July 31, 2009

I'm taking off in an hour or so and won't be writing until Tues. probably. Aside from pondering how many more rounds of bad golf are left in my bag before the Eumenides snip the thread, I'll be pondering the state of affairs. It's hard to avoid the suspicion that the big bailout beneficiaries - the survivors - have decided, after looking at the wealth of information available to them, and after tapping into unmatchable sources, that the thing to do, given the outlook, is to get all they can now - because there ain't going to be much to get in the future. They've eliminated "citizenship" from their working lexicons, with the arrogance born of an awareness that there exist no admonitory powers, not political, not in the media, not in public opinion, that can compel them to put the brakes on. To revert to Rahm Emanuel's notorious trope, as far as Wall Street's grip on the money levers is concerned, this crisis has been wasted.
Talk to you next week.