These were the events that mattered this week:
*Ted Kennedy died. A great American and a great Senator. Gorilla thinks his kind of liberalism seems as dead as can be in the world of Movingforwardville.
*Lots more talking about Middle East Peace. Gorilla thinks the odds of a serious peace process are about as remote and as good as they’ve been in the past 60 years.
*No real seriousness about health care reform. The crazies still rule the roost and the President doesn’t want to take on vested interests. Gorilla says we’ll get very little more than window dressing passed this year.
*Afghanistan continues to spiral downwards. There’s plenty of recognition that our policy isn’t working, but very little realism about what we can do to make things work. Gorilla believes we’ll be surging to withdrawl within 18 months.
*Goingbackwardville keeps getting in the President’s way. CIA torture, ever larger banks gaining ever freer passes to moral hazard, and rewarding the failures of Ben Bernanke et. al. with another term: Gorilla wonders when if ever we’ll decide that stupidity isn’t the first and only policy option.
*The dollar carry trade is the next bubble in international finance. We’ve become the new Japan, with the same old insolvent banks. Gorilla guesses this means we are the old Japan, with the same old insolvent banks.
