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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 29-Jul-2012
29-Jul-12 World View -- Geithner's testimony raises questions about his competence

Web Log - July, 2012

29-Jul-12 World View -- Geithner's testimony raises questions about his competence

Syrian army massing for major assault on Aleppo

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Geithner's testimony raises questions about his competence
Vox Day on Generation-X cynicism and fury
The Oklahoma City bombing
Syrian army massing for major assault on Aleppo

Geithner's testimony raises questions about his competence

Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, testifying before Congress in 2009

Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, testifying before Congress in 2009

This week we saw the spectacle of Gen-Xer U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner say that he was aware in 2008 that traders were rigging Libor interest rates, and that he took the hard-hitting action of writing a memo about it. He blames UK financial authorities for reading his memo but not taking the action that he should have taken.

We've been writing for years about the refusal of Gen-Xer prosecutors to investigate and prosecute banksters who committed fraud and caused the financial crisis, and here we have one more example. The irony is that now Geithner himself is in trouble for being a good Gen-X soldier.

This week I had an interesting e-mail exchange with Gen-Xer Vox Day, who writes for World Net Daily, and is author of "The Return of the Great Depression." As with all such Boomer/Gen-X conversations, it wasn't particularly satisfying for either of us, but it did produce a number of insights.

Vox Day on Generation-X cynicism and fury

Saying that "you have failed to understand something very significant with regards to the depths of Gen-X cynicism and fury," Day insisted that he and other Gen-Xers want to see Boomer financial managers "to go to jail, WE WANT THEM HANGED, DRAWN, AND QUARTERED."

As I responded, I've certainly heard this from Gen-Xers before, but that I don't believe that Gen-Xers really mean it. Sure, they'd like to see someone wave a magic wand and send the hated Boomers to jail, but that's not the way the world works. What I've seen is that Gen-Xers don't want the investigations to take place that would send the Boomers to jail because they would also implicate their Gen-X pals. The result is that no one goes to jail, and the evidence is overwhelming that this interpretation is true because, in fact, Gen-X prosecutors are not investigating banksters and making criminal referrals.

Day was kind enough to ask the Gen-X readers of his blog to tell whom they blame (Gen-Xers or Boomers) for the financial crisis. He was eminently fair in the way he posed the question, by quoting the following paragraph of mine in introducing the question:

"The evidence is overwhelming that Gen-Xers were the perpetrators of the crimes related to the financial crisis simply because it was only the Gen-X financial engineers who had the education and skills to create fraudulent residential mortgage backed collaterized debt obligations (RMB CDOs). And the evidence is overwhelming that they created and sold these fraudulent synthetic securities knowing full well that they were fraudulent. And the evidence is overwhelming that their Boomer bosses knew what was going on, but let it go on because they were making too much money. I've written about this evidence dozens of times."

I've written probably hundreds of times that Gen-Xers and Boomers have shared responsibility for the financial crisis, and this paragraph is a good summary. Gen-Xers provably must have been the perpetrators, because they were the experts on creating complex fraudulent securities, and their Boomer bosses would not even have understood how they worked. But it was also clear that there was massive fraud going on, and the Boomer bosses let it go on because they were making too much money. The Boomers and Gen-Xers had very different roles in the crisis, but they needed each other to make the crime work, just as a bank robber and the getaway car driver need each other to rob a bank the old-fashioned way.

Day's Gen-Xer audience overwhelmingly blamed the Boomer managers. Most people just answered with the single word "Boomer," but some added comments:

"Boomers are responsible, even if Xer's created the schemes, the Boomers could have stopped it, they had the authority and therefore the responsibility.
The buck stops with the Boomer bosses, but it may well have started with the Gen X minions. Boomers and Jews are most accountable, and especially Jewish Boomers (can we call them say Joomers or something? it's almost like a neutron star of narcissism!) because they created the entire narcissistic cultural matrix in which these things became possible, even perhaps inevitable
Boomers as the bosses they are responsible by definition plus their collective decisions of the 70s and 80s to shut down the power grid expansion and legalize and then normalize fraud have left few options for the capable or ambitious.
Boomers. While Gen-X does have a share of blame, they have been taught via the mass media to worship the Boomers who saved them from the rigid conservatism of the "Greatest" generation. In many cases, they are following in their footsteps.
Boomers. They went from peace and free love to marketable securities and bad loans backed up by the blood, sweat, and tears of at least the next three generations without a thought or care.
Boomers are responsible by virtue of them being in charge. Mao Zedong never personally pulled a trigger, yet he is responsible for millions of deaths.
Boomers bar none. Who has been and still is in the majority of the leadership positions at banks, academia, the press, corporations and last but not least government? Boomer fucks that's who.
Given that most current CEOs and political leaders are boomers I believe the primary blame falls on them as they created the incentive system that led to this result."

