misplaced confidence
David Ignatius isn't entirely off base. The current economic crisis IS a crisis, and it is like the phony war at the beginning of World War II - with worse to come, I fear.
But he then criticizes the Obama Administration for not having enough BUSINESS PEOPLE in the CABINET.
Hello, David, have you been paying attention? Who the hell do you think was running Countryside while it churned out more and more mortgages to people who couldn't pay them? Or with insidious terms like "interest only" for five years? It was business people.
Who do you think was working at places like AIG and Lehman Brothers taking those dubious mortgages, dicing them into tiny pieces, blending them with less dubious mortgages and a few mortgages that looked rock solid, and offering them for sale as if the solid portion would make the whole financial instrument less risky? It was business people.
Who do you think was working at the rating agencies like Standard & Poors that then looked at those steaming turd-piles called collateralized debt obligations and other derivatives, and decided they were prime-grade AAA rated instruments? It was business people.
Who do you think is running General Motors and Chrysler and Ford, and decided to put all their eggs in the SUV basket, failing to compete on innovation or economy and therefore shocked, shocked when the market changed? It was business people.
Hell, for that matter, do you remember how after George W. Bush was selected as the de facto President by the Supreme Court, that many assumed he would have a very competent people because it would be staffed by a bunch of MBAs? In other words, even in the case of the failed Bush Administration, it was business people.
Jeez Ignatius, it is okay now to come off of the hero-worshiping attitudes of business people that has dominated the mainstream media in the 1990s and 2000s up until about oh March of 2008 (and can still be found at CNBC and other places, who are too set in their ways to learn).
Yes, many of them are smart and careful and wise and love their mothers. But others of them are shallow or stupid, in their place due to luck and/or connections from college or family (hello George W. Bush).
And further, most business people have no more idea than Ignatius or me or my pet beagle about how to run a government agency, or how to fix the economy.
But he then criticizes the Obama Administration for not having enough BUSINESS PEOPLE in the CABINET.
Hello, David, have you been paying attention? Who the hell do you think was running Countryside while it churned out more and more mortgages to people who couldn't pay them? Or with insidious terms like "interest only" for five years? It was business people.
Who do you think was working at places like AIG and Lehman Brothers taking those dubious mortgages, dicing them into tiny pieces, blending them with less dubious mortgages and a few mortgages that looked rock solid, and offering them for sale as if the solid portion would make the whole financial instrument less risky? It was business people.
Who do you think was working at the rating agencies like Standard & Poors that then looked at those steaming turd-piles called collateralized debt obligations and other derivatives, and decided they were prime-grade AAA rated instruments? It was business people.
Who do you think is running General Motors and Chrysler and Ford, and decided to put all their eggs in the SUV basket, failing to compete on innovation or economy and therefore shocked, shocked when the market changed? It was business people.
Hell, for that matter, do you remember how after George W. Bush was selected as the de facto President by the Supreme Court, that many assumed he would have a very competent people because it would be staffed by a bunch of MBAs? In other words, even in the case of the failed Bush Administration, it was business people.
Jeez Ignatius, it is okay now to come off of the hero-worshiping attitudes of business people that has dominated the mainstream media in the 1990s and 2000s up until about oh March of 2008 (and can still be found at CNBC and other places, who are too set in their ways to learn).
Yes, many of them are smart and careful and wise and love their mothers. But others of them are shallow or stupid, in their place due to luck and/or connections from college or family (hello George W. Bush).
And further, most business people have no more idea than Ignatius or me or my pet beagle about how to run a government agency, or how to fix the economy.
posted by Don Q Blogger at 5:33 AM
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