One of the concepts that Naomi Klein talks about in her book, ‘The ShockDoctrine’, is how corporations and states have acted in concert to take advantage of disasters and act to either privatise national public wealth or to offload private debt into the public domain in the chaotic aftermath of emergencies. When people are paralysed by fear and they take their eye off the ball, there is an orchestrated move to take advantage off the lack of oversight and indeed, moves to ensure that emergency powers are invoked meaning that oversight is not needed. When affected populations are looking for social actions to relieve injustices and inequalities that arise out of disasters, others are looking to silently manipulate economic structures in their favour, unseen and unregulated by the usual authorities. Much flies under the radar under the guise of emergency corrective action, or indeed is just not mentioned at all.
I smell a rat. A big one. Bush is going on TV tonight to make a case for speedy action to bully Congress into releasing funds for the Paulson plan to bail out the banking sector. Interestingly, I wonder who Paulson reports to or gives oversight to his plan. At the moment, I believe there is very itte ubic regulation on what he is planning to do, and if Bush gets his way, even less as Congress is pressured to write a blank cheque to socialise an unbelievable mountain of private debt.
People are feeling panicked and fearful, However, I m reassured by the public polls in the USA expressing skepticism over plans to intervene in the markets in this way. I hope that oversight is put in place – and quickly, though I suspect that further emergencies may emerge which may seemingly force action sooner rather than later.
