Peggy Noonan's piece in the Wall Street Journal this weekend definitely had me going.* She had me convinced that Chuck Prince, the former CEO of Citigroup had turned over a new leaf. Prince, is famous for his comments in an interview with the Financial Times in July 2007 when he said that “When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance." Prince regrets his comments because they reflect the truth as moneylenders like him see it; regardless of the consequences, profit making must go on. He told the Financial Times that the "party" would not be disrupted by the turmoil in the US subprime mortgage market.
It is interesting to note that a situation in which workers, the low waged, and people with what moneylenders call "bad credit" but who are people they have bled dry so that they have nothing left to give, struggled to make interest payments or lost their shelter for failing to do so, is referred to a "party" by bankers like Prince. But that's what other people's misery is for them.
Ms Noonan was commenting on the Financial Industry Inquiry Commission's hearings that were held this week and I have to admit, it was a great piece of writing I thought, although I am not sure what qualifies me to make that judgement except that it was easy to read and was very creative. Ms Noonan is disappointed that she learned little about the causes of the recent economic crisis: "I continue to seek to understand exactly what moods, facts, assumptions, dynamics, agendas and structures underlay and made possible the crash and the Great Recession." she writes. But she is very disappointed. Not only did she not get any answers as to the cause of the economic crisis, the commission had no life to it; it was a "tepid affair, gentle and genteel." she adds.
The whole affair was boring she adds, conducted in the language of those on what should be the hot seat, what she describes as the "Impenetrable financial language of the witnesses." And there is no doubt the language of these thieves is very difficult to comprehend, purposefully so, much like the legal jargon that makes it impossible for the vast majority of us to understand what is being said and she gives an example of one of the questions asked:
"The leveraged capital arbitrage of the lowest CDOs were subject to the supersenior subprime exposure, as opposed to the triple-A seniors, right?" Quite a mouthful and not likely to keep the inquisitive "citizen" glued to the TV screen.
On the witness stand were some major players in the thievery business, Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, and Prince of course. Ms Noonan found them so boring, so difficult to understand, that, "I couldn't figure out why they'd been held. They couldn't have been aimed at informing the citizenry." she tells the reader. The fact that they were on C-Span is evidence enough that these hearings were not aimed at informing the citizenry. When they want us to buy their junk or support sending our youth to fight in their wars, they don't put that on C-Span. Ms Noonan figures it all out in the end, "This is where famous and important people being grilled hide now: in boringness, in an opacity of language so thick that following them is actually impossible." The questioners were too nice and the tone of the questions were "marked by a kind of weird delicacy, a daintiness of approach, a courtesy so elaborate..." she writes, with questioners telling the thieves in the dock that they were "so grateful for that insight" and thanking them "for appearing." as if it was a variety show they were on.
It is hard to imagine that Ms Noonan can be so naive. Does she really think that this inquiry is anything but a charade? Does she think that the politicians asking the questions are going to put their masters on the hot seat, are going to bite the hand that feeds them? Sure its boring and difficult to understand. It's meant to be boring just like city council meetings or the meetings of any municipal board is boring unless angry workers fed up with the crap we are fed turn up and disrupt the charade bringing some life to the whole affair ---- inject a reality moment in to the scene.
In fact Ms Noonan knows the truth, she knows that it is a charade. She is a spokesperson for capitalism, an admirer of Ronald Reagan and a weekly columnist for the voice of US finance capital. She knows what she is doing and is very skilled at it. It is her skill as a writer that made the article so appealing. If she wanted to know why recessions and crashes like the one we have just experienced or the numerous others that have occurred throughout the history of capitalism, she need only read a few pages of Marx, Engels or a whole host of other Marxist and left wing economists.
No, Ms Noonan is a skillful representative of the capitalist class whose job it is to obscure the real nature of society. In the piece we are referring to here she obscures the role of the state and the political representative in government. Her purpose in attributing all sort of secondary features to explain why the hearings reveal nothing is to hide the fact that the state has class content, the politicians and political parties that dominate the politics of this state represent class interests and these interests are hostile, antagonistic to the vast majority of us, the millions of workers who are the victims of those being questioned and those questioning them.
One of Ms Noonan's friends, the former guru and federal reserve head Alan Greenspan was one of those appearing before the commission. He has to be protected from what could be an angry populace if they ever got a hold of him; but more important than Greenspan is the system itself and it is the system that must be defended and Ms Noonan does a good job for her paymasters.
Ms Noonan began her commentary by explaining how as an American she seeks the causes of the crisis. What caused the Great Recession? she is asking. Perhaps she should ask Greenspan. His answer is simple enough---bad data.
Ms Noonan ends her commentary with a question: "Can't we do better than this? she asks.
I can answer that for her. No you can't.
* After the Crash, a Crashing Bore: Wall Street Journal 4-10-10
1 comment:
Yes,she is a interesting personality.I have been watching her for years on the Sunday morning talk shows.she surely plays the part so perfectly.the perfect professional flower.yet there is never anybody who is the voice of the dispossesed.the terrible indifference of capital is a very important underpenning of all these people.this blog has true information beaming from it always.
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