Last night I took out a dusty book from a shelf: I had to see if the Marxists could lend any insight on our economic crisis. Mr. Althusser did not disappoint. Reading Althusser, you realize that these crises and these bailouts are all too predictable.

First, those blaming either American political party are in the wrong.

Let's go back to 2000. Do not go back to 1999 when the modernization of financing was first imposed. In 2000, only 4 congressman voted against the Modernization Derivatives Act which took oversight away from the derivatives market. 2 Republicans, a Democrat, and Ron Paul. That's it. It was overwhelmingly approved by both parties.

Here's the link: http://www.govtrack.us/...

So, we can talk about no oversight on the lenders of mortgages in 1999, and I do blame Phil Gramm for that, or we can talk about penalties for avoiding redline districts approved in the CRA act of 1977 and maybe someone will blame Democrats for that, but let's be real now: both parties abdicated control over the real mess here: derivatives. Subprime and stated-income loans are minor losses comparatively.

Now, why are we the American people to blame? Because more or less, this is the way our capitalistic system works. You can regulate these highly abstract (I would argue metaphorical) investment/gambling vehicles all you want, but in the end, someone is going to do an end-round the system. You can't legislate a future you can't imagine. That, according to Althusser. What happened is all too predictable. Some would argue it is the very grain of the capitalistic system. Regulation of this beast only happens AFTER the fact. When our very own congresspeople are incapable of imagining the market destroying weapons, as Buffet has termed them, then that means the system itself rules over us. It's the nature of the beast.

So, my questions now which I already asked below:

Do you think the bailout will bring the derivatives up to par so that the bank's losses won't be so bad?

And, why doesn't Paulson just explain that the more we taxpayers buy, the less the banks will have to pay, exponentially less? In other words, for every dollar's worth we buy, the bank saves 10x that much in potential payouts.

Are we too stupid to understand it?

Or is it just embarrassing for the movers and shakers of Wall Street?

Maybe: BOTH.

Regardless, we have to do this.

Why?

Because we live in a capitalist system. Derivatives are what gave comfort to those who invested in America from overseas (and ironically, laughably, it was the derivatives that took a chunk out of their investment, the very vehicle intended to secure their loans instead wiped out their value, ha!)

Capitalism in Althusser's view: The rich take from us. We the proletariat take from them.

The next president will need to be creative in figuring out how to tax the rich and get our money back, the next president will need to adopt Marxist ideology to do this (the proletariat seizing from the rich what the rich seized earlier), maybe we'll tax all exotic investment vehicles at a much higher rate (99% on credit default swaps would be fine with me), because I know this: we will never be able to regulate the banks. That's just not the nature of capitalism, a system that by its very nature "reproduces the conditions of reproduction" (Althusser) before it produces anything at all. Think about that, think about abstract instruments such as derivatives, and then realize that our system relies on a mutually agreed upon ideology that has no anchor in the real world. An ideology of cash flow and means to ride that flow: value on liquidity, not on the cash itself, but the movement on cash. Abstract value. These derivatives and investment vehicles can endlessly proliferate, and they have. $455 trillion worth of derivatives contracts are out there right now. They have no real basis other than someone's neurotic constant hedging of bets.

The main question now is what to do: I'm inclined to do whatever it takes to bring the swaps up to par so that the hedge funds don't get paid at ALL. Let's see how disincentive for the manipulators may reduce the need for future bailouts, future crises which are ALWAYS going to be happen, bailouts therefore needed to keep our capitalist system afloat. If we want a capitalist system, that is.