Nocera that it. He wrote a lovely little puff piece on Elizabeth Warren last week and I'm saying to myself, "Self, what's up with this" because Joe Nocera is a pretty good and serious journalist. Today, it all became clear. The Leader has put out the word to his followers that Lizzy is to be protected and supported and right on cue the NY Times in a leading article and Little Paulie Krugman in his nonsense of the day jump right in joining Joey and his piece of last week. Now I must admit that I rather like Lizzy; she's smart, funny and passionate about consumer protection which certainly needs some protecting but there are a couple of problems:
1. She hasn't been nominated to be the head of this new monstrosity because The Leader knows there's no way in hell she would be confirmed at this time.
2. She's out there performing a task in what is probably an unconstitutional manner.
3. She's spending money like a drunken sailor with absolutly no oversight.
4. She reports to NO ONE except The Leader on an informal basis and
5. The Agency which she is setting up is, in a poorly defined and stupid piece of legislation (Dodd/Frank), the most poorly defined creature of them all.
Color me old fashioned, but laws do have some meaning and I react badly when I see them flouted in such a base matter dismissed in such a dishonest manner by the NYT and Little Paulie. From Nocera, I expected better. Silly me. He works for the rag.
Ok, got that off my chest. This week is going to see the redo of the BIG MEET over in Euroland. I think a lot of people still don't realize that this is a very big deal indeed not only from the standpoint of the Euros themselves but as to how a bad result could affect the world's economy. We shall be watching. I don't think that what needs to be done can be accomplished in two days but hopefully what comes out of this thing is finally an understanding that there is a lot of pain to be spread around and steps need to be taken to put into place methods by which the pain can be absorbed. That is of course another way of saying that the banks are going to take a big hit in the restructuring of Euroland debt and ways are going invented to keep them solvent and running. There's a lot of us old guys who could tell them where to start but the reinvention of the wheel every 10-20 years or so must occur or else the finance business wouldn't be what it is. Now there's a positive thought to set you off one the first day of the week...and of spring.
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