The tidetime folklorist wonders when we might see another year in which bankers take in compensation 4 times the money they paid out to shareholders, all the while enjoying government guarantees of their bad loans and further dilution of their shareholders equity.
The Platter: Will It Go Round In Circles? by Billy Preston (Answer: Yes)
The Bait: The Countdown Minnow (only 92 days until next year!)
Disgraced former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane has picked up a $1.3 million contract from the genocidal government of Sudan.
What’s interesting here is that, short of prison or the death penalty, it’s nearly impossible for a lying, cheating, unethical former public official to remain ostracized and unemployed.
There are just too many governments here and abroad who want the benefit of such clowns and their DC connections.
Gorilla says: “Don’t let the lobby door hit your wallet on the way in or on the way out!”
The banks, that is, in coming clean about the losses on their balance sheets, according to the IMF.
And of course this is a Goingbackwardville problem that no one in Movingforwardville wants to acknowledge.
The banks at the moment are simply hoarding cash, in hopes that they can get through the coming tsunami of CRE defaults.
Kicking the can down the road remains the only financial services policy being pursued seriously by the Administration.
Increasing capital requirements is a good idea, but it should be remembered that Lehman Brothers was considered adequately capitalized by regulators.
The requirements themselves aren’t nearly high enough to prevent another credit-based disaster.
And the dollar carry trade looks like becoming the next bubble, once CRE has burst its banks.
Gorilla asks: “An agency to protect consumers is a fine idea, but which agency is going to protect the bankers from themselves?”
J.K. Rowling didn’t get the Medal of Freedom because Bush Administration ideologues thought she might be promoting witchcraft in her Harry Potter books!
George Tenet, the former CIA Director who missed both 9/11 and WMD in Iraq, got the Medal of Freedom, presumably because he killed thousands more people.
Gorilla says: “Better to be a total failure than a great success, keeps the evil spirits at bay!”
60 years of Communism is being celebrated in Beijing.
As usual, dissenting views will not be heard.
Threats as diverse as Uighurs and local pigeon fanciers will be addressed.
Kites may not be flown.
Gorilla says: “The confidence of cash doesn’t extend to letting go of the lash!”
Gorilla’s Blog