Letters to the Editor
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Aye, a mite stronger than I care to be...
...like the guy says in that old Irish Spring commercial (dating myself). Our financial institutions are not merely strong, but downright pungent. And our capital markets? I cannot imagine a more efficient or effective knackering than the one that took Bear Stearns from race course to glue factory in one restless weekend. What part of Bush's statement does not reflect reality?
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Let's be fair
this guy is a trust fund baby who ran every business he was given straight into the ground before he became president.
He did a decent job of shaking hands and taking other private property through eminent domain as "president" of the Texas Rangers. But it isn't a challenging job, if there's a local demand for baseball--twenty- and thirty-something Ivy MBAs and lawyers with a few years experience in the business of baseball are doing fine running various clubs right now. In total sales, an MLB team usually is comparable to the biggest car dealer in the area, and is equally tied to the local swells and dips in prosperity.
Of course, he got that job because he was the son of the President of the United States, not because of aptitude or track record. But that's a different inequity.
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Paulson
Just watching Paulson on Bloomberg here in London...is it just me or does he look and sound nervous, scared and uncertain? Or is this his normal demeanour... :-/
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So bottomline
If we're headed for a new dark ages, literally an absolute collapse all the way back to preindustrial ages, what are YOU folks doing about it? I don't think blogging will be a paying job in the non electric economy. I mean really, if you're so certain the end is near you should be taking more steps than predicting it for the rest of us.
I'd really like to hear what the New Survivalists are planning. It might even be helpful. Are you learning to tan hides, weave, and hunt? Are you learning blacksmithy? Have you applied to Colonial Williamsburg, just in case?
By the way, when the canary is dead, then so are you.
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The Good Student
While it is easy to laugh at the myriad ways W.'s C effort at Yale demonstrates itself, it's clear that he's been a terrific student in the "let the rich people handle it" school of world domination. He's clearly talking to those people in this comment, and not the unwashed hundreds of millions of us who are seeing our home prices fall, our 401(k)s evaporate, and our jobs disappear.
It brings to mind the mean-ol-man from "It's a Wonderful Life"... if you don't have enough money to pay for a house up front, ya don't deserve one. Rent one of my overpriced apartments instead.
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Bush and his minions
While Bush says everything is fine, and warns against overcorrection, (and gawd help regulations against this sort of thing) his associates are pulling out all the stops, overcorrecting, throwing money with ham handed reckless endeavor. The credibility gap has finally caught up with another Texas President.
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In a very narrow sense he's correct
For example the DJIA finished up 16 today. It shouldn't have but it did.
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@ABAB
If we're headed for a new dark ages, literally an absolute collapse all the way back to preindustrial ages, what are YOU folks doing about it? I don't think blogging will be a paying job in the non electric economy. I mean really, if you're so certain the end is near you should be taking more steps than predicting it for the rest of us.
I'd really like to hear what the New Survivalists are planning. It might even be helpful. Are you learning to tan hides, weave, and hunt? Are you learning blacksmithy? Have you applied to Colonial Williamsburg, just in case?
By the way, when the canary is dead, then so are you.
Did anyone say that we're heading back to the dark ages and a "literal" collapse of civilization over an economic downturn? Still and all, I think it's bad enough that we're heading for an unnecessary recession. This one could have easily been avoided.
In this case, the canary is running our country, and the hides that need tanning all belong to wingnuts.
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Bubble, Okay, Froth, Not So Good
We've had bubbles before. We've had credit crunches before. Interestingly, we've never had so much available capital globally to deal with it. It will be dealt with. -- msgkings
At this point we've had multiple major bubbles without a period of particularly substantial prosperity between them. That worries me on a more fundamental level; are we just playing whack-a-mole? Is all this capital invested in playing market manipulation games (inflate something's value then get out before the crash - profitable, doesn't require actually accomplishing something valuable because that would be work, risky) something we can actually do anything about?
At least the dollar is finally dropping (another bubble, in a sense) so we should be able to compete in the global market at a more realistic assessment.
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So what does Bush have to do with the economy?
While it's a telling indicator of his ignorance and the general level of our national political discourse, why is his opinion on the matter even relevant? The president has no actual authority or responsibility over the economic status of the nation, unless Congress presents him with a bill to pass or reject designed to influence it. It's just not his job.
And Congress just plain ain't equipped to deal with this sort of crisis. They get so much power from the way the basic banking system in this nation works, it's sickening. That beloved deficit spending is one aspect of this. So the odds of them passing along a good bill to Bush (who is also far more likely to side with the fine upstanding members of the Federal Reserve Board than object to them on any sort of constitutional basis, outmoded document that it is) are nigh nonexistent.
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Leave little georgie alone
Look guys, we all know this baffoon has NO clue what so ever.
For those of you that believed the 2nd part of his little speech, forget it. It is not happening and won't happen. This comment [our capital markets are functioning efficiently and effectively], no they are not, not if the U.S.government had to back the Bear Stearns deal with 30 billion of our tax dollars and then give Jamie Dimon the ok the pay only $2 a share. $30 billion, you think we could all get 1 or 2 shares of jpmorgan for the tax dollars being used?