Friday, March 6, 2009

Wall Street Bankers: Domestic Terrorists?


Ever since 911 our sense of safety and security have been forever altered. Since then, like a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, we have been looking for all of the ways that al Qaeda could wreak havoc on our cities, our citizens, and our lifestyle. Little did we expect our economy and perhaps even our way of life would face a far greater threat from sources within our own borders, within our established institutions and sanctioned business practices.

Far more damage has been done to our economic infrastructure by CDS (credit default swaps) and MBS (mortgage-backed securities) than al Qaeda and the Taliban could have ever hoped to do with their terrorist tactics.

Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs. --Herbert Hoover

Monday, March 2, 2009

An Extraordinary Notice

We live in Internet time and are inundated with information which comes at us from many sources at all hours of the day. So perhaps we can be excused for developing a "news bite" focus on the world.

Yesterday's news is so passe. Our attention span is relegated to the current day, the current hour, the current minute. How can we be expected to maintain an awareness of something that happened months ago, touched our lives for a few days, and then seemingly went away.

Unfortunately for some, it didn't go away. A news brief that crossed my desk this afternoon poignantly reminded me of that.

As reported by News 8 Austin, March 2, 2009:

"A boil water advisory in effect since shortly after Hurricane Ike hit Bolivar Peninsula has been lifted as supply lines return service to normal.

A statement from the Bolivar Peninsula Special Utility District said customers are no longer required to boil water prior to consumption."

Yes, Hurricane Ike touched our minds and hearts last September, and for a few days we sent donations, we kept the victims in our prayers, and we gasped in amazement at the images which came from the Texas coast. And then we got back in our groove and moved on. We assumed that all that could be done was done, and that Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula would soon be back to normal.

We were sadly wrong.

"Choice of attention - to pay attention to this and ignore that - is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be." --W. H. Auden

Is it as bad as all this?


"The idea of letting AIG (AIG) go, or Citi go -- I mean, come on. Does anyone know what happens if we do that? We will simply shut down as an economy. There will be lockdowns and lockouts and mass closings and mass unemployment and no credit for cars or for schools or for homes. There will simply be an economy run by the state. That's what it is. That's all. Nothing else. Is that what we want? It is hurtling toward what we are going to get." -- Jim Cramer, The Street, March 2, 2009