DOG DAYS

Usually when there is absolitely nothing of interest going on I could turn to Little Paulie Krugman for inspiration but Paulie's column today was so God-awful incomprehensible that I figured why bother. Nobody got half way through it anyway.

So then I though about the latest revelation from the Fed concerning the capital adequacy of the banks. They have had a new brainstorm: spurred on by Dodd/Frank they have decided the every bank in the country with assets of over $50 billion are to report on a yearly basis the adequacy of their capital. I guess the way you do that is to perform a stress test on yourself each year, you know, sort of like a breast test for cancer. Out here, the ladies--and now the men--are encouraged to have a "buddy tuesday" to help in the process. I guess we might see Jamie give a shout out to Vikrim like, "Yo, Vik! Come on over, I'm testing today!" The thought of CEOs probing one another's balance sheets and loan books simple to comply with the requirement set in stone by two idiots is more than I can take.

The day got worse. I turned to the WSJ for a little light reading and discovered that David Lipton is about to be installed as the no 2 person at the IMF as part of the deal with the U.S. to get Christine Lagrand as the MD. Mr, Lipton was described as having worked with Jeffrey Sachs (the world's most self promoting economist next to Paulie) as an advisor to Poland, Russia and Slovenia as the nations transformed from communism to market economies. Unmentioned was the fact that he and Jeffrey were run out of Poland and Russia on a rail just ahead of a lynch mob. He presently directs economic aid to Pakistan (!) and has been putting together aid packages for Tunisia and Egypt.(!!!) Oh yeah, he was as tight as a tick on a dog to The Suit in the Clinton administration. I almost feel sorry for the Euros. They are going to pay a terribly high price for getting their girl the job.

Boys and girls, this is the start of what could be a truly awful weekend.