My Breakfast of Legacy Pizza
The best indication that the Obama bank bailout plan might not be all that it's cracked up to be came with the announcement that they had renamed all of those toxic assets like credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations as "legacy securities."
Say what?
There's something downright Owellian about the Administration's attempt to wipe away the financial crisis simply by rebranding the most serious and disgusting aspect of the whole ugly debacle with a new, more positive description. This puts the Obama Administration on the same level as used car dealers who have tried for years to convince us that those beat up jalopies on the showroom lot aren't "used cars," they're "pre-owned vehicles."
Do they really think that those hedge fund investors - many of whom were smart enough to make money while the rest of the financial world collapsed around them - will be fooled into buying those toxic, er, legacy assets just because they're called something else? Does my left-over pizza from last night taste any better if I call it "legacy pizza" when I scarf it for breakfast? How about that "lagacy coffee" from yesterday that I nuked in the microwave this morning? Better? Hardly.
Words have meaning. Words have power. And this dumb, shallow attempt to hide the seriousness of the nation's financial situation behind a new, more positive sounding name is a clue that the Wall Street idiots that got us into this mess are still very much in charge in Washington and on Wall Street.
As Bette Davis - or Paul Krugman - might say, "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride."
Say what?
There's something downright Owellian about the Administration's attempt to wipe away the financial crisis simply by rebranding the most serious and disgusting aspect of the whole ugly debacle with a new, more positive description. This puts the Obama Administration on the same level as used car dealers who have tried for years to convince us that those beat up jalopies on the showroom lot aren't "used cars," they're "pre-owned vehicles."
Do they really think that those hedge fund investors - many of whom were smart enough to make money while the rest of the financial world collapsed around them - will be fooled into buying those toxic, er, legacy assets just because they're called something else? Does my left-over pizza from last night taste any better if I call it "legacy pizza" when I scarf it for breakfast? How about that "lagacy coffee" from yesterday that I nuked in the microwave this morning? Better? Hardly.
Words have meaning. Words have power. And this dumb, shallow attempt to hide the seriousness of the nation's financial situation behind a new, more positive sounding name is a clue that the Wall Street idiots that got us into this mess are still very much in charge in Washington and on Wall Street.
As Bette Davis - or Paul Krugman - might say, "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride."
informative i liked so much.
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That's great, I never thought about My Breakfast of Legacy Pizza like that before.
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