Iomazenil anyone?

OK. Yes, I’m straying dangerously away from the reservation on this one. No, I have yet to begin drinking… “yet” is operative. Soon… very soon…
Typically I dismiss reported “increases” of tragic events such as small aircraft accidents and shark attacks. Usually the only increased occurence is that some editor decided to give a story prominence and subsequently other news room editors follow suit for a number of days or weeks… simply reporting what otherwise would go unnoticed.
However, I feel differently in regard to the second member of a flight crew “flipping out”. This event would never go unnoticed and given the proximity in time I find it more than a coincidence.
I’m going to float a very unqualified theory. We, as the rest of the world, have been experimenting with pro-psychotic drugs for years. This has been done for various reasons… some savory, some un-savory.  Iomazenil is one of a number of such drugs.
The questions I will pose are; If you want to bring down airplanes and can’t get aboard anymore, how would you do it? How do you get into a locked cockpit? How do you create terror on an airplane that cannot be detected quickly and stopped?
Drug the flight crew.
The drug would have to be slow acting and turn an otherwise trustworthy individual into a psychotic mess. The terrorist would have to have access to the crew at a time that they would be consuming something… anything… that such a drug (in an appropriate dosage) could be administered without them being aware of it.
The flight would need to be long enough to allow the drug time to take effect.
Iomazenil, or something in this class could be the answer. The below link will take you to a study utilizing Iomazenil.
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v36/n3/full/npp2010198a.html
While Iomazenil seems to only affect those pre-disposed to schizophrenia, who knows what it could do in higher doses or for that matter to those individuals who might have a very mild pre-disposition diagnosed as something else like Bi-Polar disorder or Depression.
Could this be a new approach by the bad actors?
OK doc’s… I know you are out there and I’m ready for you all to let me have it. Given that this is not my area of expertise… or anywhere close to it… I welcome you all calling me crazy – just tell me why.
If I were in charge of the investigations I might be interested in tox-screens to start, and then tracing back the crews immediate where-abouts prior to the flight. I would also be interested in other members of the crew as Iomazenil apparently has little or no effect on those without some type/level of schizophrenia. In other words they may have also been dosed with no ill effect.
Keep in mind, this is only for “fun” as I have very little understanding of these things… so this could all be creative writing.  Probably way too many spy novels!
I look forward to your responses.

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Why are we Staring over the Fiscal Cliff?

And why are we not backing up?

After a brief exchange last night with an associate, and a subsequent conversation with a reader, I thought it wise to review how we arrived at the fiscal cliff and this global economic meltdown.  The not backing up part I don’t have a good answer for…

This will be as simplistic as I can make it without sacrificing accuracy…

As always, you have to understand the difference between Capitalism and Socialism.  Capitalism is the absence of force applied to markets and individuals.  Socialism is force applied to markets and individuals.  And of course Fascism… which is a variant of Socialism.  Some are trying to call much of what happened “Crony Capitalism”, but it is plain old-fashioned Fascism through and through with nothing Capitalist about it.

So why is there a global economic melt down?

Because Bill Clinton, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd felt that everyone regardless of ability to pay should realize the dream of owning a home.  Sounds like a nice idea…

So how did they decide to do this?

With Bill Clinton in the White House (Executive) and Barney Frank in the House of Representatives in combination with Chris Dodd in the Senate (Legislative) the argument was offered that the banks were “discriminating against minorities” as demonstrated by lending percentages.  (It’s important to note that the metric is “lending percentages” not “ability to pay” which is how the banks determine whom to lend to historically.)  So now enter the lawsuits and investigations by the Justice Department (Judicial) into lending practices.

With all three of their bases covered this motely crew used discrimination claims to order the banks (through regulation, threat of lawsuits and fines) to make loans to people who otherwise could not qualify for them, let alone afford to pay them back.  In a normal, unmolested market the banks do not lend to individuals who can’t show they are able to repay the loan.  But suspend reason here.

Now enter Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac… the two largest lenders in the United States.  Both of them are government-owned.  (The Socializing of the banking system has a long sordid history best saved for another post.)  These two government banks, receiving their orders from Congress, began buying loans forced to be originated by lenders using the “NINJA” (No Income, No Job, no Assets) criteria.

The Banks (Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Met Life etc.) were given an offer they couldn’t refuse…  if they did refuse, they were going to be sued, fined, and investigated until finally someone goes to jail and or having their Federally Issued Licences revoked.  So, destroyed.

So they made the loans.  Lots of them, as that is what would have to happen to “square” this new metric being applied measuring their performance.  It was no longer about making rational business investments and assuming the risk associated with those decisions… it was now about being “fair“.

Of course I would argue that making rational business investments is inherently “fair“, but the above troika does not care about what people like me think.  Remember, this is about votes… and feeling good about doing something… results be damned.  And damning they would be.

So what about all this “greed” we hear about?

Greed came to dinner but Clinton, Dodd and Frank cooked it up and set the table.

There are plenty of Bad Actors to cast blame upon.  You have Loan Officers, and Mortgage Brokers.  You have Bankers and Nobel Prize winners (The Nobel Prize was given to the creators of derivatives.  The banks loved the idea too as it was the only way they had to choke down the crap sandwich they were being forced to eat.) not to mention International security brokers who sold derivatives into the global investment markets.  The world was eager to buy up American Debt because we ALWAYS pay our bills.  (Whoops….)

The subsequent market distortion and enormous burst of the Housing Bubble created by these best of intentions shot us into this global and domestic recession.  And Bill Clinton, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd should have known better.  They had plenty of people around them telling them it was a very Bad idea.

The only question left in my mind is “Was it intentional?”  As you learn more about these three people you might be finding yourself asking the same question.  None of them are ignorant… just very wrong about many things.

I promised to keep this as simple as possible so I have left out some of the additionally nasty scenarios which arose from this debacle, many of which we are still living through.

I also left out things like party affiliation, individual histories on the mentioned players and some additional names of Bad Actors such as Raines and Mozillo etc.  As always, I expect you to make an effort to research more on this if your intellectually curious.  If you’re not, I can’t help you.

So raise a glass to three men who successfully destroyed more global wealth than any world war.

George Soros must be envious.

If you seriously want to understand this, I recommend The Housing Boom and Bust by Thomas Sowell, Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morgenson and The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes.  All of which can be found on Amazon.  That should get you started…  once you begin your search you’ll find it’s all been in front you the entire time.