My Sentiments Exactly

Helicopter Ben fires up the engine

Will this work? Damned if I know, and I bet Bernanke doesn't either. It should work, in theory. But while in theory, theory is the same as practice, in practice, they differ. These days, more sharply every day.

Damned if I know. Just how I feel about the whole thing. But I'm not spending all my time pretending I know, or admitting I don't know over & over. I'm starting to think all economic discourse, like Jim Cramer, should be made illegal.

Fixers & Morality Plays

Let me fix that for you:

Henry BlodgetThe sane people who read The Atlantic thinks it is time for Timothy GeithnerMegan McArdle to go. So far, GeithnerMcArdle's performance has been shockingly unimpressive.

Better now? Good. Because this will have you doubled up. Whether from laughter or rage is up to you.

When a detail like "But I've since realized that our landlords have an old, broken grill that we might have been able to repair with enough duct tape, saving me almost $200," appears in an item comparing her (alleged) buyer's remorse over a credit card purchase of a BBQ grill to the "irresponsible" people whose mortgages were approved by the banks/lenders/other parasites, one can only think, "Too much detail to be true." 

So she has set herself (or her imaginary grill purchase) up as the strawperson, & proceeds to burn it to the ground. 

Hell, the dirty bastards may well have known that I was going to end up underwater on my grill loan. I don't see why I have any obligation to repay them.

This seems to me to be approximately the logic behind the people saying that folks who took out stupid loans don't have any sort of moral obligation whatsoever to make good their debts.

Yes, she made a grand comparison between buyer's remorse over a non-essential whatnot purchased on revolving credit, & home co-ownership by mortgage. (Even to the detail about there being a "fixer-upper" grill available, apparently w/o cost beyond duct tape.) I've never taken an econ or anything similar class, but even I know that there is a vast difference between the two "purchases," the moral equivalence Megan thinks she is demonstrating notwithstanding.

I assumed her link above would be some sort of left-wing rant, or maybe a right-wing ninny, on about "Obama's ACORN thugs" taking possession of foreclosed houses. Silly me. It's a perfectly reasonable analysis of one "home-owner's" troubles. At Condé Nast Portfolio.com. 

I only note her apparent pride in her bourgeois morality, her free market devotion, & her re-cycling an ancient bromide:  

[T]here is no way to tax a corporation, there is no way to default on a corporation.  Whenever you default, you are taking money from some person:  a shareholder, a creditor, an employee who loses their job when the corporation is liquidated.

& its corollary. (As if people don't know & hope that some at least one bastard responsible is getting screwed whenever they get away w/ retaliating against an oppressive corporate entity.)

I didn't dare look at the comments, but suppose that I should, just to see if teabagging astroturfery has infected the somewhat more informed (than whom I'm not really certain) commentariat of A. I.

Maybe more later, if they're idiotic & raging.

You've Got to be Fucking Kidding Me

Remember how Megan really loved TARP? I mean, yeah, she hates government economic intervention but the American economy is completely beholden to rich peoplethe banks and so it was a necessary evil. I guess that means she's going to really like Geither's new plan to stabilize the banking sector.

The Wall Street Journal adds that "critical details of the plan remained unanswered, despite the weeks of planning leading up to Tuesday's announcement." Plan? That's not a plan, it's a fervent wish. No details at all on the foreclosure program, and precious few beyond platitudes about the mechanisms for dealing with toxic assets. The only real new information is the amount: $1 trillion total, $500 billion to start.

I don't envy Geithner his position. But he's known this was coming for months. I expected a little more than telling us that he wanted to spend a lot of money to help banks clean up their balance sheets. We knew that much already.

God, he's such an idiot! Why couldn't he have an extensive, transparent three-page plan like Bernake did! I mean, Geither didn't even get on his knees and beg like the good little capital worshiping lackey the head of The Treasury (that's, uh, what Geither does, right?) is supposed to be.

I mean, housing prices had only been plummeting for years so it's not like Bernake had time to see the collapse coming or anything. It's not like a couple of physical scientists like myself and my brother who have no formal training in economics whatsoever saw this coming a mile away and pulled out of the market months before the dive.

IT'S TOTALLY DIFFERENT YOU GUYS! Also, it has NOTHING to do with the fact that Geither is a Democrat. Nope, nothing at all.

Geither should just listen to Megan's great ideas like, uh, the one about, um, giving banks a lot of money with no strings attached and the other one about, uh, like sucking off bank executives or something. I dunno. I forget what they are but she totally has some brilliant ideas.