Obviously, with Jews, no special reason is needed to be worried, concerned, anxious or merely paranoid.
By PINCHAS LANDAUglobal agenda 88(photo credit: )
People say they are confused. They can't understand what's going on in the global economy and markets (let alone the local ones…). You would think - so what? perplexed, shmerplexed, so long as they're making money. All the stock markets are going up, especially the emerging markets, and commodities are soaring outasight, so why the angst?
Obviously, with Jews, no special reason is needed to be worried, concerned, anxious or merely paranoid. The only reason nothing terrible has happened yet is because something even more terrible is in the offing. But this time Jews are not only the only ones suffering from the "so-vot's-goin'-on" syndrome. And, anyway, as Henry Kissinger so rightly pointed out with respect to Israel, "even paranoids can have real enemies."
The sad truth is that most professionals also have no idea what's going on. For instance, a guy called Bennet Sedacca (okay, he's probably Jewish), president of Atlantic Advisors, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal's excellent Real Time Economics blog as follows, reacting to news that Moody's had downgraded $1.5 billion of CDOs (collateralized-debt obligations) from AAA (the highest rating possible) to Baa3 (junk): "When you have bonds going from triple A to Baa3 in one fell swoop, does anybody know what anything's worth?"
First of all, he's right to complain. Second, the answer to his question is definitely NO. Third, we come back to where we began - so what?
So nobody knows what anything's worth. So Google is through $700 a share, gold is $800 an ounces and oil is nearing $100 a barrel. A Canadian dollar is worth much more than an American one (about 105 cents) and an Australian one will soon be at parity. The Hong Kong stock exchange is up some 60% in the last half-year, but Alan Greenspan (among many others) says that the Chinese stock market (off which HK is feeding) is a bubble waiting to burst.
But that's just financial markets, which many people always thought were crazy. What about real economies, where people make, buy and sell real things?
If you thought the US economy was in trouble because of the housing slump, the credit crunch, the subprime crisis and all the other tsores you have been stuffed full of for months, Wednesday must have been a difficult day for you, huh? After all, that's when they announced that GDP grew in the third quarter - the period when the s-t h-t the fan - by 3.9% at an annual rate! And inflation was only 0.8%! So where's the recession? Where's inflation? Where's tsores? What the hell is going on?
Many people, out of instinct or desperation, look to Washington and, especially, the Federal Reserve Bank for guidance. But later that same day, the Fed cut interest rates because (so it said) it was worried about economic growth - but it indicated very clearly that it wanted to avoid any further rate cuts, because it is (also) worried about inflation.
In this situation, it seems fair to say that anyone who is not seriously confused is either very stupid or has simply stopped following the economic news (i.e. is very wise). For those people who are determined to try and get things straight in their own minds, there are two avenues open.
One requires the suspension of belief and confidence in all the institutions that upright citizens are supposed to believe and have confidence in - starting with the Fed, the whole array of government statistics, the Wall Street investment banks, in short the entire economic Establishment. That is very hard for many people to do, because they have been educated to view the adoption of that mindset as the equivalent of going over to the Dark Side.
The other avenue requires the suspension of disbelief. It demands that you accept at face value all the things that the President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman and Members of the Federal Reserve Board, and the heads of major financial institutions pronounce. That you accept all the statistics, reports, data and projections that they publish, as objective and methodologically sound. And that you absolutely believe that they have no personal agenda or conflict of interest. That is very hard for many people to do, because they think the aforementioned big-shots ARE the Dark Side.
As noted in previous columns, it is now all a matter of what you are prepared to believe - and whom you are prepared to disbelieve.
landaup@netvision.net.il
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