“If the Venezuelan government, for example, approves a law to protect consumers, they say, ‘Take notice, Chavez is a tyrant! Or they say, ‘Chavez is regulating prices. He is violating the laws of the marketplace.’ How many times have they criticized me for nationalizing the phone company? They say, ‘The state shouldn’t get involved in that.’ But now they don’t criticize Bush for having nationalized . . . the biggest banks in the world. Comrade Bush, how are you? Comrade Bush is heading toward socialism.”

But that may take some time to unfold.

[AP October 14, 2008] President Bush on Tuesday announced a $250 billion plan by the government to directly buy shares in the nation’s leading banks, saying the drastic steps were “not intended to take over the free market but to preserve it”.

Meanwhile the self-described “Maoist” political economist Raymond Lotta is quoted in the mainstrean news (AFP):

“It’s not ‘socialism for the rich,’ nor a rescue for the people. It’s emergency capitalism for the rich, and more brutal capitalism for the rest.”

The “huge” gains Wall Street was supposedly “headed for” have, on the second day, petered out into bargain hunting and a moderate gain so far. Not that Wall Street has ever had much to do with the underlying economy, in good times or bad.

Back the ranch, as was eminently predicable, oil is now on the rise again.

Apparently the Federal Government and American economists do not grasp simple economic recursions?

NEW YORK(Reuters October 13, 2008) – The Dow Jones industrial average surged more than 400 points in early trading today as investors rushed into stocks after eight sessions of devastating losses, hoping that the stock market is finding some footing following pledges by governments to further aid the banking sector, including plans by the Treasury to buy U.S. bank stocks….

Or should it be called “escalation”?