Thank God they’re looking out for us. Make sure to avoid these sites at all cost.

We’ve all seen bloggers link to articles they claim best explain the current global financial mess. I’ve given a few such links myself. But this article opened my eyes and got me thinking like few others, and i strongly recommend you read it now. It’s simply the best single piece I’ve found.

I wrote a huge post with big snips but then realized the article speaks for itself, and I can’t tell it better than its authors. Please, read it.

The most illuminating aspect is its focus at the beginning on the Madoff scandal, illustrating how it is symbolic of why the whole train wreck took place. Sure, Madoff is just a sideshow of the Big Global Crisis going on in the main tent. But the authors show, dramatically, how the way it was handled, or mishandled, or not handled at all, tells us much of what we need to know about why we are where we are today. This is exquisite stuff, and the thesis is kicked off with a look at the efforts of a man who wrote a detailed and damning report seeking to alert the regulators about what was clearly a fraud of monumental proportions. It was ignored because exposing Madoff went contrary to the short-term interest of all involved. The regulators, the investment houses, everybody. And that is why the same regulators and banks failed to clean house even when all the evidence was in front of their eyes that we were heading toward a global calamity. It was bad for their own short-term interest. And the way they are handling the crisis now follows the exact same mold: they are shoring up their own short-term interests yet again. That’s what the bailout was all about.

It reminded me of another gem I saw today over at this site. It uses a rather crude metaphor to make its point:

Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities

Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates.
– Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds.
– Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates.
– These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors.
– Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime.
– Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.
– Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal.
– Mama always said: “Sniff the chocolates first Forrest”.

Hank Pauson is using his gift from you and me to yet again protect the immediate interests of an elite group of power brokers who, instead of seeking to stem the tide of failing mortgages, want mainly to focus on pushing stock prices back up (again, for their own short-term gain) with no consideration of the long-term consequences of their not actually fixing the heart of the problem. And the cycle continues. The NYT column gives you the entire picture, and makes you wonder why we are asking those who filthied the stables to now clean them up.

Again, read the whole thing, and prepare to shake your head in stunned disbelief.

An unhappy ending to an upsetting story. If I believed in God, I’d say my prayers were with Addie. My thoughts certainly are, as are my condolences to Ryan. Life goes on, but at the moment I know that’s of little consolation.