Booty Call, Too

Not sure how the publicity-stunt sexual exploits of a horsefaced Armenian chick with a fat ass, a sex tape, and an infamous dad, whose primary talent seems to be banging pro athaletes, merits so much attention. No doubt the Today show, most noted for having a chimp (other than Lauer) as a sidekick back in the day, will be milking this through Thanksgiving, no doubt thanks in no small part to esteemed relationship expert Star Jones.

Really, I'm repulsed that I know even this much about it, but it happens the same way I know that the most recent American Idol was won by some kid that looks like Alfred E. Neuman, without ever watching a blessed second of the show. You can only switch channels -- or turn the infernal thing off, or kill the browser link -- so quickly. Cultural osmosis, incurable even with antibiotics.

Do we even need to ask whether any corporate media outlets will turn away from Kim Kardashian's hypnotic cowcatcher ass long enough to talk about anything important to anyone's actual life -- say, the likelihood that Bank of America may have overextended itself (and, of course, all of us, since we're on the hook for their bullshit whether we like it or not) irretrievably [via Taibbi?]

5. Bank of America is officially rated the biggest, scariest bank. Its stock price also fared the worst of the group of banks (which also included Citigroup and Wells Fargo) when Moody's Investors Service downgraded it on September 21.

B of A's long-term holding company (parent bank) rating was chopped two notches to Baa1 from A2, and its retail bank rating was cut two notches from A2 to Aa3, placing B of A four notches below rival JP Morgan Chase and one below Citigroup, the third-largest US bank. Its bank holding company has the lowest rating among the top five banks with the largest derivatives positions.

This caused great fear for investors involved in derivatives trades with the Merrill Lynch division, prompting them to request trades be moved to the part of the bank with the better rating - the retail part with the insured (peoples') deposits. That way, B of A doesn't have to pony up as much collateral to back the trades, as it would in a subsidiary with a lower rating. The Fed was recklessly happy to approve, despite the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) misgiving about having to insure more risk, even if it can borrow from the US Treasury to do so. Meanwhile, Bank of America's stock price got so crushed that Warren Buffett scooped up a $5 billion preferred stock deal, effectively betting that the government won't let this big bank go bust.

6. B of A's derivatives position keeps rising. The total amount of derivatives in the FDIC-insured portion of B of A as of mid-year was $53.7 trillion, up 10 percent from $48.9 trillion the prior year, and up nearly 35 percent from its pre-fall crisis level of $40 trillion (the Merrill Lynch securities division holds $22 trillion in addition.) The bank has $5 trillion of credit derivatives, nearly double its $2.7 trillion pre-Merrill amount. In addition, because of its inherent zombie status and rating downgrades, the cost of insuring B of A against a possible default continues to rise in the credit derivatives market - a pattern that American International group (AIG) once followed.

Nice, huh? Read that again -- that's not $53 billion, but $53 trillion, roughly the equivalent of the entire on-the-books global GDP. The idea that we're forced to subsidize these ricockulously bad bets, while Ken Lewis gets nine figures of walking-away money, would merit the guillotine, in a society that didn't have the attention span and priorities of a seventh-grader.

Obviously it was ever thus. But anymore it seems the circuses-to-bread ratio is skewed in Paretian fashion. Herman Cain should not be disqualified because he played grab-ass with a couple of subordinates back in the '90s (though that is a reason, just not the most damning); he should be disqualified because he is a ludicrous person with stupid ideas, who is doing this just to bump up his book sales and speaking fees.

The more the corporate media (who of course have no vested interest in keeping you distracted with shiny baubles and plastic personalities, nosiree bob) indulge in this nonsense, as Neil Postman sagely pointed out a generation ago, the more we (in the collective) lose our capacity for meaningful engagement.

Instead of commiserating over the water cooler about the few picking the pockets of the masses, and getting away scot-free, we ponder the fairytale aspects of reality teevee wannabes and their contrived love lives. We debate the momentous occurrence of Chaz Bono being on a dancing show, without pondering for a second that Chaz Bono is way too fucking fat to be on a dancing show. (Or that, you know, the idea of sitting there and watching Chaz Bono or yet another of these Kardaashians dancing is a supreme waste of time and cable bill.)

I dunno. I am back as always to that poisoned well, the unleashing of easy "people are morons" snark, while realizing at the same time that there are a lot of intelligent people out there that are tired of this stuff, the debasement of "news" and "discussion" to its lowest common denominator, the sage review of idiot sexcapades, the common culture of collectively watching has-beens and never-weres sort their sock drawers. It's pathetic and unnecessary, and ultimately self-defeating.

When you're already in a deep, deep hole as a nation-state entity, these miserably inept cultural touchstones are not ladders, they're shovels, things deliberately placed to keep us from looking at the real problems. It's not just that the "stories" are stupid; they are, but the real issue is that, like the shows whence these creatures emanate, weeks and months are spent telling and rehashing what is really about five minutes' worth of one-view trivia. after that, really, who gives two shits about the Kardashian sisters or interchangeable reality twits? But they are marketed for months on end, until it's played out and the next meaningless thing comes along for another six months.

And I think there are a lot of folks who really just don't want to know. They understand just enough to realize that the game is fixed, the players bought, they are not in the club and are going to lose regardless, so they may as well distract themselves with comforting effluvia, cultural macaroni-and-cheese. The subject, its facts and its players are too complicated to keep track of, by design.

Actually getting on the same page to change the game would be too much like work, unless you're some DFH beating a plastic bucket in the park. Hopefully those folks keep all that in mind when their destitute grandkids are bailing out Ken Lewis' lucky-sperm-wealthy-from-cradle-to-grave grandkids.

And if you're a one-percenter, that is precisely the collective mentality you count on.