. . . heard on BBC Business News during the week!
American Banks are all set to pass their so called "stress tests". Basically, "How are your balance sheets looking now, boys, after the massive Bush/Obama injections of taxpayers money?"
"Why", the Visiting Expert asked, "will they all pass?" Because the banks, via their lobbyists on Capitol Hill, will tell Congresspersons and Senators "Make sure you set us tests we CAN pass, or you can kiss your funding of the next round of election campaigns goodbye!"
The Banks, Investment Banks, Insurance Companies etc, have won the "moral hazard" game for all time, and they know it. (Sorry about Lehmans, but somebody had to be made an example of.) They know they will be bailed out next time and the time after that, even though "it will be different next time" They now know - if they didn't know before the Crunch - that they are more powerful than Governments, than the IMF, than the World Bank, and the only "new" business model they will agree to is a rehashing of the one that unleashed mayhem last autumn. Hold on to your hats, folks. Last time it was subprime mortgages, CDO's and CDF's. Next time it "will be different" How? They'll give 'em different names.
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I don't leave comments on blogs that use Word Verification. Ditto blogs which I know have Comment Moderation applied. Life's too short and I'm too busy makin' money and what the Hell are these people scared of anyway? If you don't like some creep's comment . . TRY DELETING IT! You have that privilege.
And I never read unpunctuated so-called poetry. I don't understand why self-styled poets think it's clever to make their work difficult to read/understand.