Tale of three pigs and a bail out

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September 27, 2:17 PM

by Larry Clifton, North Georgia Travel Examiner

 

 

Hometown news: http://www.pickensprogressonline.com/

Lately, we have heard a great deal from politicians about pigs wearing lipstick. The time has come for Americans to confess and recognize that there isn’t just one pig. There are actually three pigs living in the house of cards called the Bail-Out, and the pigs are about to take out the largest imaginable second mortgage using America as collateral so they can continue to eat, slop and wallow in the stench of our rotting economy.

The pig with lipstick, Ms. Government Piggy, is the ultimate spending machine. Her favorite mall is the Electoral Mall. There, she massages exotic tax-increases for ripeness and fills her many shopping bags with nothing but the finest bloated social programs, self-serving earmarks, expensive lobbyist gifts, plus plenty of bright, glossy-red lipstick to cover allegations of pig-like behavior. You see, she insists that you think of her as royalty, and taxpayers are the proverbial White Nights slaying all who dare stand in her path; but, I digress.

With aid from millions of well-tipped illegal immigrants who carry her heavy packages, Ms. Piggy waddles out to her limousine and returns to Washington to lavish her targeted voter blocks with new dysfunctional social programs and earmarks while voting for the next spending spree at Electoral Mall. Ms. Piggy never troubles herself about money. She has taxed, borrowed and mortgaged trillions of dollars for decades and her well-greased constituents just keep re-electing her. So, being a pig, she naturally spends more each year, for balancing a check book is not an issue in a Bail-Out economy.

The second pig, or the bearded Mr. Corporate Pig, officially escaped under the fence of regulation when Miss Piggy sent a veto-proof bipartisan bill to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which had separated commercial banking from risky Investment banking. This allowed the bearded pig to sell stinky speculative securities and gutted collaterals mortgaged on unsecured profits of virtual stock and commercial banking markets that never actually existed.
 

An analogy might be a Rod Serling Twilight Zone script where pigs turned the US banking and stock markets into one giant casino using worthless mortgage securities and stocks for chips, and taxpayer dollars for casino payoffs. As more and more winning pigs cashed in worthless stocks and mortgage securities, the casino began borrowing enormous sums of money to keep the casino open. Eventually, the virtual casino market imploded when the real economy slowed, and Mr. Corporate Pig told Ms. Piggy that she needed to bail him out of the entire casino debt; he needs $700+ billion for starters. Ready for another extended vacation, Ms. Piggy promised to borrow all of the money from other countries.
 

Deep inside, Ms. Piggy was mortified because she had already run the national debt up to $9-trillion or more. Whatever would she tell her voter blocks. After all, she is the template for virtual economies; Ms. Piggy hadn’t had real money in the bank for decades. But Ms. Piggy was quite sure the voters would not protest too loudly, because they always understand.
 

Citizen Pig lives in the same Bail-Out economy as Mr. Corporate Pig and Ms. Government Piggy. In fact, Citizen Pig learned how to live on credit in this virtual economy from the two big pigs in charge. Often, Citizen Pig lives in a house with a mortgage that totals 50 percent or more of his or her income, that is, the Citizen Pigs who aren’t already laid off and foreclosed. Citizen Pig buys nice new cars, often more than one, on which annual payments total far more than what Citizen Pig spends on health insurance, education and saves for his or her family. No matter, because Ms. Piggy has promised free health care for all Little Pigs as soon they re-elect her. Yes, the same Ms. Piggy who hasn’t had any money in decades. Citizen Pig is vaguely aware that the rest of the world can present Ms. Piggy with their invoices on the national debt at any time, but tries not to think about it. 
Today, the pig-family is asking for a loan from the rest of us and the world so that they can keep their mini-mansions, credit cards and fine new cars. Ms. Piggy is ready to go shopping again and is quite perturbed about the entire bail-out affair. Mr. Pig threatens market mayhem is we don’t feed him at least a trillion dollars in borrowed slop right away. Citizen Pig just wants to go home.
 

Unfortunately for Citizen Pig, in the real world one can ever go home, at least not after foreclosure is executed.

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