...which is what the band of the British army played at Yorktown when it surrendered and indeed, in so doing, did change the world forever. By the by, the wonderful painting of Cornwallis surrendering to Washington is a nonsense, did you know that? Cornwallis refused to surrender to ol' Georgie, demanding that a French General receive his sword. The admirable Frenchman said "Non," and the surrender was accomplished by lower ranking officers. Lord Cornwallis was a slug and an idiot of a military tactician but stood a good deal higher on the food chain than Chris the Crook whose announcement of yesterday will certainly not change the world but sure as heck will bugger up finance regulatory matters for a bit.
Speculation as to why he took this step in rampant but to me it is clear that he was about to get his brains beat in electorally and either decided or was strongly urged to retire with whatever grace he had left from the field. Like Cornwallis he placed himself in an totally untenable position and chose surrender rather than defeat. What next? Well, if true to form in about a year he will resurface in D.C. as some kind of K Street maven working both sides of the political street for the finance industry. Given that, one can be fairly certain that the complete populist positions he had been staking out in regard to his proposed "financial reform" are about to get rethought because folks you've just screwed are not likely to dole out a couple of hundred large a year later.
Oddly, this is not a bad thing and a rather good way for it to occur as bringing some sanity back into the discussion and getting rid of this guy is a twofer devoutly to be wished. It might also allow some saner voices to be heard--such as that of Paul Volker--who's continued mantra of the return of Glass-Steagle in some form might gain some traction. If at least the insane one regulator idea through the creation of another massive oversight governmental group employing thousands of new union members who know not a damn thing about their responsibility gets killed, the world will be a better place. If you think I overstate the case, allow me to refer you to Dec. 24 in the skies over Detroit. But now of course The Leader is going to fix that little hiccup so we can all rest easy. Heard him today; I was involved a bit in Intel work in an earlier life. This is another thing about which he hasn't a clue, but I digress.
There is actually a chance that both sides of the aisle get together and talk about this thing as Lame Duck Chris is no longer capable of ramming any totally partisan bill through even if he had the notion to so do. God knows where that might lead as a new approach to things? A functioning government? In Congress? Who would have thunk it! Ah, isn't high finance a wonderful thing!! As Mr. Blankfein put it, "We are doing the Lord's business." Yeah.
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