Blood on the dance floor

Gloat time, folks! The self-appointed policeman of the world, the Great Hypocrite, the Big Mouth is finally getting its comeuppance, and aren't I glad!

For decades, the US has ruled the world, through its economic colonialism, its home market protection and insistence of opening up other's home markets, its industrial and military dominance, and of course, through its arm twisting diplomacy.

The political high ground had gone some time ago, thanks to the eight years of Bush II, and his incompetent bunch of buffoons. Now, Wall Street is crashing, and Bush, his cronies, his pet rich folk, and others who had bled the country are running to the US taxpayers, crying "Save us!"

For years, these same bankers, financiers, and so-called rulemakers, had been trading in nothing. They bought stuff worth zilch, sold them to others for a fancy sum, who in turn sold them to others for a fancier sum of money - but all the time, the stuff was still worth zilch. When the whole thing collapsed, the bankers, financiers, et al had zilch in their hands and millions of dollars to pay to their creditors.

So, what do they do? Go to their cronies in the government - after all, Paulson is one of them, till recently the chairman of Goldman Sachs. Surely, he won't let his kinda people down. He tries his best to save them - proposes a bailout which would buy the garbage from the banks for USD 7 trillion of taxpayers money, and leave the banks with the real assets. A perfect Bushian plan - the rich folk would retain the goodies, while the poor folk (read the tax payers) will get the 'toxic' assets from the bank. Joseph Stiglitz was right - in times like these, Bush's first instinct is to rescue the rich.

So banks and institutions close and go bankrupt. The managers therefrom run off into the sunset with their guaranteed multi-million dollar bonuses, while hundreds of thousands of taxpayers have their savings and other assets devalued.

And the world laughs. It's lovely to see the clay feet of self-appointed Titans.