Visa my arsa

Obama makes a first, civilized step toward nailing the credit card companies - admirable sense and restraint - I'd have turned Cheney loose on them. The thing, though, is the asymmetry between credit corporations and individuals is merely a special case of a more general asymmetry between the large institutional corporation and the alleged human being in USia.

We have all been fucked for so long we do not know we are being fucked. Now that the corporations have generally, royally, providentially fucked themselves, perhaps we can, by a sort of vicarious osmosis of recirculation, dimly recall how fuckity fucked we are, have been, etc.

Swapovia

I don't pretend to understand credit swaps, but this example, from today, made an impression:

NEW YORK, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The cost of protecting Wachovia Corp's (WB.N:Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) debt with credit default swaps fell on Monday after news that Citigroup (C.N: Quote,Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) was buying Wachovia's banking operations.

Wachovia's five-year credit default swaps fell to about 550 basis points, or $550,000 a year to protect $10 million of debt, from 25 percent in upfront payments plus $500,000 annually before the news, according to data from several dealers.