Gorilla's Blog

These were the things that mattered in Gorilla’s world this week:

*The Administration scrapped missile defense in Eastern Europe, to be replaced by a less expensive dinosaur. It appears that making deals is what comes first in Obama’s foreign policy, the better to have time to make deals in domestic policy. Gorilla thinks we’ll have an arms control agreement and an understanding on Iran with the Russians before the end of the year.

*Health care continues to spin its wheels forward. Senator Max Baucus crafted a very bad plan, and it is unclear whether health care reform can ever pass in the Senate. Gorilla still thinks we’ll have a deal by the end of the year, and it will be sufficiently meaningless for both parties to declare victory.

*The Israeli-Palestinian dance continues. Gorilla thinks there will be nothing to talk about for at least another year.

*The anniversary of the Lehman Brothers failure brought much tut-tutting and the unacknowledged reality that nothing much will be done to rein in Wall Street. Not a single bank CEO showed up for the President’s speech, even though his actions saved their asses. A lower pay packet and a higher capital requirement distracts from the truth: Wall Street is too big and politicians are too small. Gorilla assumes the next bubble is already underway, this time in the dollar carry trade.

*Mary Travers, Keith Floyd, and the pizza box Imac died. They all contributed richly to Gorilla’s life.