Blackadder, Chancellor of the Exchequer?
According to Atrios, Larry Summers will star as Blackadder, while Tim Geithner will play Baldrick, the man with “the cunning plan”, in the US version. Atrios notes that John Cole has a review, as does Paul Krugman.
Susie Madrak found one by Yves Smith, while the News Writer looks at the pan by James Kenneth Galbraith.
Atrios provides some background on this really bad idea.
Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. – Albert Einstein
This is my response to Obama’s production and his casting decisions. The real problem is the basic belief within the administration that it is important that the financial sector be comfortable with the economic policies. There is apparently no one advising the President who understands that WalMart shoppers are more important to the GDP than Wall Street. It is vital that consumer confidence be restored. “Confidence” has an entirely different meaning on Wall Street than Main Street. On Wall Street “confidence” is a game.
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I’ve been calling Wall Street a game for irresponsible children for some time now. That and that these Wall Streets are engaging in high stakes gambling with our money — when they play their little games with millions, it’s the retirement accounts of the WalMart shoppers that go down the tubes. It’s ridiculous, and it’s the one thing I am most disappointed, and getting angry, with about the president.
The financial sector doesn’t need to be “comfortable” with any economic plan. The financial sector is 90 percent of the problem. It needs to sit down, shut up and do what it’s told. Time for the adults to take charge again. And Obama needs to get that. But then, so do that bunch of idiots in Congress who seem to think what we’re going through is just another little blip that will soon be over. No, this is serious. Nothing short of a complete change will fix this.
newswriter´s last blog post..Don’t go there
Wall Street has thrown “long term growth” overboard and isn’t interested in investments. It ignores the “fundamentals” and makes money from the “churn” on the price, not the value of the company behind the stock. Then the corporations fixate on the price of the stock, rather than the health of the company.
When top management spends all its time talking to market analysts, rather than its customers, the company will fail. The current managers only worry about the perceived value of the stock, not the actual worth of their products.
The regulators didn’t enforce the laws that do exist, so passing new laws isn’t going to fix anything. Keeping the same people in place who created this mess isn’t going to solve anything. Slapping a new price sticker on these bad loans isn’t going to alter their worthless nature.
I want Wall Street uncomfortable. I want the people who created these problems to feel the anger their corruption created. I want to understand that bad decisions have consequences. Crime isn’t supposed to pay, and you are not supposed to enjoy your ill-gotten gains.
We should rename Guantanamo Galt’s Gulch and ship these people down there after we move out all of the goat herders that were kidnapped.
Great time to re-read Michael Lewis’ “Liar’s Poker”
cookie jill´s last blog post..Congrats to Santa Barbara resident & Iron Chef Cat Cora
I think Alan Greenspan accidentally described the market accurately with the phrase, “irrational exuberance”. They don’t actually understand what they are doing, but they do it enthusiastically.
Wall Street has been under the thrall of Herb Tarlick clones for years, and the financial media have been playing Les Nessman. Pathetic.
The morning news program here had our Treasurer on, and he said that they have sent a strong message to Prez Obama to fix the problem ASAP as it’s really beginning to bite here. The Treasurer let it be known that we, and other Nations in the Southern Hemisphere club which we essentially (unofficially, or semi-officially) represent, don’t think the current strategies will have a pigs chance of working. 🙂 Reading between the lines of the *official* communique… I think we said something like: You caused the global problems, and the World nations are not happy! Fix it now, or any future relations, including trade, will be seriously strained and heavily scrutinized. I think our Government is under heavy pressure from the public here on two fronts, the economy and the deaths of our soldiers in Afghanistan, we’ve lost 10 now. The public here want our soldiers home NOW! Not in two years. So, our Gov is feeling the heat. 🙂 The ass-kissing FTA (so-called Free Trade Agreement, what a load of dingo’s kidneys!) was mentioned. No surprise, the people here have wanted the FTA scrapped ever since Howard kissed Bushmorons ass to seal the deal. And Rudd damned well knows it was one of the reasons he was elected.
BTW, I always thought of Bushmoron as Baldrick, and Cheney as Black Adder, though without the charm. LOL
You know… This might have been avoided if whoever (and no matter what the moronic public think, we still have no idea who was *truly* responsible for that) took out the Twin Towers on 9/11/01 had taken out Wall St. instead.
*shrug* so sue me. 😉
First you had the Hedgemony trying to stall the disaster until they could get out of town, then they hired insiders to deal with the problem. The world is right to be ticked off with the US, because the biggest multinationals are based here.
Everyone shipped their manufacturing to mainland Asia and become more dependent on the finance sector, which is why everyone in the “developed world” is in so much trouble – they were living inside a bubble that has burst and the cold breath of reality is sweeping over them.
Everyone’s middle class knows for damn sure that they weren’t the ones who benefited from all of the money in the “good times” and are tired of having to live with the pain the “good times” have caused.
People aren’t seeing any progress, and they aren’t going to be patient long. In parliamentary systems governments actually have to do things in pretty short order, or they get replaced.