Thecreditcrunch
If I can work out how to upload pictures to the web from a 2003 mobile phone, I'll bring you a picture of the Walsall Obsever, which has the best creditcrunchery yet, something like"Credit crunch forces pets onto the street".[update, I've found a weblink!)
On the creditcrunch, I remember that old phrase, something like 'everyone is a conservative on things that they know a lot about'. Hank Paulson must know nothing about investment banking if that's the case.
British experts, on the other hand, have of course distinguished themselves since Northern Rock was nationalised. When Bear Stearns was bought by JP Morgan we were told that thank God the US authorities realised the folly of nationalisation and found a quick private sector solution, unlike Gordon Brown and the Labour government. When Fannie and Freddie was nationalised we were told that thank God the US authorities were prepared to put practice before theory and found a quick public sector solution, unlike Gordon Brown and the Labour government. When Lehman Bros were allowed to go bust we were told that thank God the US authorities were prepared to restablish moral hazard, unlike Gordon Brown and the Labour governmen, and when AIG was bailed out to the tune of $85bn we were told thank God the US authorities had put public money up in the defence of the financial system, unlike Gordon Brown and the Labour government.
This kind of know-nothing financial market commentary [as an aside, you can really tell someone who knows absolute nothing about financial markets by when they conjure up liquid financial markets out of their arse, and the speciality of this is 'shorting', which if you believe some of the more ludicrous bloggers is a practice one can do in any market, at any time, in any quantity*] comes to a head in the ravings of Ukip members, for whom nothing, even if it happened in the early 1990s, is not the fault of the euro.
* Thinking some more, it's that they never realise that a transaction requires two parties. I can't short HBOS if no-one wants to go long it. It's as if they've read so much about the private sector they've never actually had the time (or inclination) to be part of it, and I suppose really it makes sense as think tanks are quasi-public bodies, particularly in the sense that a very rich man (the governmemnt) hands money over and you never need to actually sell anything.
Labels: economics
posted by Matthew @ 9/18/2008 08:14:00 PM
Comments: 6
