses of $58 on its U.S. exports of electronic goods. If the dollar dives below 100 yen, the slide could turn into a sell-off avalanche.

“The worst is still to come,” Truffaut and many others predict. According to New York University economist Nouriel Roubini, the world now faces an “imminent financial pandemic.” [Le Devoir Mar 10/08; New York Times Mar 3/08]

YES WE'RE NOT
Just as he continues to ignore accelerating global climate meltdown, Bush continues to insist that the war has nothing do with the economic downturn. In fact, he insists that the country he is driving merrily off a cliff is not in a recession.

But in Omaha, Nebraska billionaire Warren Buffett has told CNBC that the U.S. economy is there, with retail businesses showing a significant slowdown. As Buffet told shareholders in his annual letter. "If the winds roar or the earth trembles, results could be far worse." [Reuters Mar 2/08; AP Mar 3/08]

Instead, the reality-challenged presidential pretender declares that the USA is “winning” in a distant devastated country, where ethnically-cleansed, walled-off neighborhoods remain mostly without electricity, safe water and sanitation - and most families are either dead, maimed, starving or displaced. This is a shame, because as Laura Bush has assured the American press, when it comes to the slaughter in Iraq, "No one suffers more than their president."

Attempting to fathom Bush's anguish, NBC's Ann Curry recently suggested to him: “Some Americans believe that they feel they're carrying the burden because of this economy.”

"Yeah, well - ” Bush told the nation.

"They say, they say they're suffering because of this,” Curry persisted.

"”I don't agree with that,” retorted a man who certainly wasn't.

"You don't agree with that? Has nothing do with the economy, the war? The spending on the war?” Curry spluttered, as supplemental U.S. funding for killing complete strangers who posed not threat to the United States zoomed from $17 billion to $189 billion during Bush's tenure- an increase of 1,011%.

"I don't think so… ” Bush said, insisting that attacking other countries is great for jobs.

"Oh, yeah?” challenged Curry.

"Yeah,” Bush beamed with fresh insight. “I think this economy is down because we built too many houses." [TomDispatch.com Feb 29/08]

THREAT MULTIPLIERS
According to a scary report issued by a group of retired generals and admirals called, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change: "Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in the most volatile regions of the world."

While global warming poses serious national security threats to the United States right now, the Bush White House is busy spending $88 on the military for every dollar spent on climate change. But $2 billion of this “research” is aimed at “disproving” rapidly melting glaciers, acidifying oceans, and extremely costly extreme weather events driven by relentless record temperatures seesawing in both directions.

Most of these billions will go to NASA, of all places, whose director, Michael Griffin, recently told public radio that while a “warming trend” exists, "I am not sure it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with." Especially with each shuttle launch is known to be tearing huge holes in Earth's still-shredding ozone layer.

Bush's America is also sending chump change - about $212 million - to exploited countries to help them not obtain enough clean, renewable energy sources that do not contribute to global warming. This is less than what U.S. military forces spend in Iraq every day.

"While we spare no expense to wage war, we seem to have no money to spare on averting climate disaster," grumbles Miriam Pemberton, author of yet another report on White House insanity. "The increasingly dire warnings from climate scientists make clear that changing these federal spending priorities can't wait."

AL GORE IS A JERK FOR PUNCTURING OUR PARTY BALLONS
In accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Al Gore called on the nations of the world to mobilize to avert climate disaster "with a sense of urgency and shared resolve that has previously been seen only when nations have mobilized for war." [Inter Press Service Jan 31/08]

Why is Big Al freaking out?

Because while headlines focus on a digital dollar meltdown, "the ice is moving faster both in Greenland and in the Antarctic than the glaciologists had believed would happen," warns Chris Rapley, outgoing head of the British Antarctic Survey. As the movement of about 300 glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula unexpectedly surges towards the sea, a thaw that continues to outpace predictions could quickly drive up world sea levels more than 6 feet.

A one-foot rise willswamp shores, moving many coastlines permanently inland 100 feet or more.

A 20-inch rise in sea level will put 3,500 square miles of the southern coast of the United States underwater.

Antarctica stores enough ice to raise ocean levels by about 180 feet if it all melts. If the Greenland icecap continues sliding into the ocean, that splash will send sea levels worldwide jumping by about 25 feet.

About 100 million people now live in areas within three feet of sea level.

“It is the glaciers and ice caps, not the two large ice sheets, that will be the big players in the sea rise for at least the next few generations," corrects University of Colorado Professor Mark Meier. So double or triple these predicted polar melt-based rises.

