moon traveller herald

At some point the process became apparent. The sky is falling, so if you are in the know and have the pull, you help yourself and your friends. Don’t plan too far ahead. Keep the green churning. People were getting thrown out of work left and right at a significant rate on all strata. The folks reading the Times knew this. But capital - that was the animal that had to be fed. The Treasury Dept now struggled to accomplish the task of hiring people to oversee the TARP. A bridge too far - because it lived and breathed. The breadth of the TARP plan had been continually narrowed. Why? It became much more a case of give the bankers some money and call that relief. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the injections of the capital would be the best bet for stabilizing the financial sector - better than direct government purchases of distressed assets. And, anyway that would be hassle... A story in the Wall Street Journal suggested that buying and moderating assets is just too much trouble. Y...

No one, wise or unwise, knew or now knows when depressions are due or overdue. –JKG, The Great Crash 1929 September 2008 – Who knew? Not the masters of the Economic Universe who lord it over the consumers. When the early waters of economic tsunami began to rise, the Secretary of Treasury proved no more prescient than the telemarketing mortgage hucksterer. And why should it be otherwise? Tweak down the interest rates. Wall Street will applaud and the banks will demur. That’s the formula. It was a familiar pattern. The waves were barely lapping the first steps of the pillared Treasury building –right next to the White House – and more impressive. It all seemed manageable - just work with Ben ‘I wrote a book about the Great Depression’ Bernake, have some trust in the masters of Wall Street - which Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson in his mind had not yet left - and their government shadow organization, which Ben had come to run. Hadn’t they got us out of the Russian-Asian spiral of 199...

It was a Sunday open air market of music and flea bit items. Caught a good film [DVD] about Maxwell Street in the '60s. It is called "Chicago's Legendary Maxwell Street ... And This Is Free." Very vivid depiction of the Chicago Blues. Of course, now, piano players wasnt on Maxwell Street. Didnt no piano players play in the street. But Robert Nighthawk, Johnnie Young and J.B Hutto [his hand anyway, I think; this is a wild guess - maybe it's Homesick James] appear. Lots of gospel too. Much in the way of Hucksterism. It is not a representation of what the blues would be like in a South Side Club in the '60s or '70s , but it is a more accurate representation than most any blues show you may go to today. I got down there once when it was way past it's prime. Remember this guy who had this giant collection of hub caps on sale. The joke to me in those days was selling so many hub caps. That was a very prominent stolen item back in time. There is a CD accompa...

Bad news that Jimmy Carl Black [second from right, above] of Mothers of Invention died. He was 70. Will always remember him as "Jimmy Carl Black, the Indian of the group." Heard him on the radio this summer, and he seemed like a nice guy. Here's a link to the Zappa write up of a year ago. The Shroud of Zappa. Mothers of Invention drummer Jimmy Carl Black - Washington Post Jimmy Carl Black at 70 - L.A. Times