I love the game of follow the money. For anything political particularly.
I was intrigued by the humiliating take down of the former Governor of New York. Especially knowing that very few politicos are exempt from extra-marital perks be it hetero or straight, be it paid for in one way or another - cash or kind. And so many of the sleazy doings of those in power never get exposed or lie in wait for a decent post-mortem stretch of time (see KFK, LBJ et al). You have to really spit (ye gads, pardon the pun!) in the face of a big cheese to get punished this hugely (see Clinton).
So what was happening at the same time as Eliot's big fall from grace? The bailout of a private company (Bear Stearns along with a nifty assist to JP Morgan)) by the Federal Reserve.
And sure enough the dots start connecting:
This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.
Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.
Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.
How? Follow the money.
The press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.
Read (and weep) all about it here in Eliot's Mess.
They got Eliot real good, huh?
And as a side track, though an admirer and fan of anything Beatle, I had a small and private chuckle at how much Paul paid for each boink of his marriage. A million dollars? A half million? That Mucca sure costed our Macca, big time.
Elliot’s courtesan is beginning to look like a bargain.
