By Darryl Mason
UPDATE : A full-scale news blackout appears to be growing in and around Houston and Galveston. Federal authorities are apparently blocking media access and denying media helicopters airspace to capture the totality of the carnage. Not a good sign. Tens of thousands of people are still unaccounted for. Doesn't mean they're all dead, but rescuers are too few for the epic scale of the destruction.
The last time the US stock markets plunged so far, so quickly, the United States was under attack by terrorists. This time? Plain old greed, international financial piracy and the appalling failure of free market capitalism to live up to its own hype and promises of endless prosperity for all who believe. And one of the worst natural disasters in American history.
How many Americans will lose their jobs off today's action alone? Two million? Three million?
Now, the destruction spreads to the rest of the world's markets. They will find it all too easy to blame America for their financial misery.
If you're a follower of so-called 'conspiracy theory' websites, none of this will have come as any surprise to you at all. All of this did not come out of the blue, it's been slowly building for years. The smart ones got out of the stock market two years ago, and invested heavily in gold.
A friend insists that the Big Secret of the shredding on Wall Street today is a direct result of the incredible destruction unleashed by Hurricane Ike across nine American states. He claims (as an insurance industry insider) that insurance companies around the world already know the damage bill from Ike will soar beyond $20-$50 billion, that more than 20% of the oil platforms in the Gulf are gone and hundreds, not dozens, have probably been killed. Well, we'll see how accurate those predictions are in the next week or two.
All I know for sure is that the hundreds of ground and aerial photos I've seen online of Ike's path of oblivion indicate a scale of apocalyptic destruction that is not yet being fully reported in the mainstream media. Much, much worse, in total, than Hurricane Katrina.
UPDATE : Thanks to reader NikC for the heads up on The Boston Globe's stunning photo essay on the destruction left by Hurricane Ike.
Flashback - November, 2007 : America's Spectacular $60 Trillion Debt
Aftermath Tipped To Be Worse Than Storm - 10,000 Line Up For Food/Water Handouts
Silencing Of Media Coverage Of Galveston Destruction Begins
The Crash Of Western Capitalism
How The Masters Of The Universe Ran Amok And Cost Us The Earth
Nightmare On Wall Street
