Small Structural Flaw
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- September
- 16
A lot of economists said the current Wall Street meltdown was inevitable. Some even warned that something wicked was this way coming, before it all went pear shaped. But when the money is free and easy, and Wall Street is running along in a single hungry, amorphous blob, try getting in the way of that Greenspanian momentum…
And don’t get me started on homeowners. What’s interesting is that salaries remained fairly flat over the past few years, but nobody made too much of a fuss, because they were just tapping home equity in lieu of raises, and could therefore still buy Viking stoves and Hummers, despite the fact their incomes couldn’t support it.
What a big greedy mess. And whether we like or not we’re all going to pay somehow. Speaking of which, I thought I’d share this note I got from Hank Paulson in February. He asked for a copy of a cartoon I did on the whole mortgage meltdown and the affect it has on all of us, not just the foreclosed. I picture the cartoon sitting on his desk, oracle-like, micro-steering his every decision on whether or not to inject billions of dollars into saving one financial institution or another, or another…
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 9:57 am by Matt Davies.
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matt, could you link the requested cartoon for us? thanks.
Sorry about that. It’s linked now, in exactly the way it should have been in the first place.
Thanks for asking, Bill.
Wow. That’s quite a request – not the kind of thing that happens everyday.
Mind you, the kind of things that don’t happen everyday seem to be happening a lot these days…
What’s interesting is that salaries remained fairly flat over the past few years, but nobody made too much of a fuss, because they were just tapping home equity in lieu of raises, and could therefore still buy Viking stoves and Hummers, despite the fact their incomes couldn’t support it.
Hmm, I don’t have a Viking stove, a Hummer, or an ARM. I have, though, been “buying” property tax increases. An additional $400 this year in school tax, alone.
Richard, that reminds me of the time I went out to dinner with friends & they ordered three bottles of insanely expensive wine, lobster, steak, you name it. My wife and I had one beer, one glass of wine, a salad and an entree between us, but the bill somehow got split down the middle and I’m not the type to get out a pocket calculator at dinner.
Moral? I should have ordered the bloody lobster.
If the lobster’s bloody, it’s not properly cooked. Gotta be careful with seafood mate…
Also drink more alcohol and ditch the vegetarian diet. Or dine with Wall St. neighbours who can split a bill 7/16 against 9/16ths (or whatever) having consumed said wine.
Over here, the only people who measure anything in 16ths are dope dealers, and that’s only because the EU hasn’t gotten round to legislating against it yet.
I’m just off to the shops to buy 0.57 litres of milk for my cup of tea.
P.S. Is an entree some kind of vegetable that we don’t get in the UK, or is it like eggplant and aubergine, simply going by a different name? Ouh, I get so counfoused soumtimes…