That Smell

There is a distinct and familiar whiff of something in the air. Amidst the furor surrounding the financial crisis, an aroma—almost a fume—has presented, redolent with hints of perspiration, desperation, hyperbole and, frankly, rank bullshit. It’s a familiar odor, evocative of days gone by, of yellowcake and anthrax, roiling in a hypothetical mushroom cloud. And it sets the heart aflutter.

Woes betide the affluent class of late. The erstwhile “masters of the universe” (and those who share the conceit of aspiring to such status) are in a dither indeed. They find themselves put-upon and besieged. Their accustomed role of as governors and manipulators of the finances of the plebeian masses (thus, the fees, charges, surcharges, taxes, tolls, non-preferred rates, arbitrary restrictions, onerous regulations and punitive accounting procedures that so disproportionately nettle, bleed and beleaguer the under-classes) has become imperiled.

The foreclosers are facing foreclosure—all because they have fucked up the economy on a Biblical scale. And, as if this indignity weren’t enough, it would seem that they are in need of the great unwashed—the little people—to help preserve the natural order of things.

It is a schadenfreudian predicament indeed.

Nevertheless, the folks who dreamed up Iraq, fucked up Katrina, undermined the Constitution and turned a projected $5.6 trillion surplus into a projected $2.3 trillion deficit—all in just eight short years—had a plan to get us—all of us—out of this mess for a mere seven hundred billion dollars.

One may wonder how such a sum is derived. It’s quite simple, actually. According to the Treasury, the criterion is merely “a really large number” that need not be “based on any particular data point.” The important part is that the money must change hands quickly. There’s no time to think, because excess thinking can lead to fewer car loans and college loans and difficulties for small businesses in meeting payrolls. Time is of the essence. Congress just needs to cut a humongous check—pronto—and messenger it over to Hank “the banking system is safe and sound” Paulson, at the Treasury Department. He’ll take it from there.

And, lest ye worry: Coming up with that kind of scratch on such short notice is no problem. We just float a loan. Everybody understands that the best way to get out of a credit crunch is to borrow more money, and we, the people, can do that because that’s what we do. Problem solved.

Alas, a funny thing happened on the way to the bank. A whole bunch of folks insisted on a little more detail about this deal. Apparently, it occurred to somebody that, even if, as Dick Cheney always says, “deficits don’t matter,” they still have to be paid for eventually. This got people to talking, which totally gummed up the works.

As these folks understood it, the whole point of the exercise was this: The crisis came about after a whole bunch of bills went unpaid. Now this, in and of itself, wasn’t such a big deal at first. A few people got bounced out of their houses, but other than that, the world kept right on spinning. But, pretty soon, enough of these little deadbeats stopped making mortgage payments to cause some actual important bills to go unpaid. The next thing you know, Washington Mutual had to stop whacking people with half-a-dozen overdrafts on automatic debits before crediting their direct deposits, and a panic ensued.

These nervous Nellie’s, with their tedious reservations about the whole, cut-Hank-a-check plan, wanted to know just who was supposed to pay for this ingenious recovery scheme. When it turned out that it was supposed to be them, a lot of them were taken aback—as in, aback to the drawing board.

Stay tuned…