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THE ONE OVERRIDING NEWS ITEM ON THE WORLD'S COLLECTIVE MIND TODAY WOULD HAVE TO BE THE SHOCK COLLAPSE OF THE LEHMAN BROTHERS INVESTMENT HOUSE following the collapse of emergency talks to try and save the same in the belief that they were somehow "essential" or otherwise "in the national interest."

Not to mention the news that another established investment house, Merrill Lynch, was being sold to Bank of America ... and the world's largest all-lines insurer, AIG, was seeking emergency assistance from the Federal Reserve.

Which, all in all, has the equities markets tanking full-on the world over, with major indices in unanimous freefall without exception. (The Tokyo and Hong Kong bourses were closed for local holidays.) And as if that weren't enow, crude oil is selling for below $100/bbl. for the first time since the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism was declared based on flawed arguments, thanks to the Lehman Brothers collapse and reports that damage to refining and offshore production capacity from Hurricane Ike was significantly less than feared. (Remember, most of the production along the Gulf of Mexico coast in Texas and Louisana was already offline because of Hurricane Gustav.)

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THE BLAME FOR LEHMAN'S COLLAPSE AND MERRILL'S SALE CAN BE PUT DOWN, IN LARGE MEASURE, TO THE "SUB-PRIME" AND "ALT-A" MORTGAGE MARKETS, backed as they were with high-risk debt equities "suitable for widows and orphans" in the name of His Fraudulency's Classless Ownership Society ... in particular, the desire to put more among the "chronic and habitual" specimens of welfare dependency with marginal or non-existant credit records into the "healthy" and "empowering" benefits of owner-occupancy housing through trick, deceit or other crude appeals to their primitive patriot love.

Especially where such lenders as were specialist in bad-credit mortgage lending may have tacitly encouraged their poor-risk borrowers to give false or misleading statements on their loan applications because "we really don't have time or staff to check this information out" and, what's more, they were working on quotas.

All expected, no doubt, to reinforce the Neocon/Fascist article of faith in free-market capitalism with American characteristics being the Great White Father as will lead and empower the "welfare-dependent" Lower Classes into a New Golden Age of Industry, Self-Reliance, Personal Responsibility, Thrift based on Cash Economy and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life--to be dominated in perpetuity by the White Male Low Church Christian Power Structure, thus entitled "by unwritten habit, custom and tradition." (The Low Church model no doubt preferred for its regarding ignorance and stupidity as bliss and heaven serving G-d and Christ.)

Which, in turn, must be stoking the fires of the crudest in anti-Semitic Zealotry and True Belief among the "patriotic" bigots and hatemongers all across the Information Stuporbahn, replete with all manner of crass suggestions that the International Zionist Conspiracy must be laughing in glee @ Lehman's collapse.

Which could be worth watching by the likes of the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Centre's Intelligence Project, among such specialist in keeping que vive on hate, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance.

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ONE THING HOLDERS OF INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS WITH LEHMAN BROTHERS MAY WANT TO KNOW IS THAT THEIR ACCOUNTS ARE INSURED by a Federal agency known as the Securities Investors Protection Corporation (SIPC), which insures brokerage accounts to a value of $500,000 in toto, of which a maximum of $100,000 can be in cash or cash equivalents.

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AND ALONG WITH THE APPEALS TO CRUDE AND LATENT ANTI-SEMITIC FEELINGS AND TENDENCIES LIKELY TO ENSUE WITH THE NEWS OF LEHMAN'S COLLAPSE, there will likely be calls for establishing some class of a "Christian Banking" model as would provide banking products and services "based on Christian principles."

Beg pardon, but you might want to get in touch with Peabody and Sherman and have them set their Patent Wayback Machine for Ruthwell, Scotland, 1810, and looking up the Rev. Henry Duncan, pastor of the local Presbyterian church, who established a savings bank for the benefit of his poorer parishoners to save against hardship and adversity, investing their deposits in high-quality securities managed by a Board of Trustees acting for and on behalf of the depositor/owners, with any profits ensuing on these investments returned to depositors as a dividend.

Which would be enough to inspire the establishment of 465 trustee savings banks across Great Britain (182 in Scotland alone) by 1818, by which time the concept would arrive in the United States with the 1816 establishment of the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society (PSFS), the first such in the United States, by a group of civic-minded industrialists led by a philanthropist named Condy Raquet. And within due time, yet well before the Civil War, Quakers and Catholics would set up savings banks across the Northeast in the interest of promoting thrift and self-reliance among the working classes. All operating along the Ruthwell model.

(Ruthwell, in case you're wondering, is in Dumfries and Galloway, close to the Solwent Firth about halfway between Gretna Green and Dumfries as the crow flies.)

As if that weren't enough, another run with the Wayback Machine would want to be taken to Lévis, Québec (Canada), 1900, and some quality time with one Alphonse Desjardins, developing his concept of the caisse populaire on which the North American credit union model would be based; especially worth researching would be his idea of promoting caisses @ local parish level for the benefit of their parishoners as a means of promoting thrift and economic empowerment thereby, particularly so in rural areas as were being hit hard by high birth rates and depopulation caused by many having to move to Montréal or even Boston just to find work @ risk of horrible living conditions, high rents, unstable job makets and wages, and a lack of a stable values system.

Do I have a satisfactory model of "Christian Banking" for those of you so advocating, or is that not good enough because of "incompatibility with American experience and models" expecting only an "elect***entitled as of right" to have monopoly on profits while the rank-and-file are expected to make do?

And how is such to be regarded as "Christian," come to think of it?

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TALK ABOUT DIARRHEA OF THE MOUTH, INDECISION 2008 MODEL AND STYLEE: Machiavelli on steroids and amphetamines was overheard not only taking issue with the ads of both McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden, but also fact-checking organisations like FactCheck.org and Politifact.com, contending that "they've got their own biases built in there" and, hence, should not be trusted.

If this be so, then who should the Right-Thinking American Public trust, Fox Prolefeed?

The Saturday Evening Post?

Capper's Weekly?

Grit?

The American Magazine?

Confidential ("Tells the Facts and Names the Names")?

The National Enquirer and suchlike in the vein of scabloids?

Capt. Billy's Whiz-Bang?

(Which reminds Your Correspondent of a T-shirt slogan from around the 1979-80 period: "God Created Grass ... Man Created Booze ... Who Can You Trust?")