There's an interesting historical comparison here, because this is exactly what's known as the "Nuremberg Defense," where the perpetrators of the Holocaust proclaimed their innocence, saying that they were only doing what their bosses wanted them to do. These defenses have been rejected in all cases based on the following "Nuremberg Principle":

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

But I think that Vox Day asked the wrong question. I knew that Gen-Xers would blame Boomers for the financial crisis. What I'd like to know is why Gen-Xer officials, like Timothy Geithner, refuse to investigate and prosecute suspected criminals. As I've written many times, the evidence that massive fraud was perpetrated by banksters in the 2004-2008 time frame and beyond is overwhelming, and yet there has not been a single investigation and criminal referral. When the S&L scandal occurred in the 1980s, there were thousands of criminal referrals. Even as late as 2000, the Enron scandal sent people to jail. But since the Gen-Xers reached middle management positions in the mid-2000s decade, prosecutors have adamantly refused to investigate and prosecute, even when it's obvious that massive fraud has occurred. I wish that Day had asked a question to get the bottom of that.

If the Boomers are really so guilty, then why are the Gen-Xers so goddam reluctant to investigate?

Actually, Day himself gave the reason in his e-mail message to me:

"The financial crisis is absolutely a Boomer affair. The reason GenX isn't concerned with playing the little regulatory game of the 1980s is because we believe the entire game is rigged, the prosecutions are fake, the punishments are wrist slaps, and the entire system has to be burned down in flames."

This is the Gen-X nihilism coming through. But his remark about the system being "rigged" allows me to make a connection.

I've written in the past about how Gen-Xers got the way they are. I trace Gen-X attitudes back to feminist policies, where they were raised in households where the only "father" was a string of men in their mothers' beds. They did not read feminist organization press releases, so they knew that their mothers were lying about domestic violence to drive their real fathers away and to get more money. As children, these Gen-Xers learned from the masters -- their mothers following feminist policies, destroying their families and their lives for money. Why not become a bankster criminal after being raised that way?

However, Day's remark about the system being "rigged" is that the divorce courts ARE rigged. As I've been writing since the early 1990s, feminist judges and social workers couldn't care less if the kids (Gen-Xers) were fed to a meat grinder, as long as they get their money. The whole divorce court system is rigged, and therefore Gen-Xers have concluded that all court systems are rigged.

When looked at that way, the Gen-Xer world view that led to the financial crisis makes perfect sense. If your mother lies to the court about phony violence claims to get more money, and drive your father away so she can have a string of men in her bed, and if the court supports her to get their own money, even though the judge and social workers know the mother is lying, then of course you'll want to grow up to be a bankster, instead of a fireman or policeman.

The Oklahoma City bombing

Day wrote back to me as follows:

"This is absolutely correct! And it's not merely the courts or those who grew up in broken homes. We know we have been lied to about the most basic things since kindergarten by our teachers and our mothers. I think you are correct to suggest that Gen-X is in silent, but permanent revolt against the feminism that ruled our lives in our youth. The Boomer is shocked by Libor and other frauds, whereas the Gen-Xer shrugs and wonders when the manipulation of the commodity and stock markets will finally come out. We know all the courts and agencies and international organizations are rigged."

Day added the following:

"Seriously, I don't know if you can even conceive of the amount of pure, white-hot hate that many Xers conceal inside themselves. I was at the Game Developer's Conference when the OK City bombing was reported, and a lady reporter, a late Boomer, was aghast when a huge cheer went up at the news. When she asked one of the game designers, a famous one whose games you would recognize, why everyone had cheered, he told her 'basically, we're all terrorists at heart.'"

I don't believe that Gen-Xers are really pleased that Oklahoma City bombing occurred, but the momentary "huge cheers" do reflect the feelings of "pure, white-hot hate" that Gen-Xers have toward Boomers.

Day's reference to schoolteachers reminds of my experience with my son's schoolteachers in the 1990s. It was evident to me that these teachers (mostly women) considered boys to be nothing more than defective girls. These were the days of "the year of the woman," when racists like CNN's Jeffrey Toobin attacked a black man like Clarence Thomas for once having asked someone out on a date, while feminists like Susan Estrich sold themselves out as women and rape victims to save Bill Clinton, after he'd been credibly accused of violent serial rape. It's really no wonder that Gen-Xers, growing up in this putrid political and social climate, grew up to become banksters and bankster apologists. Reuters and Vox Day

Syrian army massing for major assault on Aleppo

The Bashar al-Assad regime is massing its army around the city of Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, for a major military assault with the objective of wresting control from opposition rebels. Tanks and helicopter gunships are already flattening residential neighborhoods in prepartion for the onslaught. Many analysts consider this to be a crucial battle in the Syrian conflict. Reuters

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 29-Jul-12 World View -- Geithner's testimony raises questions about his competence thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (29-Jul-2012) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 29-Jul-2012 29-Jul-12 World View -- Geithner's testimony raises questions about his competence

Geithner's testimony raises questions about his competence

Vox Day on Generation-X cynicism and fury

The Oklahoma City bombing

Syrian army massing for major assault on Aleppo

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 29-Jul-2012
29-Jul-12 World View -- Geithner's testimony raises questions about his competence