[Marxism] Is Wall Street's pneumonia making the world sneeze?

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Here's an example of how the Cuban media follows events in the
United States, the country which presents itself as the model which
must be impose on Cuba, by any means necessary and as soon as possible.)
======================================================================

JUVENTUD REBELDE

Is Wall Street's pneumonia making the world sneeze?
By: Juana Carrasco MartÃn 
E-mail: internac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
September 17, 2008 - 00:00:18 GMT

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2164.html 
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Both presidential candidates lock horns with each other over a single
issue: economics. Another financial giant has just collapsed, and now
John McCain calls to set up a commission to study the ongoing crisis,
which he ascribes to corruption and speculation in Wall Street but
whose very existence he recently denied by saying that "the
fundamentals of our economy are solid".

Barack Obama seized on the statement at once and filled TV screens
nationwide with a campaign ad questioning the Republican candidate's
ability to put the economy right when he still doesn't understand
it's falling apart.

It's been only hours since one of the world's top financial giants,
the insurance corporation American International Group, Inc. (AIG)
-with 74 million customers in 130 countries (mostly in the U.S.) and
a 40-billion-dollar debt to be settled before the end of this month-
started a frenzied run to get the 75 billion it needs right away to
avoid the fate of Lehman Brothers, which collapsed under the weight
of mounting losses related to its real estate holdings and had to
file for bankruptcy protection last Monday, following others like
mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, all but nationalized
by the Bush administration itself in a last-ditch neck-saving
maneuver. Even that bull called Merrill Lynch & Co. shrank into a
small calf and sold itself to Bank of America Corp. for a bargain.

New York is shaking, and not precisely because of events unleashed by
an angry Mother Nature: it's just that too many bubbles are bursting
in succession.

Conventional wisdom had it that by the time the U.S. sneezed the
world was already sick with pneumonia. Judging by comments pouring in
from some Latin American countries, however, all indications are that
the shoe's now on the other foot, thanks to integrationist policies
of a kind and purpose at odds with the usual recipes prescribed by
the IMF, intent, perhaps, on minimizing its own sorrows.

Brazil is "quiet but on the alert", for the impact will go "almost
unnoticed", Lula said. Even if united by the umbilical cord of the
free trade agreement, Mexican Secretary of Finance AgustÃn Carsten
told the press "there's no reason to worry, we're fine" (...) "Mexico
has a strong economy". In Uruguay, Tabarà VÃzquez claimed his nation
is "very well prepared", albeit he warned that the international
crisis "will somehow affect the region and our country at any given
time". Share prices took a nosedive in the Peruvian stock exchange
and reached their lowest since December 2006, according to traders.

Those who got "hooked" in this region and elsewhere are paying the
price, as are markets worldwide, especially in Europe -despite the
fact that their major banks have already injected tens of millions
into the private sector- where the fall taken by Lehman Brothers is
likely to have economic fallout, with higher borrowing costs and more
unemployment, as the German and French Ministers of Finance have
assured. The German insurance company Allianz has 400 million euros
in Lehman Brothers, a harbinger of doom no matter how you look at it.
The London market saw its worst drop ever, only outmatched by Tokyo.

Much to its chagrin, the U.S. Federal Reserve System admitted on
Tuesday that things are going from bad to worse, with less jobs,
reduced consumption and household wealth, a rising inflation and
weaker economic performance.

Could it be a new revised and enlarged version of the fateful Wall
Street Clash of 1929?

To round off all these bad knocks, what seemed impossible is now
happening: workers at Lehman Brothers are auctioning company
memorabilia, like pens, mugs, T-shirts and mouse pads, on eBay. And
since there's nothing new under the sun, at a starting price several
times higher than the 22 cents the shares of the once-powerful bank
cost today.

ORIGINAL:
http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/opinion/2008-09-17/neumonia-en-wall-street-el-mundo-estornuda/


=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un ParaÃso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================

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