Das All, Kapital?

With the inauguration of President Obama, our nation finds its collective eyes misted over with hope: for what?

Are we hoping that, putting childish things aside, we can rise above the moronism that has gripped the Republic since Reagan cast his gimlet eye upon "the elite"? We are, most fervently.

Do we hope that, refusing false choices, we don't continue to run the Constitution through a shredder in the vain pursuit of every last person who wants to harm us? We do.

Or are we hoping, most of all, that Obama figures out a way for Capitalism to survive its current bout of double pneumonia/tuberculosis/polio/river-blindness/yaws/hookworm/food-poisoning? We are--most of all.

The rest of the above are all quite wonderful to contemplate (that, and the first African-American President to boot); but this is serious.

They are talking about spending a trillion dollars--that's in addition to the remaining 325 billion from the first panicked bailout. And they are saying it might not work. If a trillion-plus doesn't work, how much do we have left in the tank? Another trillion? Won't the mint run out of paper and ink pretty soon after that?

Think what might have happened if the Soviets hadn't taken the Reagan bait--hadn't blown their meager savings on missiles they'd never be able to use--and lasted another twenty years or so? They'd have lived long enough to see the mighty capitalist tiger now weak as a kitten, waiting for the taxpayer to feed it thin gruel through an eyedropper.

The world of capital is in denial.

Guys: it's over. Your debt-to-asset ratios are unrecoverable.

The new lending institution is going to be the government. That's called socialism.

Much as a certain cartoon pig used to say: "Da-da-da-da-da-da Das All, Kapital."

--Renaissance