This meltdown must be addressed by deep carbon cuts immediately. Otherwise, more than two-thirds of the world's large cities and 634 million people living in coastal areas worldwide will be displaced by rising sea levels - with hundreds of millions more people living at less than 33 feet above sea level fleeing storm surge flooding in cities like Los Angeles and New York. [New York Times Sept 28/05; Reuters Aug 23/07 and Oct 10/08; Independent July 20/07; AP; discovery.com Mar 28/07]

“I HADN'T HEARD THAT”
Near the end of his February 28, 2008 press conference, Peter Maer of CBS News Radio asked Dubya, "What's your advice to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4-a-gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing…”

"Wait, what did you just say?" the pole-axed president interrupted. "You're predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline?"

"A number of analysts are predicting $4-a-gallon gasoline," Maer explained.

With nearly three-quarters of Americans expecting $4 gas, the forecasts had already been trumpeted by the New York Times, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, New York Post, Dallas Morning News, and Kansas City Star, as well as appearing on NBC and CBS - and at a White House press briefing. But the man who “missed” the warning in his Daily Presidential Briefing of Al Qaeda terrorists flying planes into U.S. landmarks must've have missed the fuel price mention in his latest DPB.

"Oh, yeah?" said the putative president of the biggest oil-burning nation on the planet. "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that."

It was another 9/11 Booker T. Elementary moment as Bush struggled to work it out. "You just said the price of gasoline may be up to $4 a gallon - or some expert told you that,” he stammered. “That creates a lot of uncertainty." [Washington Post Feb 29/08]

Not at a Shell service station in San Mateo, California, where the price of a gallon of regular had already hit $4.29.

"Bush is out of touch with a lot of things we are facing today," said Marisa Cajbon as she filled her Toyota Sequoia SUV , while watching the rapidly ticking pump prices race like a slot machine of doom. "I have to buy gas. I need to work. I have two kids. I think it's unfortunate. I think it's a crime."

Already spending $125 a week on gas, Roy Persinco was ready to handcuff Bush. "I can't believe that an ex-oilman could be so unaware and ignorant of what is going on around him in the real world, but I'm sure his old buddies in the oil industry can tell him they're doing just fine," he said. [Los Angeles Times Feb 29/08]

WHAT NOW?
Located in Basel, Switzerland, the Bank of International Settlements is the world's clearinghouse for central banks. As Farrell explains, “It is like the cashier's window at a racetrack or casino, where you'd place a bet or cash in chips, except on a massive scale: BIS is where the U.S. settles trade imbalances with Saudi Arabia for all that oil we guzzle, and gives China IOUs for the tainted drugs and lead-based toys we buy.”

But now America's IOUs have become so huge and so frequent, “derivatives have become the world's biggest 'black market,' exceeding the illicit traffic in stuff like arms, drugs, alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, stolen art and pirated movies,” Farell goes on. “Why? Because like all black markets, derivatives are a perfect way of getting rich while avoiding taxes and government regulations. And in today's slowdown, plus a volatile global market, Wall Street knows derivatives remain a lucrative business.”

But very very dicey.

“In short,” writes Farrel, “not only Warren Buffett, but Bond King Bill Gross, our Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the rest of America's leaders can't 'figure out' the world's $516 trillion derivatives… They're not 'real money.' They're paper promises closer to 'Monopoly' money than real U.S. dollars. It's creating a massive bubble outside normal business channels that could soon implode.”

We are seeing the creation of a new "shadow banking system," comments Pimco's bond fund king Bill Gross, where private derivative contracts between two companies are creating play money outside central bank liquidity rules, which require reserves to back up margin calls and similar casino-style transactions. "What we are witnessing is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system.”

Let's run the numbers one last time:

U.S. annual gross domestic product:                about $15 trillion
U.S. money supply:                                        about $15 trillion
U.S. mutual fund companies manage:               about $12 trillion
World's GDPs for all nations is approximately:            $50 trillion
Unfunded Social Security and Medicare benefits:        $65 trillion
Total value of the world's real estate:                  about $75 trillion
Total value of world's stock and bonds        more than $100 trillion

2007 valuation of all world derivatives coming due:        $516 trillion [MarketWatch Mar 10/08]

THAT'S A WOW
Right now, we're still flying fast on sheer momentum. But our financial airspeed is falling off. And soon gravity must reassert its primacy over denial.

"It's not hard to construct very dark scenarios, primarily because the financial system is in disarray, and it's not clear how to get it all back together again," mentions Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.

Many economists forecast that overall consumer spending will slip 1% for the first three months of the year. "That's a wow," says Robert Barbera, chief economist for the trading and research firm ITG. Home values remain “the bedrock asset for the lion's share of the population of the United States," Barbera adds. "It's not like dot-com stocks, where I bought Webvan for 1,000 times the imaginary earnings, and now it's worth nothing but I go and have a beer. You're talking about the value of people's houses."

CRUDE CALCULATIONS
Clinton and Obama are promising a "Green Energy Future For America". But it takes cheap oil to make affordable solar turbines and windmills. Lots of cheap oil.

