Chthonic Thaumaturgy

Many people believed that Barrack Obama was going to be some sort of classic liberal president, straight out of Rush Limbaugh’s nightmares. He is turning out to be fairly conservative in many of his approaches, which is probably going to irritate some of his strongest supporters. I am usually a pretty careful guy when it comes to things like our finical institutions and regulation of free trade. However we are at a point in time, when drastic action must be taken if we are to survive, not only as a country, but as the beacon of freedom for the rest of the world. As Americans we hold a great responsibility. We are the standard that most countries hope to live up to. We are the economy that drives many of the worlds economic engines. Unfortunately that engine is in a machine, being driven by a bunch of spoiled sophomoric pin heads, who think the only reason we have banks, is so them and their friends can live in luxury. As they drive it off a cliff, their biggest concern seems to be who is going to pay for cab fare home.

Now is not the time to be careful. Now is the time to take actions that seemed impossible a few years ago. We need to bring back lending in America. I can’t help but think about a recent advertising campaign in which a group of bankers light a small business man on fire with a magnifying glass, while joking about the fact; he had a business plan. It seems this is what has become of America. The banks have no trouble finding a few billion, to allow companies like Phiser to buy out a competitor, even though they have no way to pay back the money or that part of the plan is to lay off a few thousand people. But small businesses are closing all over America because they can’t borrow a few thousand dollars. The days of making one loan for a few million, then going to play golf all afternoon, should be over at most banks. Instead we see the same mindless process of going for the quick big loan, as opposed to making several smaller loans.

Small businesses are what made the American economy what it is, or at least what it used to be. Banks have been turning there backs on small businesses for so long, they have even invented a new definition of small. They now consider anything less than a couple of million dollars a year in revenue small. Those companies that used to be called small businesses are now “micro businesses” and those people have trouble opening a checking account in most banks, never mind being seriously considered for a loan. You don’t read about it in the papers when they close their doors. Usually they only employee three or four people, but they are closing all over America and they are one of the most important aspects of our economy, if we expect to ever go into recovery. I don’t know the exact numbers I would venture a guess that less that one in a thousand “micro” business ever grows to the point where it becomes large enough to be considered a small business. It is even rarer that they grow to be as big as Marriot Hotels or Micro soft or Planters nuts. But all those companies started out as a micro business and got to where they are because banks used to loan companies like that money. In todays banking world Amedeo Obici, John Marriott, and Bill Gates, would never get past the application process. That is why we are where we are today.

As banks loaned more and more money to these “too big to fail” companies, the heart of the American dream was being ripped out and spit upon, by the banking industry. All in the name of profit. Now these same bankers are begging us for compassion. They are telling us it wasn’t really their fault it was multiple factors beyond their control. Well I will grant he multiple factors part of that argument but it was very much within their control. Everyone involved with real estate could see the foreclosure problem building but the banks kept feeding it with more foreclosures. Everyone in the business community could see the problem with limited competition due to over capitalization at huge companies. The Banks kept feeding the problem with billion dollar loans to companies like GM and AIG. Now most of those small businesses are gone their owners work at Walmart or Home Depot. Their dreams were crushed not by; like of hard work, or ambition, or even a good business plan. Their companies were shut down because the banks turned their backs on the heart of America. Now we are all sitting outside the intensive care unit hoping our country survives. The real question is do our leaders have the courage to try the (highly successful) experimental surgery? Or are they going to stick with old procedures that haven’t worked very well in the past?

Stalker Out!