a blackbird now,
I spend days flying and nights trying to reach you
over frozen lakes and towns
guided by your breath
underwater blood, the smell of salt
when you dream of flying
or wake and find bits of glass in your mouth
know I’ve visited and left notes, clues
so that you,
always at ease and moving perfectly,
might look and find me
Rupal Shah is an independent theatre producer and a community outreach coordinator. She works with nightswimming, DVxT Theatre, Pleiades Theatre and inDANCE.
Currently she is co-producer (with Naomi Campbell) of The Turn of the Screw, presented by DVxT Theatre and Campbell House, which runs until November 7th at the historic Campbell House Museum. For more info click here or call 416.504.3898
Economist, journalist, Demos senior fellow and former investment banker Nomi Prins thinks that Obama’s new plan is not such a sweeping overhaul of the financial system, after all. She is the author of the forthcoming book It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street. Her latest article is an assessment of Obama’s reform proposals. It’s called “Obama’s New Economic Plan: The Good, the Bad and the Weak.”
It was just published in Mother Jones. She joins us here in our firehouse studio.
Before you comment on the whole plan that was laid out, this latest news. You used to work at Bear Stearns, and you worked at Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs has just said that their staff can look forward to the biggest bonus bailouts in the firm’s 140-year history. How is this possible?
NOMI PRINS:
It is possible because our government has chosen to effectively give Goldman the money to do that, in a number of different ways. One is the $10 billion that it got through the TARP program, which both Goldman and the government want us to believe is the only bit of federal subsidy it has gotten, which is why, when it said it would pay back the TARP program, it was all this gesture of “we’re healthy, we’re good, we’re paying it back, we didn’t really need it,” but really they didn’t want government oversight attached to it, not that there was a lot.
The bigger amount of money that has gone to Goldman has come through $12.9 billion from the AIG bailout that went straight to Goldman, its biggest counterparty; $28 billion worth of FDIC-backed guaranteed debt, meaning the FDIC put up a program last fall, and it said, “For banks that deal with consumers”—not banks that deal with multibillion-dollar companies or investors, but people—“we will provide guarantees for debt,” which means that those companies can raise debt to help consumers cheaply. Goldman said, “Alright, fine, we’ll take some of that.”
And they took $28 billion worth of that, and they have up to $35 billion that they can take under the FDIC program that was never meant for a company like Goldman Sachs.
In addition, there is a ton of money, there are trillions of dollars at the Fed, not all of that went to Goldman, but that has secretly gone to a number of banks in the system, of which Goldman is one, for which the Fed refuses to disclose any information or any detail, which also goes into this. So when Goldman says—has the nerve to say, feels entitled to say—that it’s going to pay its bankers record bonuses after the travesty that it and other banks have created in the markets, it is on the back of federal subsidies that effectively come from our pockets.
JUAN GONZALEZ:
Well, I think you’ve made the point that the $780 billion-odd TARP money is only a small portion, that the actual federal support for the banking industry is about $13 trillion?
NOMI PRINS:
That’s exactly right. The media has constantly focused, and Wall Street has been very happy about this focus, on this measly—and I say “measly”—$700 billion worth of TARP money that Congress allowed to be allocated last October. And that money has gone out to a number of banks, including Goldman and JPMorgan and Bank of America, Citigroup and other banks.
But in addition to that, there have been over two-and-a-half trillion dollars’ worth of guarantees and other types of subsidies from the Treasury Department; over seven-and-a-half trillion from the Federal Reserve, which a lot has gone through the bank at—the New York Federal Reserve during the Tim Geithner period, when he was running it, as well as the Federal Reserve component in Washington; and then all these extra FDIC guarantees, which have the backing of the Fed and the Treasury Department.
So we’re talking about almost 13.6, actually, now—the count keeps going up every time I look at it—trillion dollars’ worth of subsidization of the banking industry. $700 billion is a part—it’s a big part, but there are so many more trillions, that just do not get the right coverage and the right perspective from the media, that exists, that are secret. Some are not. But it’s a lot, a lot of money. It could basically pay for every single mortgage in this country and healthcare and subsidizing student loans. So when it wants to, the government can come up with a way to subsidize what it wants to subsidize. It chose to subsidize the banking industry.
Daniel Karasik is Artistic Director of Tango Co. He wrote and stars in THE CROSSING GUARD, playing at the Tarragon Theatre Upstairs October 7-17, presented by Tango Co. in association with Peanut Butter People.
“Many teachers think of children as immature adults. It might lead to better and more ‘respectful teaching’ if we thought of adults as atrophied children.” Keith Johnstone.
This is better if you minimize the window and imagine you’re listening to the radio as a child with your grandfather late at night when you’re supposed to be in bed.
Christine Horne is currently performing in Praxis Theatre’s production of Underneath at Summerworks.
She is also Artistic Producer of Kick Theatre and Artistic Co-Director of The Thistle Project with whom she is producing and co-creating Peer Gynt, adapted for two actors at the Church of the Holy Trinity opening in January 2010.
The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country. placing it under its mental deity.
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav’d the vulgar by attempting to realise or abstract the mental deities from their objects; thus began Priesthood.
Choosing forms of worship from Poetic tales.
And at length they announced that the Gods had ordered such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
Image:
Sound:
Enter this website and click on the box next to DINING ROOM. When the animation loads and the fly has landed, click on #3 along the bottom.
B) One song or sound
As a link to a Myspace based artist, a website that has sound, a written description of the sound, or other legal means devised to transfer knowledge of sound through the internet.
C) One piece of text
No constraints. Not crazy long.
Other info:
A jpeg of the artist contributing to the project. (preferably NOT a headshot).
Name, upcoming project and what role (i.e. director, actor, etc.) in this work is.
Website that provides more detail and information on this work.
(Yes it is easy as ABC-123.)
The goal of Praxis Theatre’s Variations on Theatre is to discover new and interesting ideas about theatrical product and practice through creation as a catalyst for discussion. It also has the potential to accumulate a project that approximates small instances of theatre on the internet. That a live audience doesn’t experience these responses in the same space necessarily changes the project in a way that makes this project something different from “pure theatre”. This is why they will be “variations”. C’est la vie. We work with what we have.
Variations on Theatre also presents a way for the community to interact with this website as something other than a bulletin board. Or perhaps, asks that you interact with the website artistically to use the bulletin board. In either case, if you follow the criteria and give it an honest try, the process includes pimping yourself and your upcoming project. If you’re not hawking any artistic wares, and find the project interesting, we’d like you to join in too.
“After the years and years of weaker and waterier imitations, we now find ourselves rejecting the very notion of a holy stage. It is not the fault of the holy that it has become a middle-class weapon to keep the children good.”
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