House full from last Thursday. Sorry for the non-postings.
Once there were two guys from the same party that within a year of each other won a Nobel Prize. Once upon a time one of them was a really good economist who did seminal work on international trade and turned into a political hack writer for a big time newspaper. The other one was political hack who turned into the President of the United States. One deserved his Nobel, while the other...well, let's say he is a work in progress.
Our hack writer loved the hack pol but then began to hate him when he didn't take his advice. This happens among hacks. First it was the hack pol's stimulus plan which wasn't large enough but then was responsible for saving the economy although less than half of it was spent (oh, we need another one by the way), then it was not NOT getting out of the war that deserved to be fought and now it's over the non-nationalization of the banks that deserved to be nationalized (first, all of them did, now just a chosen few) because they are not doing what they used to do that got them in trouble in the first place, that the hack writer wants them to do namely lend money to lousy credit risks. A take it you followed all that? It's simple, really. Just think about the last time you expounded on something about which you knew nothing and you'll get the drift.
Our hack writer is still a good enough economist to understand that even though the Hack pol will tell us the the Dow Industrials' hitting 10,000 last week is a sign that his "plan" is working, things aint all that good in real world out there. The reason claims he is that those dirty banks took the public's money and actually tried to make a profit rather than being nationalized and being forced to lend to the corporate world in order to stimulate the economy and create jobs--two things that under to hack pol's watch don't seem to be happening yet. He does understand that those banks with large and aggressive trading operations are making hay while the sun shines (proof positive in my view that he reads this blog) but seems to ignore the fact that there are about 9,000 banks in this country, most of whom received no government bailout and who are also not lending in the C & I sector (that's commercial and industrial, writer-hack) because the economic and credit environment stinks. Nor does he seem to realize that over the years the banks are a far lesser factor in corporate lending than they used to be Hack writer doesn't seem to realize that fully half of the mortgage business is in the hands of Fanny, Freddie and Ginny/FHA with estimated losses to the American taxpayer of $1.5 TRILLION. And he wants more to lose?
Our hack writer also doesn't seem to understand that it is the policies of his former hack pol buddy that are not helping the situation as this administration is clearly being tabbed as the most anti-corporate since that of FDR and it regard to the two banks he still wishes to be nationalized, hack pol and the utter morons around him are doing everything in their power to insure that these two will NEVER be in a position to take full advantage of the opportunities that Mr. Bernanke has created, from forcing out upper management to the forced sale of the most profitable units over issues such as executive pay, which while a wonderful issue for hack politicians has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the health of our financial system.
Hack writer cannot admit that the fiscal and governmental policies of hack pol are kept on life support by the monetary policies of the weakest Fed Head in years because if he were to do so it would be an admission of failure from the git-go and that for all hacks would not be a good thing. All one hears from Washington is the march towards nationalization of fully 1/6 of the economy, higher taxes, stealth and otherwise, craven capitulation to every union demand, and the seeming abandonment of American uniqueness in favor of a new world order. Is it any surprise that economic recovery appears to be in abeyance.
It seems to me that this is the real problem for Messrs Krugman and Obama. They hate the Goldies and J.Ps of this world because they are really smart guys who are making tons of money off the policies that they promoted and in their adolescent rage are prepared to demonize the Citis and the B os As of this world simply because they can. Goldman and Morgan are not the Little Sisters of the Poor and do not pretend to be so. Get used to it. I see no gain in the constant campaign mode of this administration and the posturing that adds nothing to either the national debate or the national recovery. Surely they are brighter than this. As for Mr. Krugman, from genius to Nobelist to irrelevance seems to be a road best not taken.
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