“Crude oil costs have risen by 74% over the past year,” reports Michael Klare. And with combined daily oil demand from U.S. consumption-wannabe's China and India expected to hit 12 million barrels by 2010 and 15.5 million barrels by 2020 - global guzzling is projected to hit 91 million barrels of black crude in 2010; 104 million in 2020.

That's an increase of 20 million barrels per day in just 15 years.

It's not going to happen.

Instead, with global oil transactions still denominated in declining dollars, “we wind up paying more per barrel than competitors who can convert their euros, yen, or other strong currencies into dollars before bidding against us on the international energy market,” Klare comments. “Global investors, sensing the trend, are dumping the dollar for these other currencies or buying oil futures, only adding to the slide of the U.S. currency and the rising price of crude.”

“What, then, will be the lasting consequences of higher energy costs?” asks this author of Resource Wars, Blood and Oil and Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy - and professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College. “For the ordinary American consumer… A diminished quality of life, as discretionary expenses disappear in the face of higher costs for transportation, home heating, and electricity, not to speak of basics like food (for which, from fertilizers to packaging, oil is a necessity). For the poor and elderly, the implications are dire: In some cases, it will undoubtedly mean choosing among heat in winter, adequate nutrition, and medicine.”

While Europe is well on the way to reducing its fossil fuel use, the USA still relies on petroleum for about 40% of its total energy supply. But because nearly two-thirds of this crude oil must be imported, “this country will be forced to devote an ever-increasing share of its national wealth to energy imports,” Klare computes.

And weapons.

And wars.

Which means that while attempting to deal with bank runs and Bear Stearns copycat bankruptcies this year, importing some 5 billion barrels of oil at $108 or more per barrel will see a further net outflow of $500 billion. Add this to America's current balance-of-payments deficit and…

But who wants to go there?

Understanding that we're all this together, the major oil-producing states of the Persian Gulf, the former Soviet Union, and Latin America certainly don't. But they have no choice but to divest their depreciating oil dollars by buying what Klare calls, “big chunks of prime American assets.” Very very soon, says Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, these "Petro-Superpowers" will dominate the global geopolitical landscape. [TomDispatch.com Mar 11/08]

Like tomorrow morning?

LET'S BLOW UP SOMEPLACE ELSE, QUICK
When in danger, when in doubt, the oligarchy knows, start another war to distract public attention and rally the flag-wavers - who may soon find themselves unable to afford any more flags.

Speaking on March 20, 2008 during a U.S.-funded Radio Farda interview intended to “reach out to the Iranian public” on the Persian New Year, Bush denounced their country for declaring that it wants to be a nuclear power with a weapon to "destroy people."

As Iranian listeners reeled to the bizarre accusation, Bush blustered over Radio Farda (which broadcasts into Iran in Farsi): “That's unacceptable to the United States.”

Maybe the United States is unacceptable to the world? Bush's allegation contradicted a National Intelligence Estimate prepared last December by all major U.S. intelligence agencies, who unanimously concurred that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003, and has not restarted it.

But Bush insisted that the Iranian government has publicly declared its desire to build nuclear weapons, and “cannot be trusted to enrich uranium” because “they've hidden programs in the past and they may be hiding one now. Who knows?"

Better to carpet bomb the entire country, just in case.

But the Associated Press checked and found: “Iran has never publicly proclaimed a desire for nuclear weapons and has repeatedly insisted that the uranium enrichment program it's operating… is for civilian power plants."

Speaking to Dubya's latest efforts to justify yet another catastrophic war, Joseph Cirincione, president of the global security foundation, Ploughshares Fund, told the press: “That's as uninformed as McCain's statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda. Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It's just not true. It's a little troubling that the president and the leading Republican candidate are both so wrong about Iran."

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the State Department until last year and now at the Brookings Institute, agreed. "The Iranian government is on the record across the board as saying it does not want a nuclear weapon. There's plenty of room for skepticism about these assertions. But it's troubling for the administration to indicate that Iran is explicitly embracing the program as a means of destroying another country," she said.

In a follow-up interview with the Voice of America's Persian News Network, Bush reassured the outraged people of Iran: "Please don't be discouraged by the slogans that say America doesn't like you, because we do, and we respect you."

We just may have to kill you.

Warning that U.S. military action against Iran would be "a real disaster," former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the Middle East could explode if diplomacy in the region is not handled super-carefully. [Washington Post Mar 21/08; McClatchy Newspapers Mar 20/08; AP Mar 20/08]

Meanwhile, the Wilkins icecap is “hanging by a thread” that has nothing to do with a carbon-crammed atmosphere and ocean. And the monetary mess caused by the criminal, greed-blinded lack of federal oversight is really just bad luck, insists Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, who has brazenly just announced: "I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current turmoil." [New York Times Mar 31/08]

Heck no, Henry. It's working just great.

FISSURES
by
William Thomas